Inspirations

‘Yes, Madam, but then we have very respectable and virtuous emotions and lasting relationships.’

‘And yet,’ Madam broke in, ‘that eternally restless, eternally unquenched desire for naked paganism, that love that is the supreme joy, that is divine serenity itself – those things are useless for you moderns, you children of reflection. That sort of love wreaks havoc on you. As soon as you wish to be natural you become common. To you Nature seems hostile, you have turned us laughing Greek deities into demons and me into a devil. All you can do is exorcize me and curse me or else sacrifice yourselves, slaughter yourselves in bacchanalian madness at my altar. And if any of you ever has the courage to kiss my red lips, he then goes on a pilgrimage to Rome, barefoot and in a penitent’s shirt, and expects flowers to blossom from his withered staff, while roses, violets and myrtles sprout constantly under my feet – but their fragrance doesn’t agree with you. So just stay in your northern fog and Christian incense. Let us pagans rest under the rubble, under the lava. Do not dig us up. Pompeii, our villas, our baths, our temples were not built for you people! You need no gods! We freeze in your world!’ The beautiful marble lady coughed and drew the dark sable pelts more snugly around her shoulders.

‘Thank you for the lesson in classical civilization,’ I replied. ‘But you cannot deny that in your serene and sunny world man and woman are natural-born enemies as much as in our foggy world. You cannot deny that love lasts for only a brief moment, uniting two beings as a single being that is capable of only one thought, one sensation, one will – only to drive these two persons even further apart. And then – you know this better than I – the person who doesn’t know how to subjugate will all too quickly feel the other’s foot on the nape of his neck—’

‘And as a rule it is the man who feels the woman’s foot,’ cried Madam Venus with exuberant scorn, ‘which you, in turn, know better than I.’

‘Of course, and that is precisely why I have no illusions.’

‘You mean you are now my slave without illusions, so that I can trample you ruthlessly!’

‘Madam!’

‘Don’t you know me by now? Yes, I am cruel – since you take so much pleasure in that word – and am I not entitled to be cruel? Man desires, woman is desired. That is woman’s

entire but decisive advantage. Nature has put man at woman’s mercy through his passion, and woman is misguided if she fails to make him her subject, her slave, no, her toy and ultimately fails to laugh and betray him.’

‘Your principles, dear Madam—’ I indignantly broke in.

‘ – Are based on thousands of years of experience,’ she sarcastically retorted, her white fingers playing in the dark fur. ‘The more devoted the woman is, the more quickly the man sobers up and becomes domineering. But the crueller and more faithless she is, the more she mistreats him, indeed the more wantonly she plays with him, the less pity she shows him, the more she arouses the man’s lascivious yearning to be loved and worshipped by the woman. It’s always been like that in all times, from Helen and Delilah to Catherine the Great and Lola Montez.’

‘I cannot deny,’ I said, ‘that nothing excites a man more than the sight of a beautiful, voluptuous, and cruel female despot who capriciously changes her favourites, reckless and rollicking—’

‘And wears a fur to boot!’ cried the Goddess.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m familiar with your predilection.’

‘But you know,’ I broke in, ‘you’ve grown very coquettish since last we met.’

‘How so, if I may ask?’

‘In that nothing brings out your white body more splendidly that those dark furs, and you—’

The Goddess laughed.

‘You’re dreaming,’ she exclaimed, ‘wake up!’ And her marble hand grabbed my arm. ‘Wake up!’ her voice rang firmly.

I laboriously opened my eyes.

I saw the hand that was shaking me, but this hand was suddenly as brown as bronze, and the voice was the heavy whiskey voice of my Cossack, who was standing before me at his full height of almost six feet.

‘C’mon, get up,’ the valiant man went on, ‘it’s a cryin’ shame.’

‘And why a shame?’

‘A shame to fall asleep fully dressed, and while readin’ a book at that!’ He snuffed the guttered candles and picked up the volume that had slipped from my hand. ‘A book by—’ He opened it: ‘By Hegel. C’mon! It’s high time we drove over to Herr Severin – he’s expectin’ us for tea.’

KAHLIL GIBRAN

from The Prophet

And she hailed him, saying:

Prophet of God, in quest of the uttermost, long have you searched the distances for your ship.

And now your ship has come, and you must needs go.