Pharaoh's Wife Page 9

  “I thirst—therefore, I am!”

  “Let’s drink, then, William. You can see that I’m drunk, but you can’t see that I’m thirsty.”

  The two fantasists drew away. Then Edison and Adsum saw that Charlie had hung a gigantic gilded cardboard question mark on Shakespeare’s back, and as they went away, he tapped William’s back with his cane, repeating: “To be or not to be, that is the question...”

  Edison, being hard of hearing and not up to date with literary matters, asked the bearded Mage in the white robe what the significance of Charlie’s clowning was.

  “A humorous allusion,” replied the high priest of Helios. “Erudite people claim that Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland, was the true author of Shakespeare’s works, and Charlie is amusing himself on that drunkard’s back.”

  “And what do you think about that erudite confusion, my dear Master?”

  “That the English nobility would be glad to pass off the work of the plebeian Shakespeare as the work of a gentleman.”

  “True glories always emerge from the people,” said Thomas Edison.

  XVI. The Day After the Fête

  Daybreak, that cruel enemy of masquerades, had brought an end to the antique splendors. Beneath the rays of the rising sun, the panoramas and the simulated colonnades lost much of their grandiose aspect. Automobiles had carried away the guests, who, on emerging from the pomp of an Egyptian fête, encountered the glacial temperature of a December day outside.

  One man, however, was still wandering in the hothouse, all alone, like Hamlet in the cemetery of Elsinore. William Shakespeare, after having put his new friend, Charlie Chaplin, in his Ford, and still a trifle drunk, was indulging in a monologue amid the deserted Egyptian setting. In Redge House, everyone was still asleep.

  “How fortunes change! Yesterday, master of the house, today, I think my friend George is swinging in the wind. That’s not what worries me—the Duchess will be generous—but I was like a pet cat here, attached to the household...”

  “Mr. Shakespeare!” called the fresh and clear voice of a young woman.

  “Over here, Ketty. Over here! What do you want, my blonde cherub? Do you need a bed-companion!”

  “Get away, Mr. William! What do you take me for?”

  “If I take you, charming Ketty, it will surely be for myself.”

  “Hark at you, the gallant beau! More apt to kiss a bottle than a girl.”

  “The former prepares for the latter, my beauty. A water-drinker is a paltry lover!”

  “I’ve been looking for you for half an hour.”

  “It’s the first time that a fair maiden has ever been so persistent. Well, here I am, entirely ready to oblige you.”

  “It’s not on my own account. Milady wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ll follow you—or rather, let’s go together.” And the gallant fellow put his arm around the maidservant’s waist, and stole a kiss on the back of the neck.

  “I’ll forgive you, because you’re a bit cracked.”

  “Lovers and madmen, my beauty, have seething brains. Like poets, they’re full of imagination, and that imagination creates an artificial world.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That I think you’re more beautiful and more inebriating than Venus.”

  “Personally, having less wit, I see you as Silenus.”

  Bantering thus, they had gone into the house, and Ketty, the dainty blonde, introduced stout William into the Duchess’s apartment.

  Clad in a delightful dressing-gown, the Duchess was stretched out on a divan. Exhausted by the fatigue of the night, Diana had not been able to close her eyes. So, having decided to put an end to her irresolution, she had sent for Shakespeare, as the worthiest intermediary between her and her husband. Ormus’ kiss had chased away all hesitation. To continue playing a hypocritical role beside a man she despised, in order to live a life of worldly dissimulation, was too rude a task for the proud American woman. The welcome given to Fodor by her compatriots had made her understand that in their eyes, the Mage, adventurer as he was, counted as one of them. He was the conqueror of a fortune—by an original means, but all was fair in business.

  Why hide, then? Was not the daughter of Nathan Bering, by virtue of her billions, above all convention? Did she not have every right? She had paid dearly for the title of Duchess and she would keep it, but she would dispense in future with a worldly constraint that lowered her in her own estimation.

  “You must have slept very well, Master William, if it took you so long to answer my summons?”

  “Far from it, Milady. I haven’t closed my eyes. I was walking in a melancholy fashion, regretting that every feast comes to an end, and that it’s necessary for us to resume the roles assigned by destiny.”

  “Are you speaking for yourself? Are you not, today as yesterday, William Shakespeare?”

  “Which is to say, the shadow, the burlesque phantom of a great man.”

  “There are many who are even less. But I haven’t brought you here to philosophize. It’s as the Duke of Rutland’s intimate friend that I want to speak to you, because I think you’re the person best placed to get him to submit to my wishes, with suitable arrangements, in order not to offend his dignity.”

  “I anticipate what you’re going to say, Milady—it’s a matter of a separation.”

  “You said it. You saw what happened last night. Well, I love the Mage Ormus. A clandestine liaison is not for a woman like me. I’m taking back my liberty, no more and no less; the Duke will do the same, and that will be that. I thought at first about divorce, but in that case, the Duke would be left in poverty. An amicable separation will permit me to give him a pension. What do you think of five hundred dollars a month?”

  “Is it as a representative of the Duke that I’m to consider that offer?”

  “Certainly, for I know that he’ll ask your advice.”

  “Then round out the sum, Milady. Say two thousand dollars, or twenty-five thousand a year, and George will be able to maintain his status.”

  “All right—and I’ll throw in a thousand dollars a quarter for pocket-money for a certain William Shakespeare, so long as he stays with his friend. That, my dear William, is because I know that, although debauched, you’re an intelligent man, and that so long as you’re the Duke’s mentor, he won’t fall into base degradation.”

  “You flatter me, Milady. Be certain that, for as long as George wishes it, I’ll be his most devoted friend. Similarly, I dare to say humbly that I’m yours.”

  “Thank you. By what I’ve just said to you, I’ve proved my esteem for you—so go and fulfill your mission. I hope that you’ll do so honorably.”

  William kissed the Duchess’s hand and went back to the Duke of Rutland’s apartment.

  The aristocrat had just woken up, his head heavy and his mouth wooden. He made an effort to recall the events of the previous evening, the Egyptian fête, and his wife in Ormus’ arms. The memory was a trifle vague. On seeing William come in, the Duke, who had a bad headache, recalled that Shakespeare had been with him when he had surprised his wife.

  “Damn!” he said. “You’ve arrived just in time. You can tell me whether or not I was dreaming.”

  “You weren’t dreaming. If you’re not a cuckold, it won’t be long. Old chap, you see me in the role of ambassador.”

  “I can guess from whom.”

  “The Duchess thought that the blow might be less hard coming from me.”

  “How much is she offering?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars a year. With that, one can show one’s face in London or Paris.”

  “Then we’re resuming the life of old, my old Will? Damned if I’ll miss the United States. Do you recall our last year in Paris?”

  “Yes—life was becoming difficult.”

  The two friends remembered the existence they had once led, when the Duke had almost reached the end of his resources, when usurers counting on his name and title had made him s
ign for loans at a hundred per cent interest. Finally, Aaron Lermmerfeld had unearthed him a rich heiress: Diana Bering, whose father, in his vanity as a billionaire, had bought her a noble title, as he might have bought her a string of pearls or a diamond necklace. The Duke had been forty then, with a physique as dilapidated as his fortune. Diana had only been nineteen, but, accustomed to giving orders and satisfying all her whims, she had acquired a natural authority that the Duke had never attempted to challenge.

  Provided that he had social status and money in his pocket, he had left her absolute free to do exactly as she wished. In that fashion he had traveled the world, taking the inseparable Shakespeare with him. The latter’s wit and whimsy allowed him to tolerate the Duke, who, without being a fool, was somewhat lacking in a sense of humor and spontaneity.

  The Duke’s allusion to his bachelor life reminded William of those days, long forgotten, but which had also been days of youth and facile pleasures. This time, they could see Europe again without the inconveniences of old, and live, in total freedom, the costly lives of those favored by fortune.

  “Where shall we go?” Shakespeare asked.

  “The season recommends the Côte d’Azur in France, or Biarritz. Has the Duchess fixed the day of departure?”

  “No, but the sooner the better, I think. A Fabre Line steamer is leaving tomorrow.”

  “Well then, we leave tomorrow! Oh, my poor old chap, I was scared that she might want a divorce.”

  “There’s no danger of that. Your wife paid dearly for the title of Duchess, and she’ll hand on to it. When her infatuation for the Mage has deflated, she’ll be quite glad to be the Duchess, as before. She’s very keen to be Pharaoh’s wife, but she knows that the title isn’t in the Gotha.”

  “You don’t think the adventurer will try to marry her?”

  “I don’t think so. Alongside the Mage there’s the illuminatus Adsum. He won’t let Ormus get his hands on the fortune alone. Then again, there’s something of a Calvin or a Loyola in that old codger, and I don’t believe he’s ruthless or hypocritical.”

  “In sum, we have estimable adversaries. I like their doctrines; it’s a pity that...”

  “Their chief has made you a cuckold. Confess that he’s very handsome and well placed to flatter the imagination with his charlatanry.”

  “Love doesn’t see with the eyes, but with the imagination. That’s why the god Cupid is represented as blind. Love doesn’t always have good taste or judgment. Wings, but not eyes! That’s the emblem of its scatterbrained vanity. And it’s said that love is a child, because it’s so often mistaken in its choice that it perjures itself all over the place.”

  “Bravo, George! Cuckoldry has given you philosophical ideas. Let’s be glad, then, that we won’t grow old in dry America.”

  XVII. Departed, Cuckolded and Content

  Diana ostentatiously accompanied the Duke of Rutland and his rather solid shadow, the inseparable Shakespeare, aboard the transatlantic liner. So far as everyone else was concerned, the Duke was leaving for Europe to attend to a matter of succession. Thus, appearances—which are sufficient for society—were saved, and the separation could be final. For the billionaires of Fifth Avenue and Long Island, all those who had been present at the great Egyptian fête, there was no doubt as to the truth, but they knew Diana well enough not to spread any slander, and they all accepted a convention invoked without shocking anyone.

  On returning to Redge House, Diana immediately went to see the two thaumaturges.

  Without really being conscious of it, she hoped to find the Mage Ormus alone, and to resume the conversation interrupted by her husband’s untimely arrival. Ormus’ kiss had awakened a desire in the Duchess entirely other than that of studying psychic phenomena. At Diana’s age, a woman in the plenitude of her vitality; there is a recrudescence of sensuality within her; mysticism, which is often no more than unslaked desire, gives way to amour, all the more violently if there is no reason to restrain it.

  Ormus had told Adsum what had happened between Diana and himself, and that had occasioned a long discussion between them. The old man would have preferred to have an entirely chaste adept in the Duchess, a spirit as pure as himself and as he had hoped that Ormus would be, but his disciple, while understanding that carnal pleasure was a distraction from his goal, felt passions rising within him that he had only resisted previously by virtue of his desire to raise himself to his master’s level by a complete renunciation of material satisfaction.

  Adsum knew from his own experience how difficult it is for a man in the fullness of his strength to resist natural laws. In his youth, he too had made sacrifices to pleasure; but the love of science had taken precedence over the science of love, and he had wrought a voluntary devastation upon himself that put him beyond temptation. He had not dared to propose a similar method to Fodor, but he had achieved a similar result by an authoritative suggestion that had dampened the ardor of the young man’s blood.

  As for the Duchess, it was probable that the woman would carry away the neophyte, dragging along his pupil, disciple and prophet.

  After mature deliberation, Adsum had decided that it was necessary to resist for as long as possible, in order to avoid a setback. Ormus, dominated by the old priest’s will, had agreed with that opinion.

  That subordination of a young and vigorous man might seem extraordinary, but Antal Fodor had spent his youth in India, in the company of Yogis, whose rule is absolute chastity; their principal aim is to separate the spirit from its carnal envelope in order to raise it above itself by meditation, and even to detach it altogether. Ormus, without having arrived at a result as complete as that, nevertheless practiced an austere regime, not allowing himself to be dominated by temporary sensation. For him, the Duchess was to be a necessary lever, and, once the obstacle was overcome, a useful instrument. As incapable of hatred as of love, he might give in to a physical weakness, but, as for all great ambitions, his dream was above carnal passions.

  Adsum, naturally, sustained him on that path.

  The Duchess was, therefore, rather excited when she went into studio of the two psychologists. At the sight of Adsum, she could not suppress an impulse of annoyance. The Mage did not appear to notice it.

  “Well, my Daughter?” he asked.

  “My uncertain spouse is now sailing for Europe. We’re therefore free to devote ourselves to science without any worldly preoccupations. Aren’t you tired, my Father, after the party? It’s left me with nothing but disillusionment.”

  “My Daughter, nothing in life is worth the trouble of regret, any more than anything is worth the trouble of desire. If you want to be one of us, you must detach your spirit from everything material. I know that the human beast is avoid for brief pleasures, the idea of which haunts you, but reflect, my child of election, on their futility.

  “These passions, which humans poeticize in order to ennoble them in their own eyes, are, in reality, merely a need imposed by nature for the preservation of the species. Look at other beings. What we have idealized is, for them, merely a rapid act having no more importance than drinking or eating. Humans, superior by virtue of speech, have sought to prolong the pleasure of the senses by any and every means, but they surpass the objective imposed by natural law; it leads to organic disorders that injure the psychic faculties. My hope, my dear Daughter, has been to raise you above humankind by combining your soul with ours, and thus creating a psychic trinity.”

  Under the influence of his authoritative gaze, Diana felt her resistance melting away; she was no more than soft wax ready to submit to the imprint of those two superior wills.

  “My Father,” she replied, “I am your most humble servant. Instruct me. Guide me.”

  “Give me your hands, both of you,” said Adsum, “and let us link our souls likewise, in order that the magnetic fluid that streams through the worlds might be concentrated in us to elevate our spirit.”

  And, still under the influence of the authoritative gaze, Diana closed
her eyes. The two men did likewise.

  A religious silence reigned for a long time in the chamber of stars.

  Anyone who had seen that singular scene would have wondered what the three individuals, seemingly petrified in an extraordinary cerebral tension, could possibly be doing.

  XVIII. Spiritual Incantation

  The old man spoke, in the profound silence of the young couple and the stars.

  “Let us rise! Let us rise up perpetually! Beneath us, see the Earth hollow out like a cup, while the horizon grows and seems to descend below us. Let the laws of matter disappear! We, imponderable fluid, are no longer bound by them! What is gravity to those who no longer have weight? Heat to those who no longer have surface? Attraction to those who no longer have mass? Light to those who see without eyes and hear without ears? Watch the Earth, where so many people act, and because they have movement think that they exist, flees from us. Life is nothing if it is not ruled by spirit! See around us, shining in their millions, not a planet like the little ball we have just quit, but suns like the one that illuminates and vivifies the Earth. Look! Listen! Sense around us, among those monstrous globes, the universal palpitation of the soul of worlds.

  “Look mystery in the face. A formidable wave circles through the Universe, animating all those heavenly bodies where beings live that are beyond or comprehension, humanities different from our own; heavenly bodies fecundated by a strange and flamboyant sap, flying through space from sun to sun. Comets, sources of planetary life, mysterious messengers of universal seed, plunge through limitless space, bearing immortal fecundity. My Daughter and my Son, let us draw closer to our Father who reigns in the heavens, the Sun. We have fled terrestrial influence. That is not enough; now we need to escape universal influence.

  “It is necessary for us to know the why of what is. We witness transformations: matter, which is merely the present aspect of defunct life, renews that aspect incessantly and relentlessly; the molecules that compose our brains have existed in the prehistoric plesiosaur and mammoth. Everything, without pause, disappears only to be reborn. Only spirit endures, susceptible to progress. On the Earth, we have not yet evolved sufficiently to understand everything, but in many of these worlds circling in space, there are certainly civilizations more advanced.