“Kotikokura, we must leave this beautiful and happy place. We must leave our two good wives.”
Kotikokura shrugged his shoulders.
“I know you have long ago wearied of yours, and perhaps I have a little of mine. However great a discomfort may be, there is always a grain of pleasure in it. Thus, our leaving here will not make it necessary for you to carry out your intention.”
Kotikokura looked at me quizzically.
“Kotikokura, I know you too well. You cannot hide your thoughts from me. You meant to strangle your wife…and perhaps mine…and throw them into the river.”
Kotikokura grinned.
“Nevertheless, I doubt whether we shall ever discover another place as lovely as this.”
He shook his head sadly.
Kotikokura’s cat crawled between his legs, purring. He raised her and fondled her.
“You regret leaving your cat more than your wife—do you not my friend?”
Kotikokura nodded.
XLVIII: THE EMPIRE OF PRESTER JOHN—“IF I WILL THAT HE TARRY TILL I COME WHAT IS THAT TO THEE?”—KOTIKOKURA DANCES—CAN MAN INVENT A LIE?
“PRESBYTER JOHANNES, by the power and virtue of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of Lords,” the friar exclaimed, “will deliver us from the infidels and the heathens. His power is limitless and his lands are the richest in the world. Even the pebbles of the shores of his rivers are pure diamonds and the mountains are replete with gold. In the center of the empire, the Fountain of Youth falls softly into a thousand cups, and he who drinks of it shall never die. Presbyter Johannes shall come to deliver us. He shall come with his hundred thousand knights and three hundred thousand footmen; with the princes and kings of the seventy-two states that pay him tribute; with his chariots and elephants and strange creatures that devour ten men at one meal.”
His listeners laughed, some pointed to their foreheads, one or two asked him a few questions. The friar expostulated against the Moors and the Saracens who had defeated the Crusaders, were knocking at the gates of Vienna, and threatened to destroy Europe and Christianity.
The people dispersed one by one. Only Kotikokura and I remained. Prester John—Presbyter Johannes—for some obscure reason, troubled my mind, like a word that one tries to restore in time and space but cannot.
“Brother,” I said to the friar, “where is his empire and who is Presbyter Johannes?”
He looked at me startled. “Who is Presbyter Johannes?”
I nodded.
“He is…the Lord of Lords.”
“I understand that…and yet– —”
He approached my ear and whispered mysteriously, “He is John, the Apostle.”
“But John the Apostle is dead.”
“How can he be dead, having drunk of the Fountain of Youth?”
“Of course,” I said vaguely.
“The Lord Jesus has kept His beloved disciple alive and has made him great and powerful that he may save the cross from destruction.”
‘John,’ I mused. Could it really be he? Speaking of John, Jesus said to Peter: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee…?” There was a rumor among the Christians based on these words that John could not die. But Jesus merely said: “If I will.” Had he willed it? Had his love wrought for John what his hate had wrought for me…?
“Whence, brother friar, will Prester John start?” I asked.
“From the center of his empire, which is the center of the earth—a far-off land, thousands of miles beyond Jerusalem, which, however, he will deliver first…”
“In the heart of Asia, then?”
He nodded.
I gave him a coin.
He bowed very low, making the sign of the cross over Kotikokura and me.
“Kotikokura, man is incapable of inventing a pure lie or discovering a pure truth. What this friar said today must have a grain of reality…”
Kotikokura grinned.
“And if John lives…alas, you do not remember John…that is true. It was a few centuries before I discovered you. You are a mere stripling, Kotikokura…”
Kotikokura laughed, and danced about me.
“Let us go in search of this fabulous land, Kotikokura, and see what scrap of reality suffices to create a legend…”
The reputation of Presbyter Johannes or Prester John was much more widespread than I suspected. Some laughed at the notion, some disputed; others proved his existence or nonexistence by the Scriptures. But everywhere his name was mentioned and discussed.
We wandered about, taking now one road, now another, according to the vague and contradictory directions we received, stopping only to recuperate and replenish our supplies. The farther Europe disappeared behind us, the less resplendent became the empire of Prester John.
“We are on the right path, Kotikokura, for falsehood shines like a sun, but truth is a modest jewel.”
“Where is the empire of Prester John?” I asked a very stout Buddhist monk.
He smiled leisurely. “The empire?”
“Yes.”
“You are speaking metaphorically, sir, are you not?”
“Metaphorically?”
“A man’s soul may be a vast empire.”
“Is it in that sense only that Prester John has an empire?”
“Not quite in that sense, nor quite in the other.”
‘How strangely his empire shrinks! ‘I mused.
“Don’t let me discourage you from visiting the empire of Prester John,” the Buddhist remarked, as if reading my thoughts. “It is about two hundred miles in this direction– —” He pointed toward the East.
I thanked the Friar very cordially, and gave him the expected alms.
“Kotikokura, truth is not even a modest jewel. Truth is a moss-covered stone pushed aside by angry travelers.”
XLIX: THE CITY OF GOD—I RECOGNIZE PRESTER JOHN—PRESTER JOHN DISCUSSES THE BEAST—TIME HAS A HEAVY FIST
THE people were assembling in the public square, mostly fishermen and small merchants, dressed in the manner of the Hebrews of the time of Jesus. Their faces, too, their angular gestures, and their incessant disputations wrenched time back a thousand years.
Kotikokura whose foot was caught in the meshes of a fisherman’s net pulled vigorously to regain his freedom.
“Who allows you to interfere with an honest man’s means of livelihood?” the man shouted in Hebrew, discovering that several of the meshes had been torn.
Kotikokura was about to jump at his throat. I grasped him by the arm.
“I regret infinitely, sir,” I addressed the fisherman. “We are strangers and know neither the name of the country we are in nor its customs. I am inclined to believe, however, that all such mishaps may be adjusted peacefully here as elsewhere.”
I gave him a few pieces of silver. He looked at me critically. “This hardly pays for my loss.” I knew that he lied atrociously, but in order to avoid any further dispute, I doubled my gift.
“What is the name of this country, my friend?” I asked him.
“Ours is the Realm of God, and yonder comes our Patriarch, Prester John—may his name be blessed!”
A man, apparently seventy or seventy-five, approached gravely, followed by several priests, if judged by their garb, but rabbis by their long beards and curls. John carried in his arm the Torah, while from his neck hung a large crucifix.
The people bowed and crossed themselves, and made room for the procession which stopped where four fishermen deposited upon a stone platform a large arm-chair, in the shape of two lions from whose foreheads rose grotesque horns,—stars surmounted by crosses.
Presbyter Johannes seated himself. The people knelt. I did likewise. Kotikokura, dazed a little by the proceedings, remained standing. One of the priests glared in our direction.
“Kotikokura,” I whispered, “kneel or we are lost.”
He knelt.
Two priests sprinkled holy water and scattered incense, which was welcome to the nostrils, for the fishermen smelt rankly of their profession.