Kotikokura nodded.
“Before we leave, however, I must send Anne a present.”
I stopped at the next town and hired a messenger to deliver to Anne a box in which I placed a ruby as large as a pigeon’s egg and a letter.
“Wear this, my beautiful one, in the cool valley that separates the two hillocks of passion. Farewell. Cartaphilus.”
“Kotikokura,” I said, “I will have none of God, and I will have none of the Devil. Gods and Devils get along capitally for the reason that the existence of the one depends upon the other. Wherever heaven is, hell is not far off. The Prince of Darkness is also Lucifer, the Lord of Light. Man, however, is destined to suffer whether gods or devils rule. He is the sacrificial goat. From whatever tree he plucks the fruit—whether it grows in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of the Other One—the taste is always ashes.”
LXII: THE CITY OF FLOWERS—LA FESTA DEL GRILLO—THE SANITARY EXPERT—THE INTOXICATION OF KOTIKOKURA—THE ADVENTURE OF TWO YOUTHS
FLOWERS hanging over the tall stone and iron fences; flowers at the windows; flowers in the hair of women, between the lips of merchants selling fish or fruit in the narrow tortuous streets; flowers over the ears of little boys and girls playing in the yards; flowers around the necks of donkeys and horses; flowers sailing over the yellowish waters of the Arno,—a carnival of flowers, an orgy of perfume!
“What an appropriate name for the city, Kotikokura,—Fiorenze—Florence, the City of Flowers.”
Kotikokura plucked several roses and placed them in the ribbon around his headgear.
“Kotikokura, you are the god of Spring.”
He grinned and began to dance.
“And the High Priest of the great god Ca-ta-pha.”
He bowed solemnly before me.
The sun barely showed above the hills, and a grayish fog, thin almost to extinction, rose slowly from the ground. A young shepherd urged his flock to cross the Arno, now almost dry, from one bank to another. An old woman beat a large hog that would not leave his puddle. A few dogs barked and their echoes, like small rocks, beat against the sides of the hills. Two crows dashed by, large worms in their beaks. Several sparrows bathed in the dust, chirping violently.
“Kotikokura, nothing changes. I saw these sparrows and crows and sheep and this old woman more than a thousand years ago. Here they are again! We are all enchanted. Every few centuries, we wake up for a moment, then fall asleep again. Things seem different only because our eyes are unaccustomed to the light.”
Kotikokura offered me a rosebud.
Wagons began to rumble and horses and donkeys and oxen to trot, each producing a different and peculiar harmony. The wagons were bedecked with flowers and ribbons, and filled with tiny cages of all materials—wood, iron, tin, porcelain. Within each cage, a grasshopper, still and motionless, and a small leaf of cabbage or lettuce.
The merchants descended, tied their animals to iron posts, and arranged their merchandise. Other merchants with various goods drove into the square and all along both banks of the Arno, sellers of spice breads, of sweets, of toys, of confetti; a merry-go-round with grotesque animals, turned by a small donkey as sad as a clown; games of chance, cards, dice, hoops to be thrown over iron spikes, wheels that stopped at lucky numbers, here and there an old man or woman selling crosses, candles, and amulets. Beggars led by dogs and playing on flutes or accordions or singing obscene parodies of current, sentimental ditties.
Inn keepers raised the iron shutters of their shops and placed tables and chairs on the sidewalks, shouting all the time to the merchants not to crowd too near their doors.
People, pedestrians, or in carriages, were coming from all directions, singing, laughing, imitating the music of grasshoppers. The sellers shouted the names of their wares, embellished by delectable adjectives, at the top of their voices.
“Buy a grasshopper here! He sings like a bird.”
“Grasshoppers in golden cages.”
“Rare songbirds.”
“Get your spice bread.”
“Confetti! Confetti! Confetti for your sweetheart.”
Children pulling their elders toward the cages; girls in mock refusal to accept the arms of youths; men and women laughing uproariously, blowing horns, shouting the names of friends.
Long before noon, each person was carrying a cage with a grass-hopper, coaxing it to sing. But always the animal remained motionless and still.
“Kotikokura, shall I buy you a ‘grillo’?”
He nodded.
I bought him a cage. He hung it around his neck. We seated ourselves at a table and ordered sweet wine. Kotikokura emptied cup after cup. His eyes glistened and darted to and fro like mechanical things.
A tall man of regal bearing with long blond hair and a flowing beard, dressed in a cloak of red velvet, stood near our table, watching the crowd.
‘Thus Apollonius must have looked in his youth,’ I thought. ‘This is no ordinary son of Adam.’
I rose. “There is a vacant chair at our table. May I ask you to join us, signor?”
He looked at me. His eyes were blue with a glint of gold.
“Thank you.”
He seated himself. Kotikokura filled a cup of wine and offered it to him.
“We are strangers in the city. Could you tell us in what saint’s honor this holiday is given?”
He smiled, “The Florentines are not religious enough to honor a saint. They would rather honor a pagan god—or a grasshopper.”
“Perhaps one ought not to ask the reason for any merrymaking. It is a reason in itself. But it is a human weakness to ask always why.”
“This is ‘la Festa del Grillo’—the Feast of the Grasshopper, for the grasshopper is considered the emblem of summer.”
“It seems to me that the rose or some bird would be a more appropriate symbol.”
“I disagree with you there. The grasshopper is the most fortunate and the most rational of animals. The gods were merry when they created him…!”
Kotikokura refilled our cups.
“Is not man’s life illogical?” the stranger continued. “He spends his youth and early manhood in learning an art or a trade. And when he has at last acquired knowledge and wisdom and perhaps wealth, he is old and undesirable. The young wenches that laugh so gaily and throw confetti into our cups, pass him by or mock him.
“How different is the life of the grasshopper! He begins by being old, so to say, for his early life is devoted to the accumulation of food for his descendants, eating and digesting.
“But what a magnificent dénouement! His last few weeks—corresponding to years in human calculation—are a carnival of love! No food, no cares! Nothing but song, merrymaking and mating! That is why the Florentines, true descendants of the Athenians, make this apparently humble creature the symbol of the richness of summer.”
“Are you a student of nature or a philosopher?” I asked.
“I dabble in many things. My chief interests are scientific. The problem of sewerage engages my attention primarily, but I am also intensely devoted to the study of military machinery.”
“Military machinery?” I must have looked startled.
“Is that so surprising?” the stranger asked, while a gentle smile crept from the corners of his mouth to his eyes.
“Rather. You have the bearings of an artist. I would take you for one of the masters who have made this city a shrine of beauty.”
“I toy with art as well as with science. Man is a fighting animal primarily and man interests me supremely. But his instruments of destruction are always antiquated. I should like to fashion weapons that raise fire and strike the enemy a hundred miles away. I like to build bridges, channels and impenetrable defenses…”
He stroked his beard leisurely.
‘Is it possible?’ I thought. ‘Can Apollonius change thus?’