Herma looked at both of us. One side of her face was a woman’s, the other a man’s. She took both our hands and said: “Queen Lilith—King Lucifer—one—eternally one.”
Had she guessed our relationship? I looked at Salome imploringly. She smiled vaguely and pressed my hand.
I knelt.
Salome stood up. “King Lucifer shall improvise a dialogue in verse with Queen Lilith.”
I was startled. I had always considered poetry the consolation of those who were incapable of living intensely.
“Life is a greater poem than mere sounds, dexterously arranged, Your Majesty,” I said. “King Lucifer has lived.”
Salome exclaimed: “The Queen has spoken, Sire.”
“So be it, then! The King obeys provided the Queen responds.”
“The Queen shall respond.”
“A crown, Herma!” I commanded.
Herma clapped her hands. The butler brought a small golden coronet, studded with a few jewels, some relic of royalty.
“Let the lyre play!” I ordered.
I knelt upon one knee and began to improvise a poem in the somewhat theatrical mood of Herma and her guests. Salome as Lilith, responded in the same mood.
When we finished, Herma wept.
Salome kissed her upon one cheek, and I upon the other.
“You are gods. I am but a mortal,” she sighed.
She stood up with a jerk. “No matter! Tonight we shall be gods. Mesdames et messieurs, we are all gods tonight!…”
The people applauded.
“Dust shall burst into flame,” Herma continued.
“Bravo! Bravo!”
Herma rang a large gold bell that hung against the wall. Servants appeared with drinks and pipes filled with hashish.
“Drink and smoke, mesdames et messieurs. Man becomes a god only by intoxication.”
Baron de Patrin grumbled: “Life is a wind circular and spiral and all things are specks of dust square or triangular.”
“Come nearer me, Lucifer,” Herma asked. “Let my body be your pillow this night. This night I too shall be a goddess. Tomorrow I am dust and you will desert me…”
“Hermaphroditus-Hermaphrodita—eternal god—goddess!” I exclaimed.
“Dance!” Herma commanded.
An invisible orchestra played.
The guests began to dance—strange unrhythmical dances. In the smoke that rose from their pipes, they assumed grotesque and unhuman shapes. One man whom I had not seen until then, dressed in a red veil, turned about himself, twisted, rolled upon the floor.
“The human serpent,” Herma informed me. “He knows the love of all animals and birds and even insects. He has discovered sixty-seven new ways of love, possible, alas, only to one who, like him, can twist himself like a serpent.”
“Does he also know,” I inquired tantalizingly, “the secret of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged…?”
Herma looked at me startled. She pressed my hand in a curious way which I assumed to be the secret grip of a strange lodge.
“Salome, am I once more in Persia? Are you deluding me again? Are these phantoms cast against mirrors?…”
“Cartaphilus is a child always and always bewildered,” Salome answered in Greek.
“You speak the language of the gods,” Herma said wearily, her eyes closed. Her lips assumed the smile of La Joconda.
The human serpent twisted about the violet-haired Baroness, forming with her a bizarre and lascivious pattern.
The shoe adorant convulsed at the feet of Salome.
“Life is a wind– —” the voice drawled out in back of us.
“Greater love has no man,” Narcissus whispered, making eyes at himself. Narcissa was still lost in the contemplation of her lilied loveliness.
Mademoiselle Fifi leaned languorously against the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police, in the scarlet dress embroidered with silk, with cushions to supply the breasts which nature denied him, ogled a lackey passing with a tray of cordials.
My eyes became dim. The lights danced among the dancers who seemed motionless. The music retreated—retreated—like the band of an army, passing by a window and continuing its march.
I felt warm flesh pressing against mine. Herma lay between Salome and me. “Salome,” I whispered, my words coming into my mouth from an immense distance, “Salome!”
“Cartaphilus!”
“Must always a dream or another human form, however lovely, interfere between Salome and Cartaphilus?”
“When Salome conquers the moon—Cartaphilus shall conquer Salome.”
Something beat against my ear like a bass drum—bang, bang, bang! I could not open my eyes. Bang-bang-bang! I must see—I must! Bang-bang-bang! I must! Bang, bang! I opened my eyes wide, wide, for fear they would close again.
It was morning. The sun pierced vainly through the curtained windows. All about me, men and women snored and groaned or lay still, like dead. Herma slept, her face bloated, her lips frozen into an ironic grin. Salome was gone!
Bang, bang, bang! Some one was knocking furiously at the door. No one moved. The servants had disappeared. I rose, tottered to the door, and opened it.
Kotikokura, wild-eyed, his sword drawn, was ready to strike.