“I am thirty.”
“We must hurry, Prince, and discover the secret.”
We passed out of the last gate of the city and entered into the Bois de Boulogne. The naked branches of the trees formed a wide canopy over which the reflection of the sun made embroideries in red gold.
“I am glad you are not a Christian, Prince. I love the Church, for it has beauty and legend, but I hate her for her fear of the Ultimate Truth.”
I made a gesture that I did not comprehend.
“The Church,” he whispered into my ear, “fears the power of Satan.”
“Satan?”
He scrutinized my face. Suddenly he drew from his coat an ivory cross, with the image of a crucified rose. “Prince, from the first moment I saw you, I recognized in you a Rosicrucian. You are not merely a Hindu Prince. You are a seeker as I am,—a seeker of Beauty which is Truth…”
I made a sign of assent.
“I am a Rosicrucian, Count,” I remarked, “but I belong to the Eastern rite. Our Grandmaster dwells in the Himalayas inaccessible behind his veil of mystery and of snow.”
He bowed ceremoniously.
“The seeker after the ultimate truth,” he continued, “fears neither King nor Pope, neither God nor Devil.” He lifted his fist, delicate and thin, almost a woman’s, and dropped it vigorously at his side.
“Prince,” he asked, “is there anything in heaven or on earth that you fear?”
“Yes, ugliness and stupidity.”
“You are my brother, Prince,” Gilles exclaimed.
He approached me until the heads of our horses touched. “Are we brothers, Cartaphilus?”
I pressed his arm.
Our approach to the Castle of Champtoce was greeted by trumpets and chimes. At the gate, a hundred children, boys and girls dressed in white, showered us with roses and sang “bergerettes.”
Two servants helped us descend from our steeds. The Maréchal patted the heads and cheeks of the children. “You shall be rewarded according to your deserts, my little ones,” he said tenderly, his voice somewhat husky.
I was installed in the right wing of the castle which overlooked the garden. Kotikokura, the Hindu High Priest, under vows of silence, shared my suite.
The next morning the Maréchal invited me to hunt with him.
His retainers wore sumptuous attire. The horses were bedecked with gorgeous trappings. Two dozen hounds pulled impatiently at their leashes. Gilles de Retz, resplendent in his uniform, greeted me cordially and bade me ride at his side.
He waved his hand. The trumpets blew. Our black steeds galloped away.
As we reached the middle of the forest, the Maréchal and I dashed away from the rest. We leaped from our horses. The Maréchal took my arm and we walked slowly.
“It is not the actual hunting that pleases me,” he said, “but the beauty of the horses and the men, the impatience of the dogs, the flourishes of the trumpets—and the captured animals, still alive, breathing their last, scarlet with their own blood.” My eyes tried to delve into his soul.
He pressed my arm. “Do you love the sight of blood, Cartaphilus?”
“The mystery of life is the mystery of the blood.”
“Cartaphilus, my brother, to you I may with impunity reveal the unrevealable.”
“Speak!”
“I do not worship God. I find His work mediocre. The pleasures He offers are like bones, left over at the end of a feast. He is like an archbishop, always admonishing, always warning. Besides, He prefers innocence to experience, stupidity to intelligence, dullness to wit.”
He looked at me, smiling ironically, intent upon seeing the effect of his words.
“My lord, what you say is too evident to require demonstration. Alas, there is no other God but God…”
He stamped his sword and exclaimed. “To the illuminati, we may drop all pretenses. You know there is another God—surpassing the God of Heaven…the god who honors the rebel…”
“Who?”
“Satan.”
“If he is a god, Monsieur le Maréchal, he is also tyrant, and enslaves the soul. We in the East emancipate ourselves from both God and the Devil…”
“Perhaps you have no need of Lucifer. We need his light. He is the essence of intelligence and wit. He is the spirit of investigation. He teaches us to drink, drink deep, from the Cup of Pleasure and Beauty…”
“You have merely reversed the order, my lord. You have only changed names. God has become the Devil, and the Devil God.”
“Having reversed the order, we have changed the entire conception of life. Yahweh has become the Black One, horny and monstrous, and his virtues abhorrent. Satan is luminous and beautiful and Sin the Supreme Good.”
Two servants approached, carrying upon their shoulders on a pole a young deer. The blood made a thin zigzag line according to the movements of the men. Several dogs followed, barking and stopping from time to time to lap the blood. Their muzzles were red like the noses of drunkards.
“My lord,” one of the servants addressed Gilles de Retz, “the first trophy.”
“Good!” His eyes dazzled with a light such as I had seen darting from the eyes of a demon in a temple of Egypt,—a phosphorescent light, a light that resembled the whiteness of knives and swords.
They placed their burden upon the ground. The animal’s body shivered. The Maréchal jerked out the arrow which protruded half way from the deer’s belly. The animal raised himself and fell back, his legs slightly in the air. Blood splashed the Maréchal’s boots. He breathed heavily and tightened his fists. For a moment his pupils were glazed, his limbs stiffened. Then he relaxed. He patted the dogs beating lightly their sides with his palm. The dogs wagged their tails.
The Maréchal’s conception of Satan pleased me. His intellectual diabolism was a new weapon in my warfare against Jesus.
Gilles had not yet spoken to me about women. Weird scandals about his affairs were gathering about him like a flock of birds. He had recently wedded Catherine of the House of Thouars.
Who was Catherine? I never caught even a glimpse of her garments. Was it true that he kept her a prisoner in the tower that rose above the castle, like an immense mitre?
I walked through the garden. The smoke of roasting oxen and sheep curled above the trees. The Maréchal, despite financial difficulties, would not close his gates to the hundreds of people that came from all parts of the country, and his generosity would not allow any curtailment in food and drinks.
I heard footsteps in back of me, and turned around. Two women, arm in arm, walked slowly. When they became aware of my presence, they stopped almost frightened. I bowed.
“Prince Cartaphilus!” one of them exclaimed. “My brother-in-law often speaks to us about you.” Turning to the other woman, “You remember, Catherine, what Gilles– —”
“Yes, I remember, Anne,” she sighed.
Her voice had an uncommon sadness about it, and her face seemed almost unearthly.
Catherine was dressed in a black velvet dress whose high collar touched the chin, and her blond hair was surrounded by a thin gold band, studded with a large emerald.
“We are taking a walk in the garden, Prince. Will you accompany us?” Anne asked.
The only resemblance to her sister was her height and her aquiline nose. She was more heavily built; her hair was black; her lips sensuous; and her eyes, gray and languorous, had nothing spiritual about them. She was dressed in a gown of white silk. About her throat was a necklace of pearls.
“I have read that the women of India possess unusual beauty. Is that true, Prince?” asked Anne.
I answered, “My memory of the women of India has been eclipsed, madame, since I have had the pleasure of seeing the women of France.”
Anne blushed and her eyes closed a little.
‘The eyes of Flower-of-the-Evening,’ I thought. They stirred my slumbering senses.