“Is it not self-evident, my friend? I have been at work for a century and a half. A stupid servant, an over-curious guest might annul my labors. You are the only person who will see the Homuncula.”
“I am grateful for your confidence, Salome.”
“You and I,—are we not the sole gods of the world, the sole survivors of the Tempest of Time?”
“We must never separate again, my love.”
“Don’t be mawkish, mon cher. The survivors of a tempest need not necessarily, as in romantic books, marry and live happy ever after.”
“It is less ridiculous than walking each his own way among the débris.”
“You are the Eternal Youth.”
“My glands function perfectly, Salome. That is all. Steinach, a great Austrian scientist examined me not long ago. I think I could die in an accident. But my glands are extraordinary. The glands which, in the average person, secret the seed of new life, constantly pour new vitality into the stream of my blood like the fresh sap of a tree. Man is immortal through his progeny. I am my own progeny. I remain always young and always sterile.”
“Glands– —” Salome meditated, placing the key into the door.
“It is not Jesus who gave me life, Salome. His eyes conveyed a powerful shock to my nervous system which, in some inexplicable way, altered the mechanism that controls my secretions. It may be possible, some day, by applying electricity or the X-ray, to produce the same result in all men. We shall have, then, a race of immortals.”
“No, no!” Salome exclaimed. “I hope that will never occur, Cartaphilus! The people who are alive today are so ridiculously constituted, so slightly endowed with the capacity for pleasure or thought that a life beyond the ordinary one would change earth into hell.”
“Let us impregnate with our own immortality only those who deserve it.”
“A perilous venture! Besides, who deserves immortality?”
“There are a few men, Salome, whose personalities partake of the eternal flame. Alas, their glands age and die!”
“Only the descendants of my Homuncula will merit immortality and shall have it, Cartaphilus.”
She opened the door to a vast room which, contrary to the habitation of Bluebeard’s Homunculus, was scented with strange and delicious perfumes. A garden blossomed out of the walls and ceiling. In the center, a magnificent statue lay outstretched upon a couch.
“My Homuncula,” Salome said proudly.
“Salome is greater than Phidias.”
“Oh art, Cartaphilus—it is but child’s play. Homuncula lives!”
“Of what material is she fashioned?”
“The essence of flesh.”
I looked at her, perplexed.
“You cannot understand it, Cartaphilus. I have discovered strange things.”
“Strange indeed, Incomparable One!”
I approached the Homuncula. Salome held my arm. “Do not stir, Cartaphilus. You must not go near her. Watch from a distance. Look,—is she not made for pleasure such as even you and I have not experienced?”
“She resembles Herma,” I remarked.
“But Herma—poor human child—was neither man nor woman completely. My Homuncula is both perfectly. Every atom of her body is constructed for joy. Jahveh, in His hurry, created man for the purpose of living merely. Pleasure was only an impetus toward existence. It was not life’s very purpose. Mind, too, was merely a substitute for deficient muscle. Man was mud electrified. My Homuncula is of the very essence of life. Death cannot overcome her. Therefore she will be able to devote herself to joy with abandon!…”
“Salome is a glorious artist!” I exclaimed.
“My Homuncula will not know the ugliness and travail of bearing children.”
“How then– —?”
“Why were the birds favored by Jahveh? Why cannot man be born like the bird?”
“Will the descendants of Homuncula be both man and woman?” I asked.
“Of course. ‘Male and female created He them.’ How can they know perfect joy save by being both man and woman? Jahveh reserved this double boon for the snail. I give it to the creature I have fashioned, not for my pleasure, but for her own. But we have remained here too long, Cartaphilus. We may disturb subtle bio-chemical processes. Homuncula is not yet entirely alive. She is still, as it were, in the womb of creation…”
Salome was feeding the swans. They placed their flat bills in her hand and wound their necks about her wrist. “Cartaphilus, whom else did you see after the French Revolution who is worthy of memory?”
“In France, I met Heine, a Jewish poet, driven out of Germany by the intolerance of the princes and his very thrifty family, who insisted upon making him a banker. What a sharp mind Heine possessed and what a tender heart! A typical Jew, Salome. It is strange how that race persists.”
“Has America produced any people worthy of consideration?”
“America!” I laughed. “I had a strange experience there.”
“What was it, Cartaphilus? I am in a mood for gossip.”
“The American women are the most beautiful in the world. Many of them partake of the epicene charm which the Greeks gave to their immortal statues. I fell in love—mildly, naturally. Always the vision of Salome eclipses all my amorous fancies…”
Salome smiled. “Cartaphilus speaks always with one objective in mind. And they say that Man can discuss impersonally!”
I smiled. “May I not wind my neck around your wrist like that fortunate swan?”
Salome placed her arm about me.
“Oh, that I were a swan and– —”
“Come, come—tell me about your experience in America.”
“Well, I fell in love with a young girl whose name was Jackie—in some ways more boy than girl.”
“All beauty wavers between the two sexes,” Salome interposed.
“In our perambulations, we crossed from one state into another—a nominal frontier, you understand. We registered at a Philadelphia hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Peterson. The night was spent in tepid pleasure. Mrs. Peterson was as sentimental as she was passionless. She had the intelligence of a gosling which was most incongruous with the splendid poise of her physique. But I had already discovered the frequency of this discrepancy and the surprise was not as great as the annoyance.
“In the morning, an officer of the police knocked at the door. I was accused of abduction. All explanation was futile. My offense consisted, not in seducing the girl, but in crossing the state line. If I had remained with her in New York, no minion of the law could have interfered with my pleasure. I had crossed into another state and the law allowed of no ignorance. Besides, it seemed that morality was becoming too lax of late. I had desecrated the sacredness of the American hearth. Americans utter their platitudes more eloquently than any other people of the globe. I was given the choice between marrying Jackie or going to prison for many years. Neither appealed to me. However, I knew of a positive antidote to morality, an antidote which, by the way, is far more efficient in America than anywhere else.
“ ‘How much?’ I asked, with the characteristic brevity of the new land. The gentleman of the police mentioned a sum which he snatched out of my hand. Without even thanking me, he left, warning me that the next time I committed this dastardly crime, I should have to go to prison for years under the Federal statute or—’Double my money,’ I said ironically.
“Jackie glared at me. ‘What about me?’ she demanded.
“ ‘How much?’
“Her price was exactly ten times his for she clamored that she was a decent girl misled by me. The swiftness with which she grasped the situation—for I am quite certain it was not a preconceived trap—was typical of her race. A child of ten in that country speaks in terms of capital and interest, and at seventy, he still retains this terminology. I gave her what she asked. She threw her arms about me. ‘You are a brick, old man!’ she shouted, which means in that country of eternal slang that I was generous and a man of principle.