Had I always been a rebel, from the very beginning of life? How many gods had I mocked or destroyed? Was Jesus but the mightiest of them all? Was he the only god—who could not be mocked with impunity?

“What god did you laugh at, long ago, in Africa, because of which you have become—Kotikokura?”

“Ca-ta-pha.”

“What! You laughed at Ca-ta-pha?”

He nodded.

“You believe in God Ca-ta-pha, and you laughed at him?”

He grinned.

“Do you still laugh at him?”

He nodded.

Did he understand me? Was he merely jesting? Could one mock and believe at the same time…perhaps love and hate also? Was it possible that I, too, believed in, and disbelieved, hated—and loved, Jesus?

Bagdad was in a chattering and disputatious mood. Abu-Bekr had just died, and his successor had not yet been named. But since the Prophet was no longer doubted, nor his ascension to Heaven, nor his Word, which had been copied by a thousand scribes, and memorized by all the priests and saintly men, I had neither anything to fear, nor anything to suggest. Whoever might be the man of destiny, the destiny of the new religion was to conquer the East—to crush the religion of the Nazarene.

“Kotikokura, upon that hill yonder, hidden by palm trees like a canopy, through the long thin rents of which one sees the Tigris flow quietly toward the Red Sea, there is a castle with an enormous orchard and a magnificent garden. We shall retire to it, Kotikokura, and forget for a long while the futile clamor of things.”

Kotikokura grinned, delighted. The castle belonged to a Prince who had squandered his patrimony in gambling and orgies and needed ready cash to pay his debts.

I hired five hundred craftsmen and gardeners, whose labor turned the palace into a dazzling jewel, and the garden into another Eden. I wandered about the great halls and the magnificent flower-beds, vastly bored. Kotikokura followed me, generally silent and as disconsolate. He reflected my emotions like a sensitized shadow.

“Kotikokura, my friend, life has no meaning in itself, and the days are like great iron balls chained about our necks, if we cannot discover an all-absorbing passion; if we cannot immerse ourselves in some labor or pleasure.

“When I feared that my life had reached its terminus I vowed I would not let time fly past me again.

“I would capture each hour, like a beautiful, rare bird and pluck from it whatever mystery, or good, or evil it offered. Nevertheless, my friend, here we are, both of us supremely bored in the most beautiful castle of Bagdad, and the most gorgeous garden in Araby.”

Kotikokura sighed.

“I begin to understand and forgive the gods the torture they inflict upon us, seeing how much more bored they must be than we.”

“Ca-ta-pha—God.”

“Ca-ta-pha has but one believer, hardly enough to establish a new religion.”

Kotikokura remained pensive. I plucked a rose, and gave it to him. He placed it between his teeth.

We seated ourselves upon a bench made of ivory. Its legs had the shape of many snakes intertwined.

“Two weapons only, two dazzling swords, can dispel the shadow, black and heavy, as a thing of iron, that God Ennui, squatting at all four corners of the earth, casts upon the world,—sex and knowledge. I am fortunate, Kotikokura, for what country offers more delectable women, and more profound mathematicians? With women and mathematics let us multiply pleasure.”

Kotikokura grinned, and removing the rose from his lips, placed it over his ear.

I invited Ali Hasan, famous mathematician, and Mamduh Barazi, formerly Lord Procurer to the Vizier, to pay me a visit. They appeared at the same time, bowing many times before me, wishing me endless life and prosperity beyond the dream of man. They were about the same age, and dressed in the manner of princes, wide belts, studded with jewels, and turbans, in which dazzled the crescent moon. I could not decide who was the Procurer and who the Mathematician. I smiled.

“Can you judge a man’s profession by his appearance?” one of them asked, guessing my thought.

“Marcus Aurelius, an ancient Emperor and philosopher of Rome, thought he could read a face like a manuscript. At the very moment when his lips formed this assertion, however, the Empress toyed amorously with a lusty young slave.”

“Some faces, my Lord, are limpid like crystals; others, however, are like mother-of-pearl, changing colors at every angle.”

The word ‘angle’ suggested the mathematician. I looked at the man who spoke. “I have the honor of addressing Ali Hasan.”

He shook his head. “My Lord is mistaken.”

We laughed. I invited them to spend a few weeks with me.

We were reclining on the wide benches that faced the lake, upon which twelve white and twelve black swans sailed motionless and silent, like dreams. A slave filled our cups with wine. Both Ali Hasan and Mamduh Barazi had joined the new religion of the Prophet Mohammed, but neither believed that water was to be henceforth the sole drink of man.

“The Prophet speaks of a limpid drink,” said Ali. “Is not wine limpid?”

“The Prophet said that the understanding should not be beclouded. Is not wine like some cool, fresh wind, that chases the clouds from the face of thought, which shines henceforth like a sun?” added Mamduh.

“Abdul Ben Haru, my teacher and the greatest of mathematicians, drank deeply indeed, saying that only thus could he be in perfect harmony with the Earth, which he called the futile dolorous turning of a thing nearly circular.”

“And what is more important and more beautiful than harmony?”

“My excellent guests, you have uttered the word that I have been seeking for a long time: harmony. But is it not more difficult to be in harmony with one’s self than with the Universe?”

“The final proof of any problem, Cartaphilus, splendid host, is the balance of its equations,” said Ali.

“The perfect satisfaction of the senses uniting with the perfect satisfaction of the mind, is the most perfect equation,” added Mamduh.

“I have been more fortunate than the rest of mankind in having discovered Ali Hasan and Mamduh Barazi.”

They rose, and bowed touching the ground with their foreheads.

“While Ali Hasan shall explain to me the mystery of numbers, Mamduh Barazi shall solve for me the mystery of the senses.”

Our cups were filled again and again. Kotikokura made a wreath of wine-leaves, and placed it upon his head.

“Bacchus!” I called to him. He grinned.

My guests and I discussed the science of numbers in love and in mathematics. Our words came more and more lazily out of our mouths, and one by one, we fell asleep.

XXXVI: THE ORCHESTRATION OF DELIGHT—KOTIKOKURA’S HAREM—THE KING OF LOVE—THE BATH OF BEAUTY—UNSOLVED PROBLEMS

MAMDUH had both taste and understanding. The Vizier whom he had previously served was not merely a sensualist, but an æsthete and a poet. Mamduh appreciated my caprices. Every new denizen of my harem was to remind me, however obscurely, of some love that had delighted me in the past; at the same time, she must harmonize with her sisters. They must be notes in a large orchestral composition, conceived solely for my amusement. Thus I hoped to resurrect the past, and create a new present, achieving perfect unity out of diversity.

The result, always strange, was sometimes ludicrous or pathetic. I saw Lydia’s eyes look out of Poppaea’s face, Ulrica’s hair blazed upon the head of Pilate’s wife, Flower-of-the-Evening’s tiny hand fluttered, accompanied by the voice of Mary…

Once I thought that I had discovered John and Mary in one envelope of feminine flesh. My heart leaped within me like some startled animal. I touched her. She laughed raucously. Her laughter sounded like Nero’s. Her gums covered a large part of the teeth. Nevertheless, I made her my favorite, on condition that she never open her mouth in my presence. She was excessively ticklish, however, and could restrain neither her laughter nor her prattle.