Jeanne had gone back to search for Kiki. I did not tell her what he’d done with it.
As we went up the steps, he saw the Medici fountain; he ran towards it and said: ‘I know where I am. I am in India.’ He was sure I was a prince. He was sure Jeanne was nowhere to be seen. He was sure Kiki was dead.
The elephant was drinking water at the Medici fountain. He saw the two goddesses, one to the right and one to the left. One that I would marry with the moon, and one that I would marry with the sun. He looked at the water and said: ‘Look, there, that’s your country. How beautiful it is. Now it’s the hour of the wedding,’ he whispered, and he grew thoughtful.
Up above the trees, the sky bore away the rapid, white clouds, and in the waters they ran like boats. One of them had already reached the other shore, was safe in harbour. He took my hand and held it in his, and said: ‘I love forests. It must be warm there.’
‘Pierrot!’ shouted Jeanne. I let go his hand. He cried and cried, and would not leave the Medici fountain. He saw the elephant in the forest. He saw the river Ganges. He saw the two goddesses, with four hands and a crown of white gold on their heads. He rode the elephant, covered in silk and gold, and he came to my marriage.
‘Jeannot!’ he cried and slipped into the water. He touched the bottom that was like himself, his hands and feet made of light. The water was not deep, but very cold and full of perfumes. It was mid-April and the winds were blowing. The new leaves were sharp, and the sky was like deep sleep. In India, the earth is warm with silence, and the Ganges flows.
Two or three days later I came to the Luxembourg. Pierrot was not there. Again and again, I came. Pierrot was not there. Towards the end of the month, he came and with a new nanny— middle-aged. And when he saw me, he ran towards me and said: ‘Monsieur. . Monsieur le Prince,’ and leaped straight into my arms. He was very fond of his new navy suit. It had golden buttons that shone in one’s eyes. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘Look, faces!’ and he laughed. He seemed to have grown in years. ‘I know now,’ he said. ‘I am a maharaja. I ride the elephant. The wedding is over.’
THE POLICEMAN AND THE ROSE
When I was arrested my problem was not me but it. You see, I was arrested when I was born, and that is many, many years ago, a teen and truant score and more. All men are arrested the moment they are born. So are the women. The policemen are huge, big, when you are born — so big and shining — that is why the child cries. Some see the face of the policeman — a pollen face — and others see the bottom of a cob — he’s slick and sumptuous. Others see his many teeth. Every living man has a policeman, and his name is your name, his address your address, his dreams your dreams. (Of course in the dream, his name, force and function are other and inappropriate, but that is another matter.) In the last life too he was a policeman — he always was a policeman. That is why we have such a grand state. We have a policeman for every man — Voltaire said the civilized state ‘est un état bien police’—civilization is the cross-road where the policeman stands. To the left is the past, to the right is the dawn, and behind you was death, and before you is life. The policeman goes thin, in some countries and climates, as you grow big. In some countries he’s quite monstrous, but he has a holy paradise after death, girls and all. Paradise is made for the policeman, aside of time. He polishes his medals, of friendships and gifts and sanctified murders in the name of God. Paradise is on a percentage basis. The insurance company is only concerned with medals. God sits on the throne and dispenses human justice. If the policeman is somewhat thin, he sits under the seat of God. If his uniform is bright, he is sent to a place of many fires. But if he is teeny-weeny with a soft moustache and a saintly odour, then he is seated in a room with television sets. He receives prostrations, camphor-burnings, coconut ceremonies, garlands. He lives on sound and sight. And some say — though I have never gone that far into the true understanding of the mystery — that some policemen are thrown into the world again, fat or small, bright or buffoon, and we know all of them. For this is a police state. The bars collide with our flesh — the policeman has those marks morning and evening, and knows them only at death. For death is a bath and we know our marks then. After death there is birth, according to some as you know, and no sooner are you born than there is a policeman. And this is the story of such a policeman, big, blustering, cummerbund, collar and sash, and a red turban (like the Madras suburban policeman) for his noble crown. He is awake when I am awake, he sleep-dreams as I have wake-sleeps, and he just has no existence in the deep-sleep state. God once got angry with him and killed him, but he became many. And as God killed the many they became many, many. Today God does not know what to do — so I have to remind God all about it. You may overhear me if you so please. I am a revolutionary, and God does not like revolution. He likes the totalitarian state. I want to be free.
You see, my policeman was born thousands of thousands of thousands of years ago. He was a native of space and his germ was the atom. The atom played at the cross-roads and created water. Now, water is a silly old thing that moves, and always in one direction. So he became water and flowed towards the dawn. The dawn changed him into fire. The fire of the dawn changed my policeman into a red and leaping thing, and it combusted and flew into sanctuaries, and made many fevers big and small. The fires subsided into a window-space and became the noble earth: Earth thou origin of the sperm and splendour of the rose-blood, as say the ancient texts. And the earth became the air, that is aery-fairy, hunky-dory—papapunya, birth and death. You could go to the hilltop and drink the holy air, and be yet not free. Your policeman is naked but he’s all blind. He knows all there is to know, but he does not know the knower. When he knows the knower there is no knower. Knowledge is knowledge.
The story of the policeman is my own biography. So why hide it from you. I, that is, the policeman, was born in the Aswija-Shuddha when the moon was bright and of the eleventh day in the year 19—, that is some thirty-three years ago. He, that is, the police-child, cried like every other child, for, as I said before, I was arrested immediately. And I knew immediately why I was arrested by the policeman. For if there is no policeman there is no difference between hunger and satiation, darkness and light, mother and father, truth and bogus. The policeman, just as on the road, had to stand and say — this is left, that is right, and so right and left were made. My policeman made a nixie speech to me, nevertheless. When I was born, he said: ‘My child, I know your antecedents, or rather, I know why you are hot and cold,’ that is how he explained. ‘I am a big policeman for a small child. You are really free. Grow and become free, and my happiness is in my own dissolution. You seek your death of me, the death of deaths. Death happens to me. Never to you. So why worry? The bigger I am, the smaller you are. Ravana was big. But small Rama was light. Ravana was strong. Rama was young and meek. But Rama conquered the dark island of Lanka and freed Sita. Ravana in being born sought his death through Rama. Ravana was the police-jamedar. You are free. Go.’
I remembered Rama and Ravana of Lanka. Of course I did. I was once a contemporary of Rama and Ravana, and had been a trefoil grass that Rama trod on in the principality of Kishkindha. I knew Sita, for she used to bathe in the Kulapati pond, and I was the twin-eyed weed by the footpath. She was beautiful. Rama was seeing itself. Ravana was like myself — he was all arms, eyes, foot, sight, sound, odour, audition and tactility. He had a mysterious jungle-tingle in his being, that sang and tingled to sight, sound, touch, tasted in tranquillity and smelt in periphery, and which was aimed at Rama every time he made battle. It was like a telescope — Rama looked without looking and saw — and fought. The jungle-tingle made the story of the world.