I read aloud each name, trying to evoke the faces of my dead mistresses. Their names were empty sounds, like strokes of a stick upon a tin pan. I could not remember whether they had afforded me pleasure, or had merely skimmed the surface of my senses.
Kotikokura walked behind me, grumbling something from time to time.
“Kotikokura, the man who possesses but one woman may, after all, possess more than he who possesses a thousand. His memory does not waver, as the light of a torch in the wind.”
We walked in silence for some time.
Two slaves were running, a wooden coffin upon their shoulders. The surviving women followed them, more leisurely, wailing and beating their breasts, and invoking Allah and the Prophet. Some chanted, repeating at intervals the name of the deceased. The coffin was lowered into the grave, a slave refilled it, and leveled the ground, beating it with a spade. The cortège, chatting and calling to one another, returned. The eunuchs walking among them admonished them to be less noisy.
The youngest of the women had already acquired the rotundity of maturity, while all about me I saw faces seared by wrinkles. I walked among my concubines, caressing them, or complimenting them, and telling them amusing stories. They laughed, and touching me furtively, whispered promises, lascivious or sentimental. They all remembered the Bath of Beauty.
“Were you very lonesome without me?” I asked.
They sighed. “Very lonesome. Fatima and Chadija wept and wept, until they died. The rest of us gradually became accustomed, knowing that the will of Allah is supreme.”
“Who were Fatima and Chadija?”
“Fatima had brown hair, tied in a knot, and eyes out of which all the sadness of the world seemed to peer. She was your favorite for an entire night…”
“Lydia,” I muttered. “And Chadija?”
“Chadija’s hair was like the new flax, and she rolled it into braids that reached to her knees. Our lord praised her beauty and called her by a heathen name.”
“What name?”
They remained silent.
“Does no one remember?”
“It sounded like Rica…or Urica,” one answered, her tongue slipping over her toothless gums. “She stabbed herself, master,” she whispered.
“And where is she who was so ticklish that I could not touch her, without making her laugh uproariously?”
“It is I, master. Don’t you recognize me?” She began to laugh, but stopped suddenly, and conscious of her bare gums, covered her mouth with her hands. “I am no longer ticklish, master,” she whispered significantly.
I looked at her, and wondered how every trace of John and Mary had vanished so utterly from her face. Would they, whom I loved so much, have looked like her, had they lived long enough? Did they look like her when they died…?
“Was Kotikokura a lenient master?”
They nodded. One looked around and whispered. “He was too indulgent, my lord. He allowed the eunuchs to fondle us.”
Kotikokura had evidently obeyed my instructions.
“Are you satisfied with your table?” I asked, realizing that as youth disappears, culinary raptures take the place of amatory delights.
“Our master has always been very generous,” one of them remarked. “But the new cook,” she whispered, “does not stew lamb with fresh almonds. His almonds are hard…”
“Our women are aging, Kotikokura. It is a pity.”
He nodded.
“But what is even more pathetic is that they still desire: their passions still smoulder. Alas, there is no harmony in the world! Passions are awakened long before we may express them, and continue long after we can. But why speak of harmony in a whirlwind?”
Kotikokura scratched his face.
The cemetery, having become too crowded, I ordered the remainder of the orchard to be cleared. Only four of the eunuchs were still alive, stout and hairless individuals, grumbling and scolding incessantly. At my approach, they still ordered the women to kneel. “Our Master! Our Master!” Most of them would no longer obey, finding it too difficult a matter to bend or rise. They preferred to lie outstretched upon the couches or carpets, and relate to one another their ailments, begging me to give them ointments and drugs to relieve their pain. Several had become deaf, three blind, some had succumbed to a second childhood. They sang ceaselessly or wept bitterly.
Kotikokura sighed.
“By the way, we too, my friend, must at least appear affected by the passing of time, or else, who knows what the jealousy of man is capable of? We must paint our faces yellow, walk with difficulty upon our canes, and make wry faces.”
Kotikokura dropped his jaw. His face seemed a thousand wrinkles. Senility crept into his joints. I applauded.
Every few days another woman died,—peacefully, save for a slight cramp. Kotikokura smiled secretively. His visits to the laboratory where I had stored my favorite poisons were mysterious and frequent. The eunuchs, too, passed away, and were buried during the night near the rest, as if they were still to guard their honor and virtue.
The swans, like boats with broken masts, continued to sail on their sides, their long stiff necks half drowned in the water. The dogs, each in a tiny coffin, were buried in one grave, and Kotikokura ordered a tombstone, upon which the names were inscribed, and their souls entrusted to Allah and His Prophet Mohammed.
I freed and rewarded my slaves according to their ability and my caprice.
“Kotikokura, once more we are ready to go. The banquet is over, life has turned to death, and noise to silence. Such is the fate of things and of men.”
Kotikokura nodded, fixing his turban.
I paid a visit to the Vizier. I told him that I felt death approaching, and that I preferred to breathe my last in Mecca, where the soil, trodden by the feet of the Prophet, was holy.
I signed a document, bequeathing all my possessions to the city of Bagdad, for the purpose of building a great mosque to the glory of Allah and His Prophet. Since the thousand faithful ones were buried there, I suggested that the place be known as The Mosque of the Thousand Graves.
The Vizier considered it a most appropriate and propitious name, He embraced me, and wished me a fine couch near the Prophet.
XXXVIII: I MEET A JEW—EVIL OMENS—THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ABRAHAM—SHIPWRECKED
THE Caliph’s armies captured Alexandria and the northern part of Africa, as far as the Atlantic Ocean. Europe’s feet began to scorch under the conflagration. Before long, the flames would rise and consume the entire body. Why was I so delighted? Was Mohammedanism more desirable than Christianity? Was it less an amalgamation of superstitions? Neither Christ nor Mohammed tolerated reason, and I would be an outcast whether the golden cross or the silver crescent glittered. And yet I exulted in the idea that the Nazarene must succumb to Mohammed.
I decided to investigate the progress of Christianity. Once more I was a wanderer. Once more the sea carried me away in her arms to a new destiny. The waves beat against the sides of our boat drearily, as a dog asleep wards off with his tired paw a pestiferous fly.
In an angle of the boat, some one played a Hebrew melody upon a reed. In my childhood, I had heard it played in just that manner by an old shepherd, owner of a dozen sheep, whose ribs nearly pierced through the skin. I used to follow him to the top of a hill, where the animals could graze unmolested. Unlike most Jews, he was not disputatious, and utterly unconcerned about the perennial quarrels of the clergy and the prophets.
“Who knows who is in the right, my child? Maybe they are all in the right, or all in the wrong. And what difference does it make, anyhow? If a man lived a thousand years,—then he would have time to find out the truth,—but since he doesn’t live much longer than his sheep, it is better to keep quiet or play a tune upon a reed.”