Some of the poets had heard vaguely of a beautiful woman, wandering about the great Celestial Empire, who once in a century upon a certain day, and a certain hour shared the couch of the Son of Heaven. The philosophers, however, smiled at their simplicity. Salome, they claimed, was another name for the moon, revealing the fullness of her beauty to the Emperor, once a month in his garden.
The philologists ridiculed the philosophers, considering their explanation as childish as that of the poets. Salome, they argued, was a tortoise. The tortoise lived for hundreds of years, and moved about so slowly that it needed a century to return to the spot whence it started. Among the ancients, they said, the sight of a tortoise was considered a happy omen. Salome was merely a corruption of an obsolete word for tortoise. The two words were derived from the same root in one of the two hundred forgotten dialects of the Celestial Realm.
We reached the town which had seen our arrival years previously. Nothing seemed to have changed; the same small wooden houses, the same narrow alleys, darkened by wet clothing and fishermen’s nets, which hung on poles nailed to opposite roofs; swarms of naked children and shopkeepers smoking on the thresholds. An unpleasant stench rose now as then.
I approached a group of men. They bowed to the ground.
“Where is Mung Ling, the great philosopher?”
One of them answered: “Mung Ling is at the Lake, excellent Lord, but he is not a great philosopher. He is a poor, and not over-intelligent fisherman.” The others smiled.
“Is he the son of the philosopher?”
“His father has been dead for many years, great Lord,” an old man added. “It may be that he was a philosopher. There are so many things to remember, and the memory of man is like a sieve…”
“Is Sing Po, the poet, alive?”
They shook their heads.
“Have you heard of Li Tung, the sculptor?”
“No, my Lord.”
“Kotikokura, things are stronger than men. Men pass; things remain. Often, however, man believes he is stationary, while things disappear about him. Even thus the swift-footed river wonders why the shores fly past it forever.”
The gates of Cathay opened and closed behind us, the watchmen hiding their faces in the dust.
“Kotikokura, it is no longer necessary to hide our lips with hair, We must not belong too conspicuously to any country.”
XXIX: ISPAHAN PLAYS CHESS—THE PRINCESS SALOME HAS NO LORD—SALOME CLAPS HER HAND—ORGY—THE ULTIMATE PORTAL—KOTIKOKURA’S ADVENTURE—THE GOD LI-BI-DO
A CROWD gathered about the two players, who, sitting on small carpets, their legs underneath them, were twisting their long beards, meditating. Some of the spectators whispered to one another, pointing with their fingers to a board. Chess had recently been invented by one of the prisoners of the Shah, and Ispahan, the capital, had forgotten about her story-tellers and jugglers and mummers in her enthusiasm for the new game. The narrow roads were blocked by players and watchers, and mule and elephant drivers complained in vain to the city authorities for relief. The authorities promised to attend to the matter but, being themselves enamored of the game, were too sympathetic with the violators of the traffic, to interfere with their pleasure.
“Make way! Make way!” a dark-skinned driver shouted. No one paid heed to him. A few grumbled, “Take another road.”
“Make way for my mistress!” the man insisted. I looked up. Upon a tall elephant, royally caparisoned, reclined a woman. Her eyes were half-closed, as if in meditation or in voluptuous revery. Her forehead was encircled by a gold band studded with jewels, and her cheeks were partially hidden by heavy tresses of red hair. I could not tell her age. I remembered To Fo’s remark: ‘As old as the Black Mountain and as young as the first ray of dawn.’
“Make way!”
“Take another road, fool!” several exclaimed.
I approached the driver and placed a coin into his half-closed palm. “Who is your mistress?”
“Princess Salome.”
“Make way!”
I slipped another coin into his hand. “Where does she live?”
“Yonder. This side of the palm trees.”
“Make way!”
I dropped a third coin. “Who is her lord?”
“Princess Salome has no lord.”
“Checkmate!” one of the players called out. The crowd dispersed, and Princess Salome, still dreaming or thinking, rode slowly past me, rocking lightly on her giant animal.
Kotikokura beat a monotonous tune upon a kettle, like the white-haired man of his native tribe.
“You, too, Kotikokura? You, too, yearn for your youth? Must man revert forever to his pristine lusts? Is there nothing in life, except the ghost of the past?”
Kotikokura continued to beat upon the kettle.
“Stop! We have no time to lose. Go, hire the finest animal. This very evening we shall be the guests of Princess Salome!”
The eunuch, watching the gate, was a colossal mass of flesh, motionless as a stone. His semicircular sword glittered like an evil eye. I placed a purse into his hand. “Tell your mistress, Princess Salome, that His Highness Prince Cartaphilus begs for the favor of an audience with her.” He took the money, but did not budge. I tried to put him to sleep, but his small black eyes opened and closed, unperturbed. I dipped my fingers into the chemical which accompanied me on all my journeys. My hands dazzled like stars, but he was unmoved.
“Inform your mistress that Prince Cartaphilus is at her gate,” I repeated angrily.
He did not stir.
“You evidently do not know who Prince Cartaphilus is. Here—” I waved before his eyes the letter with the seal of the Imperial Dragon. He looked at the curious characters on the parchment, which of course he could not decipher.
I whispered, “A message from the Shah.” He dropped upon his hands, like a lifeless thing. “Rise,” I commanded, “and announce my arrival!”
The palace was surrounded by a garden, in the center of which a tall fountain rose and fell silently, like a stream of light. A flock of peacocks first screeched at our approach, then spread slowly like magnificent fans their luxurious tails. Several small monkeys climbed rapidly the giant palm trees, and crouching upon the tips of the branches, glared at Kotikokura, whose uncovered teeth shone like whetted knives.
Salome was reclining upon a low sofa, covered with a silk canopy, embroidered with one enormous eagle, whose wings of red gold seemed to flap in the glitter. I kissed her hand. She bade me sit apposite her.
“I am Cartaphilus, gracious Princess.”
“Do not speak in Hebrew, I pray you, Cartaphilus. I hate words that gurgle in the throat. Speak in Greek. Greek undulates like a river, which is stirred by the breezes.”
She understood Hebrew,—that was what I wished to know, to ascertain if she was indeed Salome. “It is natural to dislike the language of the vanquished, Princess, and Greek is certainly more beautiful.”
She patted gently the spotted back of a leopard cub asleep at her side. We were silent. Was she really the Princess who once upon a time praised the subtle and impersonal love of flowers, but accepted the personal embrace of a swarthy Nubian? Was she the reincarnation of the most delightful and most detestable Princess, or a composite of the women I had known? She partook of each; but was different nevertheless. Was she Salome, Princess of Judea, or the Perfect Woman? Was she all things, being still herself?
She guessed my thoughts. “The body is a house wherein dwells a multitude of beings,” she remarked.
I did not know how to begin the conversation, and Salome refused to help me.
“I have traversed the land of Cathay to meet the incomparable Princess.”
She nodded.
“Have you also visited that marvelous land, whose walls encircle so much wisdom and beauty?”
“It may be. I have traveled much.”
“The poets of the Celestial Empire sing of Princess Salome rapturously. She is the magnificent goddess, appearing every hund
red years in incomparable glory.”
Salome smiled. “Poets.”
“Poets, Princess, see beyond the walls that encircle others—”
“They deal in symbols.”
“Are not all things symbols?”
We remained silent again for some time. The cub opened its eyes, yawned, and licked the hand of his mistress.
“What does the Shah desire?”
“The Shah?”
“Yes. Did you not show my slave a letter from the Shah?”
I smiled. “It was the only way I could gain admittance.”
She looked at me angrily.
“I beg your forgiveness, Madam, but is not any strategem lawful, in love and war?”
“So the proverb goes, but I dislike proverbs. It is a facile manner of thinking.”
“Quite true, Princess. The letter, however, is from a monarch greater than the Shah,—it is a missive from the Son of Heaven. Do you care to read it?”
She shook her head slowly, and patted the young leopard. I wondered whether she refused to see it because she did not know Chinese.
“The Chinese language,” she said, answering my thought, “is not as difficult as people believe. With a little imagination, and the ability to draw, one can master it within five or ten years.”
“Princess Salome must be well versed in it, then, I am certain.” She did not answer. I was making no impression. My words seemed unconvincing and futile.
‘It is she, Cartaphilus!’ I thought, ‘and once again, she treats you as a Princess treats a commoner.’ My hand itched, as it had itched centuries before, to penetrate the armor of her insolence if not with my love, at least with my sword.
The cub opened wide his mouth. Salome placed the tips of her fingers between his jaws.
“Even the wild beasts adore your beauty.”
She lifted slightly her left brow, as Poppaea had been in the habit of doing, when disdainful.
“In my travels, O Princess, I have mastered the secret laws of love.”
She smiled.
“I have been as a bee that gathers the perfume from a thousand flowers that its honey may taste the sweeter.”
She clapped her hands. A young slave appeared. She whispered something into his ear.
“Does Cartaphilus enjoy music and dancing?”
“Of course, Princess.” I was piqued at the idea of being interrupted.
What I had taken for marble walls, dissolved and vanished, and the room in which we were became as large as a street. The ceiling was studded with enormous diamonds, which shed a light, soothing and cool like the sun at dawn, when the lower part of its circumference still touches the thin blue line of the mountains.
In the farther corner of the room, several girls were playing Oriental melodies, which were the passionate pulsation of a lover’s blood. Suddenly, strident and insistent, the music changed into a raging sea beating against metal shores.
Naked giants, red-bearded and black, dashed into the room. Their dance mimicked love’s final siege. Was it an amorous embrace? Was it wrestling? Their limbs united, separated and clenched again, until one half lay panting, outstretched under the colossal weight of their conquerors.
The Princess watched the play of their enormous sinews with half-closed eyes.
The bearded giants were followed by clean-shaven men,—black, white and yellow, dancing native dances to which they added movements reminding me of the convulsive spasms with which the body responded to the caresses devised by Flower-of-the-Evening.
These were followed by youths with fleshy hips, whose hair fell over their shoulders in long silken ringlets. Their dancing was almost motionless, like half-congealed waters or wary snakes that creep among the grasses more silently than summer breezes.
The Princess threw a bracelet to one of the dancers. He walked over to her with tiny, mincing steps, balancing his hips like a young Hindu girl, who carries upon her head a crystal vase filled with perfume. Salome caressed him, and bade him sit at her feet. His head against her knee, he remained motionless in an attitude of adoration.
The music played softly a Lesbian air, stirring epicene dreams and shadowy atavistic desires. Girls entered, some tall, slim, with wiry muscles; others, with full-blossomed breasts, wearing like a badge of love, the triangle of Astarte. They formed a semicircle, in the center of which a tall woman, her body half hidden by many veils of various hues, began to dance, first slowly like the young men; but gradually quickening her movements until she seemed like a wind of many colors, turning in a mad spiral.
Salome bade her approach, placed around her neck a gold chain, and embraced her.
The girls sang to the accompaniment of a harp. Slaves shook perfumes out of ivory bowls the shape of roses.
Salome waved her hand. It was as if some divinity had commanded a storm. The bearded men fell upon the women with groans of anguish and delight like wild beasts mating. The women, like maenads, encircled the youths and embraced each other. Bearded giants, full-breasted women, girls indistinguishable from boys, boys hardly distinguishable from maids, curious figures in the chasm between the sexes, all danced to a music that was like a madman’s joy. It was a feast of Priapus, an orgy of sex in which sex over-flowed its limits and blood mingled with kisses. It was a battle of lust punctured by the crash of cymbals and the swish of lashes.
The music died slowly; the dancers, exhausted, dropped to the floor in heaps of two, three or four; the lights dimmed until one could distinguish merely motion, like some ocean tossed by winds blowing in many directions…
Salome clapped her hands. The walls moved back into their original position. The lights shone once more. The storm abated. One heard nothing save the loud yawning of the cub.
Salome brushed aside one of her braids, and looked at me, smiling. I understood what she meant.
“You wish to convey to me by this exhibition that you too have explored the ways and the byways of pleasure,” I said.
“I too,” she said, “have discovered unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged. I have traversed the two hundred and sixty ways of love, the thirteen secret ways that are known only to the Emperor, and the seven ways that are not known even to the Emperor himself. I seek something beyond the ultimate portal of pleasure…”
“Is this orgasmic medley your definition of love, Princess?” I queried.
“Love, Cartaphilus, what is love?”
The silk curtain stirred a little, and the long, hairy arm of Kotikokura moved slowly in, followed by his head.
“Who is that?” Salome asked.
“My slave, Your Highness. His fidelity is so great that he fears to leave me alone.”
Kotikokura withdrew.
“Is he a man…or a beast?” She sat up, wrinkled her brow a little, as Damis used to do, when very much interested. “Who is he, Cartaphilus?”
“A denizen of the forest, Princess. I found him in Africa.”
“In Africa?”
“A curious country…peopled with extraordinary beings.”
“What is his name?”
“Kotikokura.”
“Kotikokura…” The name seemed to float like music from her throat.
“It means ‘The Accursed One.’ ”
“The Accursed?”
“He dared to laugh at the gods…”
She looked at me, fathoming my thoughts.
“It is not difficult to become a god, Cartaphilus…”
Again her eyes traveled to the curtain where the eyes of Kotikokura gleamed.
“Cartaphilus, will you sell me your slave?”
“He is not really my slave. He is my friend, who has saved my life on several occasions.”
“Your life, Cartaphilus?” There was a touch of irony in her intonation.
“Not my life, then, my skin…”
She remained silent for a while. “I will give you in exchange three of my slaves, a maid, a boy and if you wish, my favorite hermaphrodite…”
“I cannot bar
ter my friend for your slaves.”
“Take six of them…twelve, Cartaphilus. They are marvelous people, past masters and past mistresses in the art of pleasure…and pain.”
I made no answer.
“Well?”
“Kotikokura!” I called.
He appeared immediately. I made a sign. He returned with a casket of jade, and walked out again. Salome watched him with a curious fascination.
“Princess, deign to accept this.” I opened the casket, which was filled with exquisite trinkets of jade and ivory. I recounted their history and their symbolism. I spoke of the great artists who had imprinted them with their dreams. Salome, paying no attention to my explanation, toyed with the tiny figure of Li-Bi-Do, an obscene god, long forgotten, even in the Celestial Realm, and carelessly tossed the others aside.
“Kotikokura has an extraordinary head…and what arms!”
‘Did she need a headless lover to excite her emotions?’
“A strange head,” she mused.
Was it her intention to decapitate Kotikokura?
‘Should I offer his head for her love?’
“Let me have Kotikokura, Cartaphilus.”
I remained pensive.
“Does Cartaphilus believe that Salome desires to repeat the same sensation forever?” she remarked, again reading my thoughts.
“Kotikokura shall remain with Princess Salome, if she commands, for one night,” I said angrily.
“What will you take in exchange?”
“Cartaphilus does not bargain.”
XXX: SALOME WRITES A LETTER—MAGIC RUINS—THE TOKEN—I LAUGH
AT dawn Kotikokura appeared, bringing me a letter. It was in Hebrew, on thin parchment: “What Cartaphilus seeks Salome must also seek. In strange things and strange places she seeks her soul. Farewell!”
I looked intently at Kotikokura. He lowered his eyes, and bent nearly in two. I raised my fist to strike him. ‘Cartaphilus, are you jealous…jealous of an ape?’ I laughed, opened my fist and caressed his head. “It is well, my friend. Salome preferred Kotikokura, as she once preferred…but no matter…”
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 14
