“Stop, Kotikokura!” I commanded. “This is not the way to treat people we wish to visit. Besides, am I not God Ca-ta-pha? Have you no confidence in my power?”
Kotikokura fell on his face. “Ca-ta-pha!”
This disconcerted the watchmen a little. Meanwhile, I looked into the eyes of the one who seemed a trifle more pacific. I waved my hands about his face, and pronounced the word “Sleep” in Chinese, which I had learnt before my arrival “Sleep…sleep…sleep!” The giant began to yawn. “Sleep…sleep.” He stretched out upon the ground and began to snore. The other, frightened, dropped his spear and ran away, screaming.
“Come, Kotikokura, let us enter.”
Kotikokura, dazzled by what I had accomplished, continued to bow and touch the ground. I did not discourage his adoration. “Rise, Kotikokura, and follow me!” I ordered. The Wall was several feet deep, and when we reached the other end, people were running toward us, weapons in their hands, and shouting.
“Lie down, Kotikokura, and do not budge. Fear nothing!” I covered him with a black cloth. I waved my arms, describing large semicircles, reciting the while most dramatically, stanzas from the Upanishads. Two small mirrors concealed in my palms, reflecting the sun, made strange patterns of light. The people, disconcerted, watched.
“Rise, Kotikokura!” I commanded. “Rise!” The body of Kotikokura ascended slowly, steadily. The people, their mouths agape, dropped their weapons. “Return, Kotikokura!” I ordered. The tips of my fingers united. The mirrors shed a milky way, through which Kotikokura descended slowly, almost elegantly. When he reached the ground, I uncovered him. He looked about, startled, and fell at my feet, calling: “Ca-ta-pha! Ca-ta-pha!” The others knelt also, and repeated “Ca-ta-phal Ca-ta-pha!” Like the parrot, Kotikokura proclaimed my apotheosis.
“Go back!” I commanded, pointing with my forefinger. The crowd obeyed.
One elderly man, only, remained. He was dressed in a many-colored silk robe. He smiled and his eyes shone with intelligence. I bowed to him. He returned the greeting. I spoke to him in several of the European languages. He shook his head. I asked him if he knew Sanskrit. He was delighted. He had learnt the language in his youth, when he studied philosophy and the wisdom of Gautama the Buddha.
“My esteemed friend,” he said, smiling, “the levitation was beautifully done. I have read about this strange phenomenon, but I have never had the pleasure of witnessing it.”
“I am happy to meet so wise a man.”
“Wisdom is a rare flower. It is sufficient for a man to just breathe a little of its exquisite perfume.”
“I have read the words of Kong-Fu-tze, the greatest of philosophers. Anxious to meet the people whom he taught so wisely, I risked my life and the life of my faithful servant.”
He smiled. “You have noticed, my learned Master, that the people are not apt scholars. I suspect that wisdom is rare among the people everywhere.”
“You are right, excellent friend.”
“There are, however, in each generation, and in every locality, a handful of men who love truth…”
“I shall esteem it a favor beyond recompense, if I am allowed to speak with that handful of men who live in this city.”
The Chinaman’s lips curled into a smile. “Accept the hospitality of my humble roof.”
I bowed, and thanked him profusely. “I am most anxious to be converted to the teaching of Kong-Fu-tze.”
“Kong-Fu-tze desires no converts. It suffices to quaff his wisdom…”
‘Apollonius!’ I thought suddenly, ‘except for the slanting eyes… The tall stature, the white beard, the slow intelligent gestures of the arms are unmistakable…’ I scrutinized him. He smiled politely.
“Forgive me,” I said “your words recalled and recaptured the voice of a friend…”
“Living or dead?”
“Alas! He died…if he died…at Ephesus, at the age of one hundred. I tried to discover in your face, the beloved features of my friend.”
“Wherever one goes, one always discovers one’s friends.”
My host begged me to make myself comfortable in his library.
We smoked.
I watched the smoke, my eyes half closed. The shadow it threw upon the opposite wall assumed the shape of a woman.
“Are the women of your country desirous to afford pleasure?”
“The wiser ones among them make a devout study of the ways of pleasure.”
“I should like to meet such a student.”
“You shall, Cartaphilus.”
She pushed gently the door of my room and looked in. I pretended to be asleep. She entered, and on tiptoes, much lighter than a cat, approached me. With the corner of one eye I observed her,—a tiny creature with a face hardly larger than a doll’s, illumined by two long eyes that seemed to be dreaming something weird, or merely reflecting the strange smile that appeared and vanished in rapid succession about her mouth.
I opened my eyes. She bowed. “Has Flower-of-Joy disturbed Cartaphilus, Master of Wisdom?”
“Flower-of-Joy has entered more gently than a ray of the sun, and disturbed Cartaphilus no more than the perfume that leaves the heart of a flower and mingles with the air he breathes.”
“Cartaphilus is beautiful and wise and Flower-of-Joy fears she cannot delight him.”
“Her very presence is a great delight to him.”
“Flower-of-Joy is a little tired. May she lie down with Cartaphilus?”
“Flower-of-Joy will be as a dainty dream that visits him in his sleep.”
She was a bit of chiseled ivory, animated by the seven devils that Jesus drove out of Magdalene.
Like a labyrinth made of deeply perfumed flowers, within which one wanders certain at every turn to discover an issue, but always finding that it is merely another bend, was the pleasure she afforded me.
Mung Ling greeted me, as always, most cordially. He apologized for having sent me an inexperienced girl.
“Inexperienced?”
He smiled, closing his eyes. “When I was a young man, Cartaphilus, and lived in the Capital, pursuing my studies, I discovered the meaning of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged…”
I thought it was merely an old man’s exaggeration of his youthful delights, but nevertheless decided to visit the Capital. ‘Unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged!’ His words stirred ancient echoes in my brain. My thoughts returned to Jerusalem. I heard Aurelia’s soft voice insinuate the very phrase.
“Your fine phrase is worth a long trip, excellent Mung Ling,” I remarked.
XXV: TAXES AND PLAGUES—STONY FINGERS—I GO—A PRISONER OF ATTILA—KOTIKOKURA PULLS HIS MUSTACHES
THE people were clamorous in their complaints against the tax-collectors. The harvests had been very poor, but neither the Governor nor his subordinates showed any clemency. Even the few fistfuls of rice and the small portions of dried, salted fish were dwindling from the hands of the coolies and the small merchants. Many refused to work. If it was one’s fate to starve, why add to it the pain of labor?
Fishermen, with baitless lines, were sitting at the shore of the river, their thin legs up to the knees in water; the small merchants, their shops closed, reclining upon the threshold, gossiped with their neighbors across the narrow alleys; the coolies wandered about like lean dogs or cats, seeking among the refuse something to eat.
The Governor sought to subdue them by force. He imprisoned whole families; sold children into servitude; put men to torture. An obstinate silence supervened. People grinned or frowned, but said nothing. They understood one another perfectly. The newlyborn were carried hastily to the shore of the river and left to die and decompose in the sun. The stench was becoming unendurable. It was rumored, hardly above a whisper, but which chilled like the half-motionless shadow of a venomous snake, that some men and women had died of the plague.