“Cartaphilus, look!” she cried.
“What is it?”
“Cartaphilus, does the mirror lie?”
“Not if it tells you how beautiful you are.”
“The mirror tells me something else; alas its voice is more honest but less honeyed than yours.”
“Then we shall break the mirror, my love. It is blind, and its tongue is poisoned with falsehood.”
“Look, Cartaphilus! See how Time has scratched the edges of my eyes; and also the edges of my lips; and here…look…look at this long scratch upon my throat! Time is a cat, Cartaphilus.”
Her eyes were studded with two, hard tears, which must have smarted her, for she tightened her lids. “How shall a cat scratch a little kitten? Besides, I know a positive cure for this.”
“What, Cartaphilus?”
“My kisses have the power of erasing all such scratches.”
“Kiss me!”
I kissed her eyes and her lips. “Now look in the mirror, Asi-ma!”
She looked for a while, then covered her face with her hands. “Time is mightier than your kisses.”
I took her on my lap and tried to console her. I called her a dozen pet names, I jested, I was serious, I promised her endless affection, I assured her that she was capable of perennial beauty. She wept quietly, uninterruptedly.
“What a child you are, Asi-ma! What does it matter if you have a few scratches? Besides I see none.”
“Must I wait until you notice them, Cartaphilus?”
“What do you mean?”
She did not answer. I did not press her. I feared her decision. I knew that although she had been a slave to my desires, she was capable of obstinate resolution. As long as she had not yet pronounced the words, however, I still hoped it was possible to comfort her. I thought of a new transfusion of blood, but “your blood is poison” struck against my ears like the blow of a fist.
“Besides, my dear, am I not getting older, also? Does not Time scratch my face as well?” I asked.
“No, Cartaphilus. You never grow older. You are a god; you brought rain to the city.”
“That…that…was merely a coincidence.”
She shook her head. “You have been since the beginning of things, and will continue forever, Cartaphilus.”
“You exaggerate my age a little, beloved.”
“No.”
We remained silent for a long time. I knew that she was planning what to do, and how to break the news to me.
“There is a full moon tonight, Cartaphilus.”
“Yes, my love.”
“That is a good omen.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight you shall make me your wife again under the moon, like the first time, beloved, and…and at dawn…I shall go away.”
“Go away?”
“I shall go back among the people that become old like myself. I shall marry, and have a child whom I shall name after you, Cartaphilus.”
“Asi-ma, your words are like so many daggers that stab my heart.”
She ruffled my hair playfully. “Those were the words you always spoke when we parted.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“At every incarnation, after I had been your wife, when Time scratched my face, and I told you I was leaving, you always used the same words.”
“Asi-ma, that is only a dream.”
“You said even that.”
“Asi-ma, it is you who are a goddess.”
“No, not yet. At some future incarnation, you shall make me a goddess, Cartaphilus, and I shall remain with you always. But the day has not come yet.”
“Asi-ma, my dear, my perfect wife…since it is the will of Buddha that we separate, it is not you, but I, who must go.”
She thought for a while. “Yes, that is true. I had forgotten. It is always you who must go. You must wander about until we meet again.”
“Where and when shall I meet you again?”
“Who knows? It may be ten thousand miles from here. It may be ten thousand years…”
I opened the gate. Asi-ma accompanied me to the roadway. She threw herself into my arms.
“Farewell, Cartaphilus! “
“Farewell, my Much Beloved!”
“You must go on, Cartaphilus.”
Where had we met before? Had I lived other lives before I was Cartaphilus? Was the vista behind me as unending as the road, before me? Shuddering, I drew my cloak about me.
XVII: CAR-TA-PHAL, PRINCE OF INDIA—MARCUS AURELIUS—FAUSTINA TOYS—JESUS IN THE PANTHEON—THE FEMALE WORSHIPER
ONCE more I stood at the crossroads on the outskirts of Rome. I remembered the remark of the man made to me long ago: “All roads lead to Rome.” The man had turned to dust by this time; Nero, Poppaea, Sporus, Nero’s Golden House,—all dust. But all roads still led to Rome, and I, Cartaphilus, was still living, still young! I felt exalted.
The sun was setting very slowly, and like long streams of pollen dropping silently from some crushed, gigantic flower, its rays gilded the world. The day’s heat, dispersing in the cool breezes, scattered a perfume of grass and flowers and vine leaves.
This time it pleased me to enter the Eternal City neither as a Roman citizen nor as a Jew. I was Car-ta-phal, a Hindu Prince. In a splendid chariot and dressed in the Hindu fashion, with a belt and a turban glittering with jewels, I dashed into Rome. The sparks danced about the hoofs of my horses like small stars, and the populace, blasé and sophisticated, gaped in awe and admiration. Their Emperor was a philosopher affecting the black garb, but their instinct was for magnificence and display.
I succeeded in gaining the ear of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius by presenting him with rare manuscripts from the East. He invited me to hear him read one of his essays on virtue.
The reading room of the imperial Palace was poorly lit. Marcus Aurelius could not endure any glaring light. The large statues about the walls mingled their shadows, making curious and grotesque patterns. The guests were reclining on the couches, or standing in small groups, talking. I walked from one statue to another, approaching or standing at distance, feigning admiration. As a matter of fact, they were chiefly imitations from the Greek, and too bulky.
“Rome,” sighed an elderly artist, Apollodorus the sculptor, “is no longer the Rome of our fathers. The Christians are destroying our love of beauty. Even,” he whispered cautiously, “the Imperator’s philosophy has been influenced by them.”
“To what do you attribute this hatred for art?”
“They are really Hebrews whose god hates images.”
“Are the Hebrews a source of danger?”
“The Hebrews,” he laughed, “are no longer a nation.”
“Is that possible?”
“Ah, don’t you know? Their capital was burnt to the ground, and they were dispersed. It was about time.”
“Jerusalem has been razed to the ground?”
“Yes, some years ago.”
“And their temple—I heard the Hebrews had a marvelous temple– —”
“We are building a temple to Jove on its site. If I were not so old, I would be sent to administer the work.”
I turned my face away. My eyes had filled with tears. Jerusalem…the Temple…burnt…and my people dispersed. All, all of us, wanderers like Cartaphilus!
The Emperor entered, his arm about the waist of the Empress. Everything was average about him. He was neither tall nor short; neither stocky nor thin; neither homely nor handsome. Even his hair was a mixture of gray and black, and his eyes were an indefinite brown that easily changed to gray. The Empress, Faustina, on the contrary, had very pronounced features: a sharp nose, sharp chin and black eyes that seemed sharp as daggers. Her teeth, as she smiled, were white as a young animal’s.
Marcus Aurelius seated himself on a throne at an angle of the room, and Faustina upon another one opposite him. Behind her cushioned chair stood a young slave with black curls and long slumberous lashes, waving a fan of white ostrich feathers. The Emperor did not like to be fanned, saying that a Stoic endured heat as well as cold, imperturbably. Apollodorus, who reclined on the couch next to me, whispered: “He catches cold too easily, that’s the reason, and he sneezes like a thunderclap.”