“How is the worship of Satan superior to that of Jesus?” I asked.
The Maréchal looked at me, one eyebrow lifted. “Lucifer releases the primal forces throttled by Adonai.”
“They are beastly, not human.”
“By releasing the Beast we discover the God,” he said mysteriously, raising his forefinger which glittered with jewels.
Once more I heard a noise that seemed the call of a distant bugle. I rose and bent my head in the direction. The Maréchal looked at me intently. Had he heard it also?
“Tomorrow,” he said, “these men and women will walk the earth free. Freed from passion, they will see the light.”
“What light?”
“The true light.”
“All religions speak of the true light. Meanwhile, man gropes in the dark…”
The priests struck a cauldron seven times, with a staff in the shape of a pitchfork whose sharp points darted thin blue flames. A sulphurous vapor jetted out and darkened the temple for a few moments.
“He is with us,” the priest announced.
“He is with us,” the people responded.
“He who has conquered Adonai.”
“He who has conquered Adonai.”
“Lucifer, the Light-bearer.”
“Lucifer, the Light-bearer.”
The Maréchal took my arm and bade me approach the altar.
The priest blew a silver horn three times to the East, to the West, to the North and to the South. The curtain was drawn aside. Upon the altar, Kotikokura stood disguised as the Prince of Darkness. From his temples rose two tall horns, priapic shaped. His face dazzled. A blue stream of smoke curled from his nostrils. About his chest was a breastplate of gold, studded with one large ruby. His feet were encased in black hoofs, his hands in black gauntlets which shone with tiny jewels. In his right fist, he held an ebony staff, terminating in two gold prongs. The worshipers threw themselves upon their faces. The priest knelt. “Blessed be the Lord of Life.”
“Amen!” the people responded.
“May His Kingdom come.”
“Amen.”
“Ahriman shall conquer Ahura-mazda.”
“Amen.”
“Ahriman shall stand upon the crest of the universe and rule it forever.”
“Amen.”
The organ played. The choir sang an ancient Persian litany.
The Maréchal approached the altar and knelt. “Has the Great Moment arrived, O Prince of Light?”
Kotikokura nodded. Two long streams of smoke curled out of his nostrils.
“Thy Name be glorified forever, Lucifer!”
“Amen.”
The choir burst into a triumphant song.
The Maréchal rose. “Bring in the sacrifice!” he commanded.
I listened intently. It seemed to me I heard the hoofs of horses, but they might be merely the peasants or the Maréchal’s own men passing by. I looked at Kotikokura. His hearing was acuter than mine, but he did not seem to hear anything. Perhaps they had already arrived, but planned to enter noiselessly, to avert useless slaughter.
Catherine, veiled in black, entered, preceded by the priest.
“Prepare!”
The priests uncovered the victim. Catherine, white-faced, her eyes tightly shut, tottered. The priests supported her.
“Woman, rejoice, for the Lord of Light has chosen you to bring truth into the world!”
The priests began disrobing Catherine, exposing the delicate curves of her motherhood to the gaze of the Satanists. She recoiled.
“Woman, do not hinder us!”
Catherine looked at Gilles, her eyes dimmed with tears. Her chest heaved a little, as if stifling a sob. Her lips moved. I knew she endeavored to pronounce his name. But Gilles did not hear. His face looked like the ruin of some magnificent castle.
I made a sign to Kotikokura. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
Catherine bent her head upon her chest, as if to cover her lovely nakedness. She raised the corners of her eyes a little and looked at me. I was on the point of calling out: “Fear not! Cartaphilus will not allow him to mutilate your body and to slaughter your child!”
She was stretched out upon a bench. The priest brought a gold basin and a long knife whose edge was sharpened to the thinness of a hair.
“Bring in the Child of Reason!” Gilles ordered.
The priest pushed forcibly the wall on the left which opened like a door. Now I understood the true geography of the place. The temple was adjacent to the cellar where I had seen the corpses of the children.
Meanwhile, the person whose sex was difficult to determine and who had scattered the strange incense, helped the Maréchal cover his head with a tallith upon which were embroidered formulæ from the Kabala and wound seven times about his waist a red girdle.
Would help come too late? Even if the hoofbeats that I now distinctly heard were those of our horsemen, it was doubtful whether they could reach us in time.
The priest brought a large glass jar in which a strange creature lay huddled together—something that resembled a human fœtus or the embryo of a monkey.
Was this the Child of Reason? I had long discovered that reason could not rule the universe, but I had never suspected the misshapen form of her progeny!
The Maréchal raised the knife and made an inverted cross upon his chest. The reflection glittered upon Catherine’s face.
The hoofbeats approached. If I could only delay the madman a little longer!
“Gilles,” I whispered, “the cross must be made three times or the result is frustrated.”
He looked at me. His eyes were two coals aflame.
He made the cross three times and bent over the body.
I heard drums and sharp words of command at a distance.
“Gilles! From left to right, not from right to left!”
Gilles repeated the gesture as I had told him.
“Gilles!” I said.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Do not delay me now!”
It was no longer Gilles who spoke. His voice was raucous and strained.
He touched the body with the point of the knife. One moment more, and it would have been too late!
I grasped his hand and threw the knife to the floor. My fingers closed on the mechanism releasing the poisonous vapor, when suddenly trumpets resounded and doors were broken in from all sides.
A thousand fighting men flooded the Black Temple.
Gilles stared at me. “Judas!” he shouted.
He was surrounded by soldiers. Two soldiers grasped the Maréchal’s arm.
“I am Gilles de Retz, Maréchal of France.”
“You are the Devil! You shall burn in your own hell-fire!” one of the brothers shouted, hewing his way to the altar.
Catherine jumped up, covered herself with a black veil, and kneeling before her brother, she sobbed.
“Spare him. He knew not what he was doing.”
I motioned to Kotikokura. In the fracas that ensued, we made our escape.
“Whatever happens, must, Kotikokura. From all eternity to all eternity things are destined to happen, but however exciting these escapades may be, we cannot afford to wait and see their dénouement. A hundred years from now they shall all be dust,—the good and the wicked, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false, Bluebeard and Catherine—and Anne. At most, a legend may sprout out of the dung of Time.”
Kotikokura nodded.
“Before we leave, however, I must send Anne a present.”
I stopped at the next town and hired a messenger to deliver to Anne a box in which I placed a ruby as large as a pigeon’s egg and a letter.
“Wear this, my beautiful one, in the cool valley that separates the two hillocks of passion. Farewell. Cartaphilus.”
“Kotikokura,” I said, “I will have none of God, and I will have none of the Devil. Gods and Devils get along capitally for the reason that the existence of the one depends upon the other. Wherever heaven is, hell is not far off. T
he Prince of Darkness is also Lucifer, the Lord of Light. Man, however, is destined to suffer whether gods or devils rule. He is the sacrificial goat. From whatever tree he plucks the fruit—whether it grows in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of the Other One—the taste is always ashes.”
LXII: THE CITY OF FLOWERS—LA FESTA DEL GRILLO—THE SANITARY EXPERT—THE INTOXICATION OF KOTIKOKURA—THE ADVENTURE OF TWO YOUTHS
FLOWERS hanging over the tall stone and iron fences; flowers at the windows; flowers in the hair of women, between the lips of merchants selling fish or fruit in the narrow tortuous streets; flowers over the ears of little boys and girls playing in the yards; flowers around the necks of donkeys and horses; flowers sailing over the yellowish waters of the Arno,—a carnival of flowers, an orgy of perfume!
“What an appropriate name for the city, Kotikokura,—Fiorenze—Florence, the City of Flowers.”
Kotikokura plucked several roses and placed them in the ribbon around his headgear.
“Kotikokura, you are the god of Spring.”
He grinned and began to dance.
“And the High Priest of the great god Ca-ta-pha.”
He bowed solemnly before me.
The sun barely showed above the hills, and a grayish fog, thin almost to extinction, rose slowly from the ground. A young shepherd urged his flock to cross the Arno, now almost dry, from one bank to another. An old woman beat a large hog that would not leave his puddle. A few dogs barked and their echoes, like small rocks, beat against the sides of the hills. Two crows dashed by, large worms in their beaks. Several sparrows bathed in the dust, chirping violently.
“Kotikokura, nothing changes. I saw these sparrows and crows and sheep and this old woman more than a thousand years ago. Here they are again! We are all enchanted. Every few centuries, we wake up for a moment, then fall asleep again. Things seem different only because our eyes are unaccustomed to the light.”
Kotikokura offered me a rosebud.
Wagons began to rumble and horses and donkeys and oxen to trot, each producing a different and peculiar harmony. The wagons were bedecked with flowers and ribbons, and filled with tiny cages of all materials—wood, iron, tin, porcelain. Within each cage, a grasshopper, still and motionless, and a small leaf of cabbage or lettuce.
The merchants descended, tied their animals to iron posts, and arranged their merchandise. Other merchants with various goods drove into the square and all along both banks of the Arno, sellers of spice breads, of sweets, of toys, of confetti; a merry-go-round with grotesque animals, turned by a small donkey as sad as a clown; games of chance, cards, dice, hoops to be thrown over iron spikes, wheels that stopped at lucky numbers, here and there an old man or woman selling crosses, candles, and amulets. Beggars led by dogs and playing on flutes or accordions or singing obscene parodies of current, sentimental ditties.
Inn keepers raised the iron shutters of their shops and placed tables and chairs on the sidewalks, shouting all the time to the merchants not to crowd too near their doors.
People, pedestrians, or in carriages, were coming from all directions, singing, laughing, imitating the music of grasshoppers. The sellers shouted the names of their wares, embellished by delectable adjectives, at the top of their voices.
“Buy a grasshopper here! He sings like a bird.”
“Grasshoppers in golden cages.”
“Rare songbirds.”
“Get your spice bread.”
“Confetti! Confetti! Confetti for your sweetheart.”
Children pulling their elders toward the cages; girls in mock refusal to accept the arms of youths; men and women laughing uproariously, blowing horns, shouting the names of friends.
Long before noon, each person was carrying a cage with a grass-hopper, coaxing it to sing. But always the animal remained motionless and still.
“Kotikokura, shall I buy you a ‘grillo’?”
He nodded.
I bought him a cage. He hung it around his neck. We seated ourselves at a table and ordered sweet wine. Kotikokura emptied cup after cup. His eyes glistened and darted to and fro like mechanical things.
A tall man of regal bearing with long blond hair and a flowing beard, dressed in a cloak of red velvet, stood near our table, watching the crowd.
‘Thus Apollonius must have looked in his youth,’ I thought. ‘This is no ordinary son of Adam.’
I rose. “There is a vacant chair at our table. May I ask you to join us, signor?”
He looked at me. His eyes were blue with a glint of gold.
“Thank you.”
He seated himself. Kotikokura filled a cup of wine and offered it to him.
“We are strangers in the city. Could you tell us in what saint’s honor this holiday is given?”
He smiled, “The Florentines are not religious enough to honor a saint. They would rather honor a pagan god—or a grasshopper.”
“Perhaps one ought not to ask the reason for any merrymaking. It is a reason in itself. But it is a human weakness to ask always why.”
“This is ‘la Festa del Grillo’—the Feast of the Grasshopper, for the grasshopper is considered the emblem of summer.”
“It seems to me that the rose or some bird would be a more appropriate symbol.”
“I disagree with you there. The grasshopper is the most fortunate and the most rational of animals. The gods were merry when they created him…!”
Kotikokura refilled our cups.
“Is not man’s life illogical?” the stranger continued. “He spends his youth and early manhood in learning an art or a trade. And when he has at last acquired knowledge and wisdom and perhaps wealth, he is old and undesirable. The young wenches that laugh so gaily and throw confetti into our cups, pass him by or mock him.
“How different is the life of the grasshopper! He begins by being old, so to say, for his early life is devoted to the accumulation of food for his descendants, eating and digesting.
“But what a magnificent dénouement! His last few weeks—corresponding to years in human calculation—are a carnival of love! No food, no cares! Nothing but song, merrymaking and mating! That is why the Florentines, true descendants of the Athenians, make this apparently humble creature the symbol of the richness of summer.”
“Are you a student of nature or a philosopher?” I asked.
“I dabble in many things. My chief interests are scientific. The problem of sewerage engages my attention primarily, but I am also intensely devoted to the study of military machinery.”
“Military machinery?” I must have looked startled.
“Is that so surprising?” the stranger asked, while a gentle smile crept from the corners of his mouth to his eyes.
“Rather. You have the bearings of an artist. I would take you for one of the masters who have made this city a shrine of beauty.”
“I toy with art as well as with science. Man is a fighting animal primarily and man interests me supremely. But his instruments of destruction are always antiquated. I should like to fashion weapons that raise fire and strike the enemy a hundred miles away. I like to build bridges, channels and impenetrable defenses…”
He stroked his beard leisurely.
‘Is it possible?’ I thought. ‘Can Apollonius change thus?’
“Can you conceive of anything more fascinating than a steel bridge that can span a sea, and yet may be folded and carried upon the back of a donkey; or a projectile the shape of an apple which, cast by a small mechanical device, strikes a distant palace and crashes it like a child’s toy?”
“You are an artist, even though you employ metals and motors in place of words. You have a painter’s eye and a poet’s illusion…”
“The illusion of one generation,” the stranger replied affably, “is the commonplace of the next.”
Kotikokura tried to persuade his grasshopper to sing. He stood up and danced. “Sing, sing!” he shouted.
Several people stopped and kept tune to his dancing by clapping and stamping their feet.
“It is useless, my friend,” the stranger said a little sadly. “He never sings when imprisoned.”
Kotikokura reseated himself. The stranger continued to speak for some time on military problems and engineering. “Some day,” he said, “I shall construct a machine that can lift me up to the skies like an eagle…”
He rose. Pressing matters, he explained, compelled his attention. Perhaps his disposition was too restless to permit him to linger. Had he stayed a while longer, I might have confided to him matters that would have changed his life and the history of the human race. However the fateful moment flew away like a careless bird.
“I thank you very much for your hospitality, gentlemen. I would gladly remain longer with you, but I am leaving tomorrow for a long trip, and I must prepare many things.”
“A long trip?” I asked.
“Yes, to Constantinople, perhaps to Asia.”
“You will not regret it.”
“Have you been there?”
“On several occasions.”
“I always refrain from asking questions about places I expect to visit. I prefer to be unbiased and uninformed.”
“An artist– —”
He smiled. “You insist upon considering me an artist, signore.”
“An artist or a philosopher… But will you refresh yourself with another cup before we part?”
Kotikokura filled the cups.
He drained the cup without resuming his seat.
“If I had the time, I should like to make a statue of your friend,” he whispered. “He is the very incarnation of Pan…”
He smiled politely and made a gesture of farewell. I should not have permitted him to go out of my life like a cloud that leaves no trace.
“I hope we shall meet again,” I mumbled politely, instead of startling him into staying. “I am Count de Cartaphile.”
“A descendant of the Crusader?”
“Yes. How well informed you are!”
“I am interested in all things human.”
“And all things mechanical.”
“Yes.”
“And also, I take it, in all things divine?”
My First Two Thousand Years; the Autobiography of the Wandering Jew Page 34
