Salome guessed my thought and smiled, pleased.
“Just like yourself, queen of queens.”
“And like you too, Cartaphilus. And like this wild creature Kotikokura.”
“Life is not an evil, Salome.”
“Perhaps we are dead and that is why we are incorruptible. We live not in time but in eternity.”
“Are you quoting Spinoza?”
“You were more fortunate than I. I came some months after his death. The old woman was dying also. She spoke to me of you.”
“She never knew my name even.”
“Your name? What name? If I were to discover your whereabouts by your name– —”
We laughed.
Salome ordered two servants to undress us and help us with our bath.
In a corner of the garden, shaded by willow trees and rose bushes, the cool soft waters of a lake splashed noiselessly their artificial banks.
After our ablution in the lake, we were anointed with oils and perfumes as in the time of the kings of Israel, and were offered silken robes and satin slippers, studded with jewels.
I thought of the glory of Salome rising out of the waters, more fragrant than the roses that hid her from view. Dinner had meanwhile been prepared and the table spread in a ten column portico.
Kotikokura preferred to eat with the majordomo, the colossus who had opened the gate for us. I was not displeased for I wished to be alone with Salome.
A youth and a young girl whose skin was as smooth and as black as ebony, dressed in silken garments emphasizing the suppleness of their limbs, waited upon us.
We reclined on opposite sides of the table on couches, Roman fashion, eating delicate but simple foods, and drinking out of exquisitely chiseled goblets, wines and liqueurs that sparkled like molten jewels.
At a distance, some one played the lute. The music mingled with the perfume of many flowers and the singing of birds.
“Salome, this is Paradise and only a god as cruel and as jealous as Yahweh shall drive me out of it.”
Salome smiled. “Or a goddess as merciless as Princess Salome, daughter of King Herod.”
“Fortunately, Yahweh is dead and Salome is no longer Princess of Judea.”
“Who is she?”
“She is the Goddess of Reason, and Reason knows no cruelty.”
She laughed. “Strange that Cartaphilus should accept a Goddess of Reason.”
“Salome is the mother of Beauty.”
“And Cartaphilus the father of flattery and chivalry.”
We remained silent, eating the fruits which, like manna, tasted of all delicious things.
Salome smiled. “My servants believe that you are my bride-groom, come to wed me.”
“Your servants are attentive and knowing.”
“Only a month ago, their mistress died and her great granddaughter has inherited her wealth…”
I knit my brow.
“Cartaphilus, will you never be able to jump at a conclusion except by a slow and masculine process of ratiocination? I have lived here with few interruptions for a hundred and fifty years nearly, since our strange night at Herma’s. How could that be accomplished save by calling myself my own descendant? To your right, there is a crypt in which are buried my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother. I have raised statues to all of them.”
“And the corpses?”
“Wax figures, of course, and a little magic. The black art is not dead…”
“Oh lovely great-granddaughter of Salome, more beautiful and more radiant, be indeed my bride!”
“Salome does not break her promise. The time is nearly ripe.”
“Then Cartaphilus shall remain here forever.”
“Shall the Wandering Jew forswear his wanderings?”
“He is not a Jew any more and he will no longer wander save in the company of the great-granddaughter of the incomparable queen.”
“It will be the death of Cartaphilus.”
“Then death shall be more welcome than life.”
“Salome belongs to an old generation. She may not believe in divorce.”
“Have not nearly two thousand years proved the constancy of Cartaphilus? Why, there are stars that are less– —”
“Persistent,” she interrupted.
“The ancient order of geometry is overthrown by the new mathematics. Two parallel lines may meet long before infinity,” I said, and raising my glass, I continued: “Here is to Einstein—greatest of mathematicians!”
We descended several steps. A gate opened and closed behind us automatically. We were surrounded at once by high stone walls, surmounted by an immense glass dome.
“Where are we, Salome?”
“The new Garden of Eden in which I fashion a different world.”
I touched a rose. It curled its petals until it assumed the shape of a red-furred cat. Out of its pistil or muzzle—I could not tell which—jutted a thin stream of perfume. I retreated before what seemed a leopard, glaring at me. The leopard unfolded into a vast dahlia. Peacocks’ tails were the leaves of a palm tree. A butterfly, waving its wings, was a carnation of the loveliest hue. A bud that Salome offered me assumed the shape of a bee, the tips of its leaves buzzing. Out of chalices of flowers, birds sang exquisite music. Out of birds’ beaks hung branches, laden with fruit. Lizards, many-colored, grew like microscopic trees. The animal world merged with the plant; perfumes mingled with color; leaves were incipient wings; songs approached human voice.
Salome offered me an apple. I bit into it. A sensation of nakedness overcame me. I looked at myself.
She smiled. “This is my Tree of Knowledge.”
“Does knowledge mean nakedness?” I asked.
“Life is overdressed. Knowledge is the tearing of veils.”
“Salome! I am as a man who has been swung about many times and is set upon the ground suddenly. Everything turns. The earth is no longer solid. The sun whirls about my eyes. The universe rocks under my feet.”
“Thus creation must have impressed Adam.”
“Be good enough to explain things to me, O marvelous Queen!”
“It is very simple. I am weary of the earth. The earth is magnificent and interesting only to those whose lives are numbered by a few years. I have seen her too often. She is the most monotonous of mothers. Always she bears the same children. Her patterns are unvarying, like the knitting of a senile woman. I am the new mother! I shall create newer and more beautiful things! I shall change the dull face of life…”
I knelt before her. “Goddess of Reason and Beauty! Creatrice Supreme!”
She bade me rise. “But greater and more resplendent than all things created shall be my new humanity.”
“New humanity?”
“My Homuncula is nearly completed.”
My thoughts reverted to Bluebeard.
“No, not the Homunculus of that strange man whom I inspired, but whose masculine lack of creativeness shaped a ridiculous monster.”
“Did you know Gilles de Retz?”
“Of course. I met him before you came to Paris. His genius was too great for him. It overflowed him as a stormy river overflows its banks.”
“Salome, whom have you not seen and understood?”
“Are you surprised, Cartaphilus, that I experimented with life?”
“Tell me your experiences, Salome.”
“Some day, I shall turn writer.”
“What a poetess you will make!”
“It is so easy to write poetry,—an art for the very young. I shall write prose, lucid and clear,—ideas that will illuminate the mind of the reader. When I am too weary of life, I shall write about it, Cartaphilus, and you will see whether woman is inferior to man.”