The two remaining stallions were struggling wearily until, exhausted, one fell, his large tongue licking the great red wound from which oozed a thin stream of blood. The other breathed deeply, shaking his head violently to relieve himself of a heavy mass of foam. The second mare passed by. He neighed, lowered his head as if tossing an imaginary horn intended to pierce a foe. She turned as if attempting to dash away. His teeth caught her mane…
Pope Alexander and his children observed with glistening eyes the performance of the most ancient of cosmic rites. Alexander remained at the casement for some time, then turning to me said, his voice hoarse and trembling, “How beautiful! Alas, the gods have not made man to enjoy himself!”
Tall and grim, the Pope’s secretary entered. “Your Holiness, it is time for Mass.”
“Tell the Cardinal to celebrate Mass today. I am not well.”
“Saint Peter’s is filled with people.”
“I have spoken. Go!”
The secretary retired slowly, lips tightened in a gesture of disgust. At the door, he turned once more and made the sign of the cross.
Alexander smiled sardonically, more Pan than Pope.
I looked at his feet, half expecting to see hoofs under the white satin shoes!
“What strength!” he continued, as if he had never been interrupted. “What a magnificent motion! And the charming coquetry of the mares! How many women are as capable of arousing such passion? What sustaining power! For how many women would we sacrifice our lives…?”
He walked up and down for a few minutes, as if to regain his composure.
“Is what you told me the truth, Count?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“Then—you are now nearly fifteen centuries old.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
He smiled cynically. “Do you feel the burden of the years?”
“No, Your Holiness.”
He remained silent.
“How could you live so long without being seriously ill without being wounded or scarred?”
“I have been ill, and wounded and scarred, Your Holiness.”
“But you always recuperate?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.” His tone had changed considerably. He seemed annoyed at me, either because he was unable to prove that my statements were lies or because if what I said was the truth, I was incomparably his superior. Alexander VI knew he was mortal.
His silence perturbed me. In order to break it, I said: “Your Holiness, once by accident, I cut off part of my small finger. A hundred years later the finger, healing almost imperceptibly, was restored to its former size. I imagine, therefore, that all severed parts would grow back again, if man lived as long as the crocodile and the tortoise, who are well-nigh immortal.”
“You were circumcised as a boy, I take it?” the Pope asked, raising his left eyebrow, and screwing his lips into a cynical smile.
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“Well, has beneficent Nature restored that whereof you were deprived?”
I was startled. It had never occurred to me to think of it.
“No, Your Holiness.”
He laughed.
I smiled.
“I am, after all, the Wandering Jew…”
“This is ingenious, Cartaphilus, but it is not the truth.”
I did not answer.
“Not the truth!” he exclaimed. “Acknowledge it!”
I remained silent.
He rang the bell three times. Almost instantly, three officers stood at the doors with drawn swords.
“Tomorrow, we shall see whether you are telling the truth or a lie. The rack will make you speak if I cannot. Besides, it will prove to you most emphatically whether in reality the beneficent forces of Nature can mend your broken limbs, whether you are indeed the equal of the Crustaceans and the Olympians…”
I rose.
“Holy Father, you are jesting. What will the world say if the Vicar of Christ violates the sanctity of the confessional?”
He rose in his turn and placed his hand upon the diamond studded hilt of a small dagger concealed under his robe. He spoke almost gently. “Alexander VI is not a simpleton like your Armenian Bishop. You know too much for the welfare of Christendom…”
“Holy Father, is this the reward for—?” I pointed to the Holy Grail.
“For that we shall make you a beautiful legend. Cardinals shall read masses to your soul when you are dead—if you are dead—for ninety-nine years. No one may live who has listened to all I have told you.”
“I have learned to forget, Your Holiness.”
“Only the dead forget… Besides,” he continued almost caressingly, “you cannot die.” Turning to the officer: “Surrender this man to the Fathers of the Inquisition. Order them to postpone all other trials until they have wrung a confession from him. My secretary will prepare the details of the indictment at once.”
“Holy Father– —” I pleaded.
“Silence, Jew! You ought not to complain. The Inquisition is an instrument perfected by one of your co-religionists—Thomas de Torquemada.”
The officers approached and surrounded me.
“And by the way,” His Holiness added, “he has a valet who is waiting outside. Tickle him also a little to make him speak.”
The officers smiled.
“But first this man—a Jew and an infidel.”
He motioned with his head and reseated himself. I was pulled away unceremoniously. His Holiness fondled the Holy Grail.
LXV: THE HOLY INQUISITION—UNTAPPED RESERVOIRS—A NUN VISITS ME—“DANCE!”—THE ABBESS OF THE CONVENT OF THE SACRED HEART—SALOME BATTLES AGAINST THE MOON
A LONG room. In the center, upon a platform, a round table. In an angle, a bench, the length of a tall man, at one end a pole, at the other a windlass—a simple thing, almost a toy.
A soldier in back of me, the tip of his sword touching my body. At the rack, a colossal individual stricken with elephantiasis—an enormous face, the color of mud, a nose wrinkled like an elephant’s trunk, crossed with heavy red and blue veins, and ears like two open palms. At the table, three stout individuals dressed in black.
The man in the center reading, reading accusations against me. Jew, blasphemer, mocker of Jesus, the Pope and the Holy Church, enemy of all Christian institutions, false claimant to the French nobility, plunderer of holy relics—reading, reading—
What would be the final judgment? Would I be burned at the stake? Would I become a mass of blisters and raw flesh, unable to live, incapable of death? Would I be ordered to the rack, my members torn from their sockets, my flesh cut into shreds, while consciousness persisted in each writhing nerve? Would I be buried alive, to feed, living, the worm that dieth not?
Should I confess or refute the crimes and sins attributed to me? Which meant less torture?
Never had I been in such imminent danger, not even when the cenaculum of Charlemagne tried me for heresy and bribery. Then, I had a flicker of hope,—the Emperor might remember my services, he needed my drugs to relieve his pain. The Borgias knew neither mercy nor gratitude.
Meanwhile, the man continued reading, reading a strange and new version of the life of Cartaphilus, Wandering Jew, Anti-Christ.
Where was Kotikokura? Was he tried separately? Had he escaped? Had he, like some wild animal, scented the danger awaiting him?
The man read on. Soon he would stop—and then—no, Cartaphilus must not surrender without a struggle! But the soldier’s sword touched my back, and the monstrous individual stood erect beside the rack.
The ring of Antonio and Antonia! The ring! The ring! Why did this word reverberate in my mind?
The ring!
I turned it on my finger. A ray of the sun played upon it. It glittered like a small lamp in a dark cellar. One of the three judges looked at it, fascinated. The ring! The word rose from a great depth, as a bucket rises from a well—heavy and overbrimming.