Pharaoh's Wife Read online

  “Illustrious Pharaoh,” said Shakespeare, “you’re not unaware that intelligence and ineptitude are contagious and can be caught, like diseases. In consequence, it’s necessary to be careful of the company one keeps. My excellent friend, doubtless for that reason, is afraid of your contact; he’s afraid of contagion.”

  “Explain yourself clearly, Duke,” said Ormus. “I’ll answer you in the same way.”

  The Duke bit the bullet. “I can’t see without a certain dread the influence that you’ve obtained over the Duchess of Rutland. Before your arrival in New York she already had an excessive taste for the fantastic, occultism, spiritualism and all those more-or-less charlatanesque practices. Between ourselves, all that phantasmagoria, in which you excel, proves that you have astonishing erudition, and I must admit that I’ve taken a great interest in it myself, after the fashion of someone at a performance or a lecture—but this psychic prestidigitation has gone on long enough. In wanting to install all your apparatus of sorcery here, the Duchess has overstepped the mark. Your presence has become, for me tranquility, I won’t say a danger, but a reason for anxiety. How much do you want to continue your propaganda elsewhere? A million? What do you say, eh? Is that enough?”

  “No,” said the Mage, coldly. “I’m worth more than that. Returning frankness for frankness, I’m not going. My life is here; I’m the true master of the situation here. In the course of past times, the Duchess has already belonged to me several times. These unions create a bond between us that I have no intention of breaking. Your wife feels the same. She must belong to me again; I shall be her husband again.”

  “That’s a bit stiff! Damnable Mage! What about me?”

  “The Duchess can divorce you if she wishes. Personally, I’m a partisan of free union, and I have no fear of a change of ideas. What does it matter to you? Diana Bering bought your name. If she keeps it, she’ll pay you for the rent. If she divorces you, she’ll give you a pension sufficient for you to live well, and as you please.”

  “As you like it!” added Shakespeare.

  “Enough joking! You’re an adventurer of considerable scope and astonishing allure, I agree—but the farce is over, and I’ll go to the law if I must.”

  The Mage smiled disdainfully. “Poor fellow! You can do whatever I wish.” His gaze imposed a superior will on his victim. “You dare to defy me—me, who can make you a being devoid of personality! Me, who can, for example, suggest to you the idea of suicide! Me, who can knead you like soft wax! Dare, then—dare!”

  Rutland struggled momentarily under the dominating gaze of the Mage Ormus.

  William watched the scene with amazed bewilderment. “My God!” he muttered. “There’s a specimen that’s out of the ordinary! Come on, old chap; dig your heels in. Have a drink—that’ll do the trick.”

  Antal Fodor’s gaze quit the Duke and fixed upon the fat parasite.

  “All right! All right!” grunted the obese individual, letting himself fall back on to the divan. “After all, the quarrel doesn’t concern me. Settle it however you want.”

  Ormus picked up his glass and took a long sip. “Do you understand?” he said. “A large pension for you and a free hand for me.”

  The Duke shook himself. “You’re too strong for me—it’ll depend on the Duchess. A large pension and liberty? After all, I’m beginning to get tired of American democracy. What do you say, Will?”

  “Nature forms strange fellows when the mood takes her, and Sir is one of them. Let’s leave it. I accept the world for what it is: a theater where everyone has to play his role. Ours, for the moment, is passive—but with lots of cash, that’s okay!”

  “Let the Duchess do as she wishes, then,” Ormus concluded. “She’ll tell you herself what course to follow.”

  After a discreet knock, the lacquered door, over which the branches and flowers of a Japanese cherry-tree flowed, slid aside and disappeared. Diana came into the bar with the stride of Semiramis.

  “So, gentlemen, I’ve driven you to this. What are you doing with my Mage?”

  She rang, and ordered a syrup. The Mage, sensing that the situation was tense and resolved to burn his boat, turned to her.

  “Madame,” she said. “We were talking about you…and me. Annoyed by my daily presence, the Duke of Rutland has offered me a million to leave the United States.”

  Diana frowned, and favored her husband with an Olympian stare. “Really? And with what money would George Manners, Duke of Rutland, pay for that expulsion? Not with his own, for he has none. What did you reply?”

  “That I had rights anterior to his. That you have been mine three times in the course of the centuries. The first time was when I was the Pharaoh Tut-Ankh-Amun and I seated you on one of the most ancient thrones in the world. The second time was when I was the triumvir Mark Antony and you were the divine Cleopatra. The third time, in Byzantium, was when you were the dazzling Empress Eudoxia.”

  The Duchess, flattered, smiled at Antal Fodor and held out her hand to him. With an infinitely regal gesture, Ormus raised it to his lips.

  The Duke, however, said sarcastically: “At any rate, my dear sir, “Nathan Bering’s daughter is now the Duchess of Rutland. It would be a comedown to become the wife of an adventurer without a name or resources.”

  “I have more of them than you, as you can see.”

  “Evidently,” said the Duchess, “the mage Ormus has titles anterior to yours, my dear. He has been a Pharaoh, a king and a god.”

  Rutland laughed sardonically. “In those times, people worshiped beasts: a sacred crocodile or a sacred bull, or simply the ox Apis.”

  “Whose horns you wear, my dear spouse; add them to the foreground of your coat-of-arms.”

  Shakespeare intervened in order to deflect the overly sharp banter. “Personally, I admire that succession of illustrious human lives. However, if there’s an immanent justice, those great crowned criminals and historic courtesans would be more deserving of psychic regression and ought not to excite the least vanity.”

  Antal Fodor released the straw through which he was sipping his cocktail. “There is only intellectual supremacy when one has succeeded, and the beauty of an action, affirmed by its success, covers by the grandeur of the accomplishment any harm it might do to the vulgar.”

  “A singular morality!”

  “Morality is for the herd. The men and women of the elite are above morality and virtue. What are virtues? What are vices? The former are screens behind which the latter live. Doubtless, behind human genius, there is always stupidity. The title of Duke counts for nothing in the universal life and my ancient rank of Pharaoh or triumvir is worth less than the brain of a Shakespeare—not this one—a Balzac or a Victor Hugo.”

  “Which doesn’t alter the fact,” said stout Will, “that privileges have the supreme advantage of allowing those who possess them to live well. Personally, I only claim for an ancestor William Shakespeare, of whose dramas and comedies, it appears, my friend Rutland was the author. If that hypothesis is correct, he did the work, and I got the glory.”

  “Reassure yourself,” the Mage said, in a bantering tone. “It was not a Duke of Rutland that breathed his genius into Shakespeare. For want of imagination, certain literary men, incapable of creating, content themselves with research and slanders, in which they are duped by their own incapacity.”

  That was the last straw. Excited, in any case, by the cocktails, which he had frequently renewed, the Duke took umbrage.

  “You’re overstepping the mark, Mage Ormus. Go to the Devil! Antony or Pharaoh, but the conquistador Antal Fodor today, you want to cast me side conclusively. What! You’re denying my ancestor, Roger Manners, Duke of Rutland, his work of genius! I’m finally in revolt. Am I quibbling about your ancient incarnations, or even your sorcerer’s trickery and intrigue, which you’re using for the conquest of a modern golden fleece? But I won’t give up my place to you.”

  “That’s enough!” the Duchess interjected. “I’ll be the sole judge of
that. The day when it pleases me to reclaim my liberty—which I never lost—I’ll set the price, and, gentleman that you are, you’ll accept my conditions.”

  These words had the effect on the Duke of a cold shower. He emptied his glass and lit a cigarette.

  “Excuse me,” he said, resuming his mocking tone. “I believe that I’ve been taking this buffoonery to seriously. You’re right to remind me, my dear. You alone are mistress here, thanks to the god Dollar, and I’m merely your very obedient servant. But tell me, my dear astrologer—if the daughter of Nathan Bering has such a fine sequence in incarnations, can you not enlighten me as to mine?”

  Antal Fodor smiled. “No. You’d think that I was exercising bias.”

  “That doesn’t augur anything good. What do you think, Will?”

  “I think that all these cocktails aren’t as good as a fine bottle. There’s the only true nobility! Away with your antique blazons! Only wine has a respectable antiquity.”

  “Hey now,” mocked the Duke, “Don’t speak ill of my blazon—it’s thanks to that that we’re both here. So, Mage Ormus, what eccentricities are there in my anterior incarnations?”

  Ormus became momentarily thoughtful. “I can see nothing before the year 1400 of the present era. At that time you were Siwas, an ostler to Macduff, Thane of Glamis. Then one of Lord Talbot’s men-at-arms. Afterwards, a barber to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Then one of Queen Anne’s cooks. In brief, insignificant individuals. Finally, what you are now.”

  “That’s odd,” Shakespeare remarked. “It appears that the spirit doesn’t lose its nationality. So you, Mage, have scarcely quit the Orient, and my friend Rutland has remained in Great Britain all the time.”

  “That’s because the soul, on emerging from the body, experiences a very comprehensible fear on sensing itself lost in infinity. Then it returns to Earth and reincarnates preferentially in the country in which it’s accustomed to living.”

  “Come, savant Ormus,” said the Duchess, getting to her feet. “Since the Duke doesn’t seem to be disposed to occupy himself with you, let’s go visit your new apartment and see about the necessary changes.”

  The Duke got up in order to see Diana out, but he tottered and fell back drunkenly into his armchair. The Duchess, after a scornful glance at her husband, beckoned to the Mage to follow her. As she went past the Duke she put her hand on Ormus’ shoulder and said:

  “The wife of the Pharaoh Tut-Ankh-Amun, king and god!”

  VII. The Philosophy of Sir John Falstaff

  Left alone, the two friends looked at one another silently.

  “Well, old chap,” said Shakespeare, finally, “I think we’re checkmated.”

  “Nothing to be done against that fellow. Did you see? He tamed me like a puppy. It’s vexing, all the same, that our will-power escapes us under the influence of another that’s superior.”

  “That’s why I didn’t persist. He’d have been capable of making me drink water by telling me that it’s wine. Pooh!” He rang for the barman, who came in immediately. “A bottle of old port! Come on, George let’s have a drink. With this triumphant wine, I’ll recover, along with my philosophy of old, my true personality. It’s really me who was Shakespeare! Let’s drink, damn it!

  “Good wine has a double effect. It goes to your head, and dries up all the foolish, stupid and acrid vapors that surround it, renders it sagacious, inventive, full of light, ardent, delectable conceptions, which, transmitted to the tongue, become excellent speeches. The second quality of wine is to reheat the blood, which, cold and sluggish before, left the liver white and pale, which is the symptom of cowardice...

  “If you’d had a bottle of this venerable port in your belly, instead of those ignoble cocktails, you’d have stood up to that accursed Mage—may the Devil take him! But no—I think that one’s capable of cheating the Devil...

  “Come on, old chap, let’s drink! That animal’s put ice in my blood. Drink! Wine will reheat our interior blood and send it flowing to our extremities, illuminating the face and, like a vivifying fire, giving strength to that entire petty kingdom: the human being.

  “Philosophy, my dear friend, is a gold mine guarded by a demon, until wine exploits it and puts it in circulation. Ah! I can feel myself becoming myself again. Here’s to you, Roger, to your glory! Drink!”

  “Drink!” repeated the Duke, mechanically. “Drink! But why are you calling me Roger?”

  “I see you with that forename, Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland. Don’t you recognize your old Will?”

  “I’d more likely have taken you for that old rogue Falstaff.”

  “Drink! It will clarify the chaos of ideas for us. The Mage is right. Am I what I appear to be, or am I what I have been? Is it you, Rutland, or me, who is Shakespeare? Why do you claim to have written my plays? It was me, damn it! It’s not right that, because you’re a gentleman, you can steal my genius.”

  “Shakespeare!” howled the Duke. “To be or not to be! It’s all the same to me. I want my wife!”

  “Your wife! Are you mad? Why drag Diana into it? Shame on the man who, with a bottle in front of him, thinks about a woman!”

  “Diana!” whimpered the Duke. “I’m used to her. I think I love her—yes, I love her…or rather, I adore her. You hear, Will, I adore her!”

  Shakespeare burst out laughing. “Idiot! Do you know what it is to love? I know, me, because I’m a poet. You, love! Poor fool! Poor child!”

  “Yes, I know it better than you, wine-bag! Gourd! Barrel! Hogshead!”

  “That’s all you can find, when you’re drinking admirable wine? You’re unworthy. You ought to be condemned to drink water. Here, listen and blush with shame. To Love…damn it! My throat’s dry and my brain’s feeling the effect.” He rang. “Fill that up, my old Guild, and listen—you too. Do you know what it is to love? Pour!”

  He drank, and remained pensive momentarily.

  “To love…to love…is to purchase disdain with tears, modest gazes with heart-rending sighs, a moment’s ephemeral joy with twenty nights of sleeplessness and fatigue. In case of conquest, your success will probably be a misfortune; in case of failure, a painful suffering. What’s certain is that folly is acquired at the price of reason, or reason vanquished by folly. Well, now, old Guild, go away! You know enough. In your turn, George, what do you say to love?”

  “I don’t care about love and women. Men have died in all times, but never because of love.”

  “That’s probably true. At any rate, exceptions are rare. To you! Let’s leave love to adolescents. Perhaps I’ve loved—yes, I must have loved...but it was so long ago!”

  “Listen! Love is…is... Damn, I had a really profound thought, and pfft!”

  “Have a drink! It’ll come back. Look, here’s your idea. It fell into my glass and drowned. I’ll absorb it and it’ll spring forth again, as alive and beautiful as antique Venus. Love is the gem and the gum of youth; it has to pour out, or one dies of it. Love is something seductive, tender, subtle, imponderable, a frisson of hope and anxiety; it’s the exuberance of sap that rises and buds, then flowers and asks no more than to bear fruit. But love ought to remain in flower, for the fruits of love are children, and children…aren’t always amusing. To your health, William…no, that’s me, William. No matter. To you!”

  “My old Will,” stammered George, “you, at least will still be mine, won’t you? You’ll never leave me, William? My old Shakespeare, you’re a sage.”

  “Not so stupid! Fool I am and fool I shall remain. The role of fool belongs to me, and may the wrinkles of old age give me the strength to laugh. I’m big and fat, but what the hell! Why should a fool with blood in his veins be like a grandfather carved in alabaster? Listen, Rutland—your wife’s crazy about this Mage. We’ll give up on this New World, which is too pure and too dry for us. Long live Old England! Vive la France! Viva Italia! People know how to live back there. It’s time, you see. I’m beginning to get then, and what’s worse, to get bitter. Embrace Shakesp
eare, wretched Rutland! There’s nothing worth more than intimate friends, like us.”

  They hugged one another and, falling on to the carpet, the two drunks went to sleep in one another’s arms.

  “Love! A word! A word!” snored the Duke, in a dream.

  “Drink up!” Shakespeare replied.

  VIII. The Empery of the Mage

  Preceding Antal Fodor, the Duchess led him to the south wing of Redge House and, assuring him of his possession of it, made a note of the work that had to be done. The Mage took advantage of the opportunity to talk about his master, Adsum.

  “That superior old man is my spiritual father. He’s my veritable initiator, and almost supernatural intelligence.”

  “Truly? I’m eager to make his acquaintance.”

  “I met him six years ago. It was in India, where I was undertaking studies in the origin of religion and the methods used by Yogis to obtain the marvelous results of their prodigies, which are merely a kind of autosuggestion. Adsum revealed in my brain the memory of past incarnations and revealed the mystery of universal life to me.”

  “What might we not do, the three of us?” cried the Duchess, enthused. “I want to have both of you with me. Draw up a list of all the scientific instruments you need. You mustn’t lack anything. You can install a conference-room and a vast laboratory of chemistry and physics on the ground floor, the different services necessary to the propaganda of our religion, the Flower of Truth, on the first floor, and your apartments and an observatory on the second. Don’t worry about the expense—I’ll take care of everything, and you’ll have the right to my gratitude, for I feel that I’ve revived since I’ve known you. It seems that the anterior life that you’ve revealed to me has swollen and filled my being with an exuberant vitality.”