“What you call feminine intuition is a more sublime form of reason. Woman omits several intermediary steps in the chain of reasoning and arrives at her conclusion more rapidly than man with his clumsy masculine intellect. Bewildered and piqued, man dubs the swift processes of her logical mind—intuition.”
“Salome is subtler than the Holy Father.”
“If the Holy Father had been a woman, he would not have excluded from his reasoning the possibility of your escape. His ‘intuition’ would have been disastrous for you.”
“How well for me, Madre Perfetta, that he is merely a man!”
Salome smiled and caressed my hands. “You must be hungry and thirsty.”
She offered me wines and sweets.
“But tell me explicitly, Salome, what happened? How were you able to rescue me?”
“There is less mystery in this than it seems and much more reason than instinct. I saw you ride through the city as an ancient knight, and if I had not seen you, I would have heard about it. Every one spoke of the strange visitor…”
I rubbed my hands, pleased at my prank, in spite of its aftermath.
“Cartaphilus is a child always, delighted with toys. I understood you desired to attract the attention of His Holiness. I knew a visit to Alexander would not pass without some unpleasantness. Your masculine conceit, intensified by your Jewish propensity for argumentation, would, I was certain, make you boast of matters whose secret only a woman knows how to keep.”
I smiled. “That’s contrary to the world’s opinion. A woman’s tongue– —”
Salome, irritated, interrupted me. “Well, I watched and listened closely. When I saw Kotikokura waiting for you at the gate of the Vatican, I knew that the moment for immediate action had arrived. Bribery discovered for me that you were to be tried as a Jew and a blasphemer. Bribery made it possible for Sister Kotikokura to visit you. Bribery allowed you to escape. Bribery will induce forgetfulness…”
“And the Pope? How is it that he was not present at the trial?”
“He was detained by a French Ambassador who recounted some magnificent anecdotes of intrigue and murder, but Alexander VI would have witnessed your torture. That would have interested him more than the Ambassador’s tales.”
“Salome, you are the Goddess of Wisdom and Beauty!” I knelt before her. She made the sign of the cross above my head.
“Salome, has not the time come for us to travel together? We can protect and comfort each other. Infinity is in sight. The parallel lines of our lives must join at last…”
She shook her head. “I must remain here for years, perhaps for centuries, under one guise or another. This place affords me silence and a sanctuary for meditation and for my experiments. I shall not be free until I liberate my sex from the slavery of the moon…”
I looked, not understanding, although I dimly remembered the remark of Gilles de Retz that Joan of Arc was not a slave of the moon.
“It is the moon’s tyranny that makes woman man’s inferior—the scarlet sacrifice the chaste goddess demands of every woman, whoever she may be—peasant, princess, or abbess. She accepts no scapegoat, she admits no ransom—save age. In pain and discomfiture, every daughter of Eve must pay bloody tribute to the moon’s cold and virginal majesty. Yes, before woman can be man’s equal—or his superior—we must overthrow the governance of the moon…!”
Her voice had an unusual pathos. For the first time, I realized to the full the tragedy of being a woman—the tragedy and the courage. I looked at Salome. Her face had the tenderness of a madonna.
“I understand,” I said.
“What?” Salome asked.
“I had not grasped your image at first, nor its profound significance.”
“Always the ponderous slowness of the male.”
“And…have your experiments been successful?”
“Partially only. I must combat not only a biological law, but woman’s ignorance and her fear. In spite of all I shall conquer! Woman shall be free! Woman shall be man’s equal! Then only will their union be beautiful and perfect; then only shall the love of Cartaphilus and Salome be consummated. No, my friend, I must remain. You, however, must go—and at once.”
“At once?”
She nodded. “This painting of the virgin hides a secret iron door. When it is opened, you will step into a boat always anchored there. Salome is a good general. She plans her retreat as carefully as her advance. The man who drove you here—deaf and dumb, and faithful as a dog—will row you across the Tiber. He will have food and clothing for you. You will be two small merchants traveling through the country. Disappear as quickly as possible from Rome and Italy. The Pope’s spies are already instructed to capture you. You have hurt the vanity of a Borgia, but we shall outwit him. The Borgias are, after all, mere children. Could they live as long as we—what prodigious monsters they might become, or who knows—what prodigious saints! However, we have no time to lose.”
She raised the painting and unlocked the secret door.
“Farewell, Cartaphilus.”
“Since it must be—farewell, Salome.”
We embraced. She opened the door. Was it the setting sun or the magnificence of Salome’s hair which cast the golden reflection upon the water?
We stepped into the boat. Salome made the sign of the cross over us. “God speed.”
The Tiber beat lazily against our boat. The hills opposite were masses of clouds nailed against the sky.
LXVI: DARLINGS OF THE GODS—STIRRING THE ASHES—BIRDS ON THE WING
“KOTIKOKURA, we are indeed the darlings of the gods. I do not know whether we are shielded from torture because of the love they bear us, or more likely—for some sinister ulterior purpose.”
Kotikokura’s eyes glowed with green fire, like an animal’s in the dark.
“Maybe the high gods reward me because I defended my Enemy before his own vicar. I must insist upon his existence, for if he does not exist, I am not even a wraith!”
I remained silent. My last sentence reverberated in my brain and rolled upon my tongue.
“Kotikokura, how strange that I never considered this! If he does not exist, I do not exist either…and you are but the shadow of my dream…”
Kotikokura knitted his brow, not understanding.
“He must exist!”
Kotikokura nodded, unconvinced.
“We are, perhaps, two sides of the same medal,” I remarked, musingly, “and perhaps, for this very reason, we never see eye to eye…but must remain forever incomprehensible to each other.”
Kotikokura rubbed his nose, perplexed. He had never quite grasped my relationship to Jesus. “Some day, perhaps, the metal will melt in the alembic of love or disaster. Some day the two may be one…”
Kotikokura’s eyes darted to and fro.
“But this is mere poetry, no doubt, my friend, induced by my happiness of having escaped from the clutches of the amiable Vicar of Christ. I shall never tempt the Devil—or a Pope—again!”
Kotikokura grinned.
“I yearn to be once more a tranquil water, running securely between its two banks. Let us go beyond the Danube, Kotikokura.
Let us see what the Barbarians have accomplished. Do you remember Ulrica, Kotikokura?”
He nodded.
“What a delightful creature she was! Where is she today? Less than a pinchful of the dust we tread upon; less than the foam that dots the sharp point of a wave in mid-sea; less than the echo of one word uttered between two hills; less than the wind stirred by a butterfly’s wing…”
Kotikokura’s eyes were covered with a thin film.
“The Pope was right: the soul is the daughter of fear. Man disappears utterly like a bird in flight…”
Kotikokura nodded.
“We, too, are transitory, Kotikokura. However long we endure, we shall seem to Eternity only as birds on the wing, lingering awhile over the tops of trees or describing a few wide circles over the surface of a lake, the tips of our wings barely scratching the water…”