“Yes, but they are, with few exceptions, recruited exclusively from the very poor. To follow him, a man must relinquish his wealth. A rich man, according to one of his parables, can no more enter his Heaven than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle.”
“How characteristic!” Apollonius remarked with an amused smile. “Always a Jew! Only a Jew—albeit a philosopher or a god—would attach so much importance to wealth as to make its denial the basis of salvation.”
The clarity of the idea startled me.
We continued watching the moon for a long time in silence.
“Master, I have been with you for an entire year. You have been as a deep and an inexhaustible fountain of delight to me. I would lower an empty bucket into it, and always it would return filled to the brim with wisdom that cooled and refreshed me.”
“The water sought the throat as eagerly.”
“Master, I have traveled in many lands and have seen many things. I have loved and lived much.”
He nodded.
“I see before me a dreary desert of years, a desert without end. Can life offer me nothing except repetition?”
“Time, Cartaphilus, is elastic. It may be stretched or it may be shortened.”
“Alas, Master, time must stand still for me—perhaps forever.”
He looked at me.
“What is the difference between a man condemned to die on the morrow and ourselves, except that our sentence is indefinite?”
“No, no! I am not speaking in metaphors. I must actually tarry on earth for thousands of years, maybe until the end of time.”
He was interested, but not startled.
“Is it not a strange thing, Master?”
“All things are strange, Cartaphilus. But tell me what powerful factor disarrayed so violently the processes of your being?”
Apollonius listened to my extraordinary recital. The moon thinned and became amorphous like the torn fragment of a cloud. The sun rose silently, as if on tiptoes, afraid perhaps of the Great Dark that had so recently devoured it. I spoke on, omitting nothing. A young water-carrier passed by, and offered us sweets and cool water.
“Master, am I not accursed?”
“Life is not an evil, Cartaphilus, nor is death. No one is really ever born, no one really dies. There is but one Life, and of that we all partake—to a lesser or greater degree.”
“How had Jesus the power to inflict this upon me?”
“I have seen greater marvels, Cartaphilus. Jesus, too, has seen. The subtle powers that govern the life and death of the body may be arrested or paralyzed, by a shock. People die of fear or of joy. Is it inconceivable for the reverse process to occur? The shock that can end life, by acting upon the chemistry of our being, may intensify or prolong it…”
“Will he ever appear again, Master? Must I tarry until he is reborn?”
“In infinity the same note is sounded again and again in the identical pitch. The same type recurs.”
‘Infinity!’
Apollonius looked at me critically. “Tell me, Cartaphilus, would you really relinquish life if it were possible? Do you want to die?…”
“Is it possible?”
“Only if your passion for death is greater than your passion for life.”
“I am no longer certain, Master.”
“Then you must carry your fetters, Cartaphilus, or if you please, your garland. Make it a garland of roses,” Apollonius continued. , “Be not afraid of yourself, Cartaphilus. Be strong!”
“Can we be strong? Are we not tossed about by the whim of an irrational fate?”
“The will is both free and not free. If you fling a dead leaf into the air, it is carried hither and thither without volition. If you toss a bird upward, the wind may hamper its flight and dash its brains against a rock, but while life persists it will struggle: its will modifies the wind’s will. The average man is a leaf tossed hither and thither. He who has lifted the veil from the face of life resembles the bird. He cannot dominate but, within limits, may direct his fate.”
“Master,” I said, “the bird has no conception of boredom; he rapturously sings the same note forever. He has no purpose beyond existence. But a man…must not a man’s life have a purpose, Master, if he is to escape from the clutches of the great God Ennui?”
“Even so.”
“What purpose can last centuries? Can knowledge, for instance, suffice?”
“Knowledge is repetitious. One lifetime suffices to recognize its sameness.”
“Love, Master?”
“The difference between one love and another becomes finer and finer, until it disappears.”
“Hate, Master?”
“Hate may be mightier than love, but hate dies out like a fire. Time is a great sea.”
“What then…what then, Master??’
Apollonius meditated. “Have you not spoken of John and Mary, Cartaphilus?”
“Yes.”
“You loved both.”
“Both.”
He leisurely turned his bracelet. “It is doubtful whether you will ever find a purpose which will run parallel to Time’s strange zigzag.”
I sighed.
“And yet if a purpose should be robust enough and capable of a long endurance, would it not suffice?”
“It would, Master.”
He combed his beard, twisting the end into a sharp point. “In Damis you see something of John. Even in Poppaea you caught a glint of Mary. All types reintegrate. All return, with infinite variations.
“The ideal you seek is neither Mary nor John, but a synthesis of both, a double blossom of passion, combining male and female, without being a monster… If you could find John and Mary in one, Cartaphilus, so that touching Mary, you might feel the thrill of John…and speaking to John, you might hear the voice of Mary…would it not rejoice you, Cartaphilus?”
“It would be the supreme felicity, a devastating joy—a divine surprise, an inconceivable rapture.”
My head turned, my ears rang. I shivered. “Yes, Master. Yes. That is what I desire…that is what, in his heart, every man yearns for. Master, you are wise beyond wisdom.”
Apollonius smiled. “But Master, is it possible? Is it possible to find them both in one?”
“All things are possible, Cartaphilus. The World Spirit, in his ceaseless experiments, may evolve your dream… Seek…and perhaps…you shall find.”
“Did you not say, Master, ‘that which may be found is it worth the seeking?’ ”
“There are many truths, Cartaphilus, and every truth carries within itself its own contradiction.”
He rose and walked into the room.
Damis, seated in the semi-darkness behind us, had listened to my story without uttering a sound.
“Damis,” I said, “you have heard my recital, but you have said nothing.”
“Cartaphilus, why was John’s love not great enough to embrace both Jesus and you?”
“The Jewish God is a jealous God,” I replied. “Jesus inherited the jealous strain from his Father… He enjoined children to forsake their fathers, and lovers their sweethearts, before accepting them as his followers. He recognized no human tie. ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ was his reply to his own mother when she upbraided him for his selfishness.”
“Our Master makes no conditions. He demands nothing. I love both him and you.”
Tenderly I took his hand in mine. Then, weary beyond endurance, I placed my head upon his chest. “Damis, let me sleep.”
“Sleep, Cartaphilus.”
When I awoke, Apollonius was standing over us, pale, his head bent upon his chest. In his right hand, he held a tall staff, the large branch of a cherry-tree, planed and surmounted by a gold knob, the shape of several snakes huddled together.
“My children, the time has come when I must depart.”
“Master!” we both exclaimed.
“The day has come. I must go.”
“Whither?” Damis asked.
“Wherever the spirit leads my feet.”