She made no answer but patted the head of Herma who assumed, under her touch, a masculine personality.
“Salome,” I continued, “do not torture Cartaphilus as you tortured him in the Palace of Pilate.”
“Herma,” Salome whispered, “you are very beautiful tonight.”
“Lilith, my queen!”
“Salome, magnificent and wise beyond compare, spurn not Cartaphilus!”
“Herma, I dreamed of you last night. You were he who– —”
The poet finished his verses. The audience exclaimed: “Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo!”
Herma called upon another poet to recite.
“Salome, what have we in common with these people? Are they not mere dust? We are the Eternal Flame that the stars are made of.”
Salome’s eyes were riveted upon the slim body of Herma.
“Herma,” she chanted, “you are not of the earth. You are the daughter-son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The nymph Salmacis is united with you, making one…”
I touched Herma’s small breasts with my arm. Under my touch Herma assumed a feminine aspect. Her breast buds swelled and throbbed.
Salome looked at her, and her breast blossoms withered. Herma was a boy.
Herma looked at both of us. One side of her face was a woman’s, the other a man’s. She took both our hands and said: “Queen Lilith—King Lucifer—one—eternally one.”
Had she guessed our relationship? I looked at Salome imploringly. She smiled vaguely and pressed my hand.
I knelt.
Salome stood up. “King Lucifer shall improvise a dialogue in verse with Queen Lilith.”
I was startled. I had always considered poetry the consolation of those who were incapable of living intensely.
“Life is a greater poem than mere sounds, dexterously arranged, Your Majesty,” I said. “King Lucifer has lived.”
Salome exclaimed: “The Queen has spoken, Sire.”
“So be it, then! The King obeys provided the Queen responds.”
“The Queen shall respond.”
“A crown, Herma!” I commanded.
Herma clapped her hands. The butler brought a small golden coronet, studded with a few jewels, some relic of royalty.
“Let the lyre play!” I ordered.
I knelt upon one knee and began to improvise a poem in the somewhat theatrical mood of Herma and her guests. Salome as Lilith, responded in the same mood.
When we finished, Herma wept.
Salome kissed her upon one cheek, and I upon the other.
“You are gods. I am but a mortal,” she sighed.
She stood up with a jerk. “No matter! Tonight we shall be gods. Mesdames et messieurs, we are all gods tonight!…”
The people applauded.
“Dust shall burst into flame,” Herma continued.
“Bravo! Bravo!”
Herma rang a large gold bell that hung against the wall. Servants appeared with drinks and pipes filled with hashish.
“Drink and smoke, mesdames et messieurs. Man becomes a god only by intoxication.”
Baron de Patrin grumbled: “Life is a wind circular and spiral and all things are specks of dust square or triangular.”
“Come nearer me, Lucifer,” Herma asked. “Let my body be your pillow this night. This night I too shall be a goddess. Tomorrow I am dust and you will desert me…”
“Hermaphroditus-Hermaphrodita—eternal god—goddess!” I exclaimed.
“Dance!” Herma commanded.
An invisible orchestra played.
The guests began to dance—strange unrhythmical dances. In the smoke that rose from their pipes, they assumed grotesque and unhuman shapes. One man whom I had not seen until then, dressed in a red veil, turned about himself, twisted, rolled upon the floor.
“The human serpent,” Herma informed me. “He knows the love of all animals and birds and even insects. He has discovered sixty-seven new ways of love, possible, alas, only to one who, like him, can twist himself like a serpent.”
“Does he also know,” I inquired tantalizingly, “the secret of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged…?”