Pharaoh's Wife Read online

  “You were asleep; I’ve awakened you by science, for love.”

  The Duchess shivered. “For love! That’s the first time you’ve pronounced that word.”

  “Because you weren’t ready—but don’t mistake me for a vulgar seeker of amorous adventures. The love that I want from you is a love above humanity: not the sensual love that we’ve already experienced but the perfect communion of two elite intelligences reigning at a higher level than the sentimental foolishness of our contemporaries like the sun over our globe. It’s a love that humans have not yet known—a love, in sum, worthy of us.”

  Towering over Diana with his greater stature, the Mage plunged his magnificent gaze into the eyes of the new adept, drowning her with its effluvia. Increasingly drawn toward Ormus, subjugated, she fell at his feet and writhed there in a hysterical crisis.

  Triumphantly, the Mage considered her, extended at his mercy, imploring him. Then he picked her up and laid her on a chaise-longue. Then, moving his hands through the air above her, he concentrated all the fluidic forces of his being.

  “Sleep!” he said. “Sleep, and see!”

  Exhausted and motionless, the Duchess was suspended in a previously-unexperienced bliss. It was a strange sensation akin to the intoxication of opium; it seemed to her that her body no longer existed and that the subtle fluid was floating above her own materiality. Everything around her lost massive form to melt into an iridescent fog.

  Then, slowly—very slowly—a form, vague at first, became more precise. It consisted of two luminous dots, which became the golden eyes of the Mage Ormus…but a mist thickened, and before the entire body of the prophet, an immaterial body formed, undulating and vaporous: a living and visible fluid. It was like a voluptuous wave poured out by those strange irises of living gold.

  Without the Mage ceasing to be visible, the mist brightened gradually; lines stood out, in vivid luminous streaks; the décor took on a more precise aspect.

  And she saw...

  IX. The Three Visions

  Beneath a sky of deep ultramarine, almost violet, scintillating with thousands of stars, a long cortege unfurls between the high columns of an Egyptian palace. On the cedar-wood trusses that support the large slabs of granite forming the roof, the footfalls of another multitude are audible, this one of priests and servants. In accordance with the forbidden rites, they are celebrating the worship of Amon-Ra. Their songs and the muffled noise of zithers and drums reach the depths of the profound corridors.

  In response to a signal, innumerable torches of perfumed wax light up, and at the extremity of an upper gallery, two thrones, set on a black granite pedestal, sparkle with all the gold and jewels that decorate them. One the thrones are two hieratic forms—are they human?—with tiaras on their heads: a hawk for the Pharaoh, a phoenix for the Pharaoh’s wife.

  The cortege files past in silence, depositing at the base of the divine and royal thrones the tithes imposed on everyone. First, between two rows of hoplites armored in bronze, come prisoners of war, chained two by two. As they file past, an Ethiopian giant clad in red and girdled with a triple row of iron scales brands them on the forehead with a red-hot iron. The acrid odor of burnt flesh rises like an incense toward the two monarchs, who do not even blink. Then the prefects of the Empire follow, laden with bags and trays filled with gold and gems or artfully-wrought objects. Then laborers and vine-growers present white staves marked with notches indicating the value of their contributions. The long procession is concluded by embalmers, manufacturers of mortuary bindings and quarrymen working in the hypogea.

  Finally, a monstrous figure appears: a colossal mannequin in which porters are hidden. It represents Amentet, the goddess of Death, a mummy circled with black strips of cloth, on which the goddess’s commandments are traced in red letters. The head, coiffed in a pschent, is that of a she-wolf with flamboyant eyes and a yawning maw. When it arrives in front of the thrones, the mannequin folds up, until the head is level with the Pharaoh’s feet; a tongue emerges, which licks the king’s feet; then the monster goes around the double throne and disappears.

  The crowd is arranged to either side in the galleries. Suddenly, dancers surge forth from behind the altar; the figures engraved on the columns are animated, and mingle with the ballerinas, who then mime the mystery of Isis and Osiris.

  At the height of grandiose spectacle, two hands—those of Ormus—settle on the heads of the Pharaoh and his wife, tipping them backwards. Then the sleeper recognizes, in the Pharaoh, Antal Fodor, and in his wife, her own image. Perfumed clouds rise up among the dancers. The torches pale, and everything is effaced and transformed.

  The Nile unfurls its blue waves beneath a moonlight that tints the obelisks and pylons of the temples of Luxor and Karnak with a pink gleam. Over the river, which resembles a long stream of lily-white mercury, glides a trireme with three ranks of oarsmen. The oars, maneuvered rhythmically, scarcely brush the surface of the waves, which they furrow with flamboyant streaks. A gentle and harmonious music gives rhythm to the oarsmen’s movements.

  From time to time, voices rise up, clearer and more vibrant than the voices of women: the voices of the castrate servants of the temple of Thoth. They are singing a melancholy love-song. Ahead of the frolicsome vessel, an entire procession of swimmers creates the illusion of sirens guiding the ship with silken cords garnished with flowers and foliage.

  The air is embalmed; the entire landscape respires quietude. The river is so broad that both its banks are lost in a roseate mist, from which emerge the vague silhouettes of palm-trees and laurier-roses.

  Who is that woman lying on the deck, almost nude, on a heap of splendid cushions, whose sapphire silk seems to be competing with the waters of the nourishing river? That divinity, rather, for everyone prostrates themselves before her, is Queen Cleopatra, the mistress of the triumvir Mark Antony…and it is Diana Bering.

  Cleopatra, on this night of repose between two orgies, has left the protector of Egypt in Alexandria to take care of affairs of State, and she is going up the Nile, simultaneously soothing her depression and her reverie.

  But a terrible cry causes the indolent woman to start. A swimmer has just been seized by a crocodile, which is dragging its prey away in the midst of a cloud of foam. Interested, Cleopatra watches.

  The frightened swimmers try to climb aboard, but in response to a gesture, the galley’s overseers drive them back with whiplashes. Cleopatra, leaning on her elbow, watches, hoping for a further attack—but silence reigns again.

  The nonchalant woman sighs. A luminous mist surrounds her, in which the golden eyes of the Mage float over Cleopatra, and everything disappears.

  Now, other images:

  Her, still—but this time, clad in ample silks, rigid and brittle. A heavy dalmatic hemmed with broad gold embroidery weighs upon her shoulders; a tiara, aureoled with diamonds, weighs upon her forehead; she is crushed beneath that magnificent pomp. Around her, an entire prostrated court is only waiting for a gesture of her hand to satisfy her slightest desire. Diana Bering recognizes herself again.

  She is in Byzantium, and that immense hall with the columns and the cupola covered with gold-limned paintings is the basilica of Saint Sophia. What is she doing, then, on that platform, isolated by a splendid tapestry from the rest of the church? She has become a Christian. It is a new religion, fraternal and barbaric, in which people quibble over words.

  An old man clad in white has just appeared on an elevated pulpit. He preached, his gestures seemingly menacing. She recalls that it is the patriarch John, who has merited the surname Chrysostom—golden-tongued—and Diana is the divine Eudoxia, the wife of the Emperor Arcadius. She has wanted to hear the preacher, and, with a smile of disdain permanently upon her lips, she is amusing herself greatly to see that old ape, sweating and dusty, fulminating vehemently against her.

  What to the priest’s curses matter to her? Eudoxia has only to lift a finger to crush him. What force he imposes upon her, though! The madman reminds the
nobles of the earth, in his homily, that they are no more before the Eternal than insects crawling in the grass. That poor rhetorical image causes laughter to break out. The insect is him!

  John Chrysostom has heard the insulting laughter, and he pronounces an anathema against Omnipotence. This time, he gets carried away. The Empress rises to hear feet and leaves the cathedral. All the nobles, their servants and their vassals follow her majestic example, attentive to being noticed, in order that the Augusta will know who her faithful followers are.

  And Chrysostom is left in the church alone.

  Outside, in the blinding light, an entire terrorized people acclaims the triumphant woman, who, borne on a magnificent litter, returns to her imperial palace, tried and annoyed. What an idea, to go out in this stifling heat to hear that graybeard criticize her dissolute mores!

  Oof! She is back inside; she is free. Finally relieved of her sumptuous vestments, naked, sprawling on a silken bed, she sends for ballerinas and actors. But someone with a pale face, drags himself languidly toward her couch, supported by a vigorous soldier. It is the Emperor Arcadius, the Iberian, come to exhaust his last strength in an orgy.

  She looks at him, and sees that livid mask gradually brighten, the dull, dead eyes animate and shine. But why has her adversary, that John Chrysostom, come to disturb the feast, to thunder once again against the new Herodias, the new Jezebel? And why does Chrysostom himself evoke, in this vision, the venerable Adsum, who she only knows as yet through the words of the Mage she loves—Adsum, whose eyes are resplendent and whose mouth is full of invective?

  X. A Patrician Household

  Someone knocked gently on the door of the boudoir. Mary O’Brien came in.

  “It’s me, dear. I’ve come from New York. I’ve seen Pytor, and I’m bringing the first article.”

  “Ah,” said the Duchess, getting up. As if to bring herself back to reality, she made a few swift tours of the room.

  “What’s the matter? You were asleep—did I wake you up?”

  “No, I was just daydreaming. Let’s see the article.” She scanned the newspaper rapidly. “Very good! Very good! It’s written by a man convinced of the truth. The Mage will be satisfied.”

  “I ran into the Duke. He wants to see you.”

  The Duchess frowned. After a moment, reflection, however, she said: “Well, let him in, Mary—but you can stay. I need to talk to you, and the Duke won’t be here long.”

  The Irishwoman went out and came back with the Duke. The fumes of the wine having dissipated, his face was a trifle shriveled, his complexion paler and his nose redder, but there was no other trace of drunkenness. He kissed his wife’s hand and let himself fall into an armchair. Mary had retired to a corner and picked up a book. Unconstrained and alert, the Duke did not appear to have retained any memory of what had been said in Antal Fodor’s presence.

  “I believe, my dear, that given our social situation, we ought to begin the season and hold the first party. What do you say to a big dinner followed by a costumed ball? Something in the spirit of the day—naturalism, exceedingly realistic. For example, burglars and hotel-thieves, all in black, and morphine addicts. It would be amusing, for millionaires, to dress up as riff-raff.”

  “No, ridiculous. Can you see me as a hotel-thief or a low-class prostitute?”

  “Do you have another idea?”

  “Yes—a party in the style of the Pharaoh Tut-Ankh-Amun.”

  Rutland concealed a grimace. “Bravo! That’s a good idea—but that epoch requires a rather complicated decoration.”

  “Your collaboration would not be unwelcome.”

  “At your orders, my darling. You know that I’m always eager to be agreeable to you. Some years ago, Shakespeare and I went to an antique fête organized in Paris by the Quat’z’Arts. In that masked ball—a reconstitution in accordance with a book, L’Orgie Latine14—Messalina appeared stark naked, on a litter borne by gladiators, acclaimed by senators, tribunes, Roman soldiers, Gauls, Greeks, Libyans and Parthians. There was Emperor Claudius, misshapen and stammering, the Consul Silius, the Empress’s favorite, animal-tamers of all sorts, and courtesans as naked as roses. It was delightful!”

  “Mine will be even better—although I won’t be dressed like your Messalina.”

  “Oh, you’d look very good in the nude.”

  “You flatter me. I hope that we’ll be ready for early December. You can advertise the party, so that everyone can prepare their costumes. Send William to me. He ought to have some good advice for that sort of party.”

  “Don’t worry, the rascal’s competent. You don’t have any special instructions for me?”

  “No, I’ll leave it to you—I have to talk to Mary.”

  The Duke got up, kissed his wife’s hand again and left, reassured, for the moment, on the subject of the separation. “Bah! One doesn’t renounce being the Duchess of Rutland just like that.”

  And with that armistice, the Duke of Rutland rejoined the joyful Shakespeare in the forbidden bar.

  XI. Between Two Mages

  The installation of Adsum and Ormus at Redge House took place discreetly. With the support of abundant dollars, the fitting out of the various rooms was organized very rapidly. In two weeks, the laboratory, the scientific instruments and the observatory were in place and ready for use. In the offices, four stenographers were relentlessly typing the propaganda of the new religion, the Flower of Truth.

  The Mage Ormus and Diana animated all this activity, and in between times, occupied themselves with the preparations for the party. A feverish movement, therefore, reigned throughout the house. Only Adsum worked apart, not involving himself with the party or the publicity. He was not inactive, however; he was the inexhaustible spring from which Antal Fodor extracted the documentation of the new faith.

  The Father arrived at Redge House by night, not wanting to compromise his prestige by donning a modern costume. The first time Diana saw him, he was clad in his ample white robe, his long hair contained within a golden circlet; she had the impression of being confronted by a kind of Merlin, unvictimized by any Viviane.

  The old man assessed the billionairess with a single glance. He understood immediately the use that he and his pupil could make of her. Not that he judged Diana Bering to be a fool—far from it. In the environment in which she had lived, however, the complete satisfaction of all her whims, thanks to the great god Dollar, had given her an exceptional ennui.

  Diana was not vain—vanity does not exist in the United States—but a kind of indifference to enjoyment rendered her immense fortune worthless, and satiety brings disgust. It is a kind of justice that those for whom everything is possible no longer desire anything. It was, therefore, very fortunate for that idler without an appetite for anything to have encountered the two mages. In orientating hr mind toward a new world, they were restoring a mental activity to her life, which, by virtue of lassitude, had been lacking for a long time.

  Psychic contact with the handsome Mage awoke previously unknown sensations in the woman. It is not in vain that one suggests to a woman that she has been the wife of a Pharaoh, Cleopatra and Eudoxia—which is to say, the triumph of Oriental luxury. The beautiful female animal that Diana was excited herself with an equivocal lust; it required all the imposing coldness of Ormus for the American woman not to have thrown herself into his arms as yet.

  The two mages reasoned soundly in fearing that the woman’s sexual intoxication might harm her mystical initiation. Sometimes, Ormus too sensed desire heating up his young loins, but the habit he had contracted among the fakirs of taming the beast in order to arrive at spiritual concentration permitted him to resist temptation.

  Adsum said to his adept: “It’s absolutely necessary that the woman’s mind should be ours. Afterwards, the body will come, without too much risk to our plans—and then again, men of our worth ought not to be vulgar prostitutes. It’s necessary that the billions should be the common property of the three of us, without desire on our part or r
egret on hers.

  The Duchess addressed Ormus as “my Master” and Adsum as “my Father”—a nuance that indicated the veneration inspired by the two scientists.

  All three came together in the immense room converted into a laboratory of the psychic sciences; sprawled in comfortable rocking chairs, they swayed gently, while the Father explained the fundamentals of universal life to Diana.

  “Since human thought has abandoned religious mythologies in order to search for scientific realities, people, moved by their curiosity to know, their need to penetrate the great mystery, have launched forth into hypotheses as fantastic as the priests’ absurdities. The pride people feel in being among the beings—the only ones, they believe—able to transmit thought and to exercise judgment on what they see, carries them away and makes them overshoot the target. We are ignorant with regard to the formation of worlds and our minds are not yet sufficiently developed to comprehend that enigma.

  “Why are these millions of Suns traveling through the universe, dragging with them other worlds of invisible planets? Why, on these wandering globes, are there innumerable humankinds, which are doubtless different from ours? Why that exuberance of lives, replicated on the surface of every heavenly body? Science has suppressed the divinity because of the impossibility of comprehending it. Certainly, the gods of human creation do not stand up to sane judgment; they reflect the faults and vices of the creature too accurately; the scant virtue with which humans have endowed them renders them useless, and even injurious, to humankind. Is it necessary, for that reason, to deny all creative intelligence? It is a serious matter. Does it or does it not exist?

  “When we see so many marvels around us, so much animal humanity around our individual humanity, it is permissible to doubt that it is merely the result of physical laws. And if it were, that would prove nothing, since he laws similarly demand an inventor. It required millions of centuries for humans, the latest stage of terrestrial humanity, to begin to suspect a little of the truth. What does the future have in store for us? Before the death of the Earth, will the superhuman appear? That is what we dare not affirm, but that is what it is our duty to attempt. Failure is possible, for we know that other civilizations have collapsed without the superhuman appearing.