Judah the Pious (21 page)

“I see,” thought Judah ben Simon bitterly. “These snobbish women dare not trust me with anything more significant than the spirits of a peevish cat.” Nevertheless, concealing his emotions, he went immediately to work. He opened every herbal packet and held each colored bottle up to the light. He presented them for the maid’s inspection, and explained their contents in a tone and vocabulary which were in themselves implicit compliments to her intelligence. He promised instant recoveries, described miraculous cures, and so dazzled the provincial girl with his radiant smiles that, by the time she clutched up her bag of catnip and departed, she was swaying from side to side and gasping for breath.

That afternoon, she again appeared at Judah ben Simon’s door—bearing a gilded invitation to the home of the Princess Maria Zarembka.

Just after sunset, the young man put on his blue mountebank’s robe and started towards the mountains north of town; arriving at the huge stone mansion, he was ushered to the threshold of the main dining room. “And there,” smiled the Rabbi Eliezer, “my hero came upon a sight so exquisite that it might well have blinded the sensitive eyes of your greatest court artist.

“The whole interior of that long, low-ceilinged hall shimmered with a weird phosphorescence, like the strange, silvery sheen which sometimes appears on the surface of the finest silk carpets. The crystal chandeliers seemed to hover in mid-air, casting a pale, unearthly light on the tapestries which lined the paneled walls. Beneath this glow, the colors of the room formed a muted pattern of deep burgundy and purple, moss green and rich, wood brown. These hues were repeated in the woven cloth which covered the long, narrow table and set off the lustrous and harmonious arrangement of pewter dishes, iron candlesticks, plates of hammered brass, and old silver goblets, filled with dark, red claret.”

“When does this narrative take place?” interrupted King Casimir, as if he had just discovered an important clue to the rabbi’s meaning. “I cannot remember a time when the nobles of our land set their tables in the manner of a tinsmith’s stall.”

“But it was not these furnishings,” continued Eliezer, ignoring the boy’s question, “which lent the room its opalescent quality. Rather, it was the beauty of the gray-velvet-clad woman standing at the far end of the hall, whose face gave all her elegant surroundings the air of a plain background designed to exhibit a single smoky topaz.

Judah saw that she was tall, black-haired, about thirty, with olive skin and the strong, strangely tragic features of a Corsican or a Greek. But, as she glided towards him, like a figure in a dream, the young man was soon obliged to discontinue his appraisal of the lady’s charms. For suddenly, he noticed that his powers of observation had begun to fail, and that the woman’s smooth, hypnotic pace was causing him to feel an odd dizziness and nausea, not unlike the final stages of a drunken stupor.

“Was this setting really so strange?” broke in the King of Poland. “Or was your hero just another peasant bumpkin, overwhelmed by the magnificence of ordinary aristocratic life?”

“I swear to you, King Casimir,” replied the rabbi, “that even Your Majesty himself has never experienced an atmosphere so dark, so heady, so full of promise, mystery, and danger. Indeed, considering the circumstances, it was remarkable that the mountebank was able to regain his wits so soon. Shortly after the Princess Maria had taken his sweaty hand and led him to the table, the young man’s composure started to return. He decided that his faintness had been a simple matter of optical confusion, brought on by the peculiar light of the chandeliers and the gleaming candles. In this same calm spirit, he acknowledged the princess’s greeting, gave his name as Stanislas the Physician, and reassured himself that his otherworldly hostess was just another woman—richer and more beautiful than any he had yet encountered, but equally capable of being captivated and delighted. Therefore, he fixed her with his most ingratiating smile, and inquired about the welfare of his patient.

“If you are referring to my servant girl,” replied the Princess Maria, smiling slyly, “then I must inform you that she was half-dead of faintness and palpitations by the time she reached our doorstep.”

“No,” stammered Judah uneasily, “I was speaking of your pet. I hope that you will permit me to observe the creature’s condition, since firsthand diagnosis is the only truly reliable method of diagnosis.”

“My dear Stanislas,” answered the woman, with a musical laugh, “I have not invited you here for an animal show. Come now, we are both experienced in the ways of the world; we both know that this entire catnip affair was merely a charade designed to procure me the assistance of a handsome traveler in whiling away these last evenings before the start of my social season. Furthermore,” she continued, wrapping her long fingers around a wine goblet and leaning gracefully towards him, “my friends and I do not pay court to the God of Science.”

As Judah stammered in helpless amazement, twelve somber, uniformed servants entered the room, bearing huge platters of roast beef, grilled pheasant, mutton stews, wine broths, and jellied aspics. These fragrant reminders of all the days he had gone hungry jolted the bewildered young man into a desperate attempt at genteel expression.

“Then am I to understand,” he said, “that my lady is a devotee of religion?”

The princess’s eyes glinted merrily, and her deep voice took on a mocking tone. “In my house,” she said, “the image of Cupid is placed above that of Our Blessed Mother.”

“But what has that to do with my medicine?” asked the mountebank.

“Simply this,” the woman replied. “It has often been said that scientists are among the God of Love’s most disobedient servants.”

“On the contrary,” he smiled, rising to her challenge. And so it happened that Judah ben Simon and the Princess Maria Zarembka came to debate the nature of love and science.

Unfortunately, the young man was such a stranger to this witty and artificial style of conversation that it took him almost the entire meal to learn its rules and patterns. At first, he could not understand why the lady did not inquire about his travels or his studies, and endeavored to engage her on the subject of her day-to-day existence; then, when he began to see that such inconsequential chatter was out of fashion among the aristocracy, he committed himself to the subject at hand. Still, in his efforts to achieve the proper tone, Judah often stumbled, and relied upon the princess’s disapproving looks to point out his errors in demanding precise definitions of love and science, and in averring that passion might perhaps be nothing more than an elixir of certain chemicals and animal instincts. Thus, it was not until the table was heaped high with mountains of frosted cakes that Judah ben Simon felt sufficiently self-confident to lead their discussion down a new and unexplored path.

“Suddenly,” he began, helping himself to a fourth glass of claret, “it occurs to me that all our lamentations concerning the incompatibility of love and science have been unfounded. In fact, the two spheres are as harmonious and well-matched as the opals in your lovely earrings. How could I have prattled on so long without confessing that I am something of an expert on human behavior? In this capacity, I have never attempted to banish love into the realm of dim longings and irrational impulses. Rather, I have studied it objectively, and can offer positive proof that passion and science may actually be combined in an effort to understand the gentle workings of the heart.”

“And what have these studies taught you?” asked the Princess Maria, suppressing a smile.

“Many things,” declared the mountebank proudly. “Many things. For instance: have you not noticed that, when ugly men and women look for love, they consider nothing so much as the physical beauty of their mates? Is it not true that sleeplessness is the surest symptom of passion, that loss of appetite plagues the rejected lover? And certainly, my lady, you do not need a scientist to tell you that, while satiation soon quenches the flames of adoration, an unsatisfied desire can burn throughout a man’s whole life. Indeed, madam, these few examples should enable a woman of your intelligence to comprehend my system, and to acknowledge the truth and universality of these scientific laws of love.”

At this final statement, the princess burst into delighted giggles, and rushed to the defense of Cupid’s boundless variety. “How can you not see,” she murmured, in a soft, cajoling tone, “that the God of Love is so brilliantly capricious that he could never restrict himself to a fixed and rigid plan, so infinitely imaginative that he need not repeat the same combination twice? Why, for every rule you have named, I can already cite an exception:

“My late Cousin Wladislaw, whose warts outnumbered the stars in the sky, paid court to a woman twice as hideous as himself. A lady of my acquaintance slept fourteen hours a day so that she might dream of her absent lover; then, when he neglected to return, she consoled herself by gorging her stomach with ten stuffed capons. My Aunt Theresa has been the same man’s mistress for sixteen years, yet their passion has not diminished since the first night they spent in each other’s arms.

“Besides,” she continued, winking mischievously as she refilled her visitor’s goblet, “I could tell you about love so strange that your system could never have predicted its occurrence. A courtier of my father’s loved two beautiful sisters equally well, and, driven by misery and indecision, married their widowed hag of a mother in the hope that she would embody both her daughters’ virtues. A dwarfed young girl in my native village was so enamored of a handsome neighbor that she had herself stretched on the rack so that he might find her more attractive. And, only recently, I was forced to dismiss my chief falconer because of his obsessional attachment to my prize hawk.”

“But these bizarre passions cannot really be classed among the works of love,” argued Judah ben Simon. “In fact, they might even be profitably interpreted as additional proof of my scheme.”

“Wait!” cried King Casimir of Poland, interrupting the narrative of this gracious dinner party for the third and final time. “I appreciate the singularity of your hero, of his fascinating hostess, and of his worthy and thought-provoking system. Yet,” he continued, anxious finally to display one area of experience which, he hoped, would exclude and consequently impress the old man, “I am so familiar with this sort of debate, which so often occurs within my own court, that I fear I will soon lose interest.”

“Perhaps that is true,” replied Eliezer, somewhat snappishly. “But perhaps you are not quite so familiar with the way in which this particular discussion ended. For, through a series of events which an innocent old man like myself could not possibly hope to describe, Judah ben Simon’s aristocratic debate on the nature of love was finally resolved between the silken sheets of the Princess Maria Zarembka’s bed.

“The next morning,” the rabbi went on, with a forgiving smile for his red-faced listener, “the mountebank awoke to find himself in the strangest bedroom he had ever seen. For the single candle which had guided their passage from the main hall had not enabled him to perceive that the chamber was decorated in the style of a nomad’s tent. Rough canvas hangings, worn rugs, and crude tapestries covered the walls. Hay straws littered the floor, and charcoal braziers smoked in the corners. The bed was piled high with the skins of long-haired sheep and goats; beneath them, the Princess Maria lay wide awake, staring at Judah ben Simon as if he were a dangerous marauder who had somehow invaded her home.

The young man was equally disoriented until he remembered the pleasures of the night before; then, he laughed warmly, and reached out to stroke the woman’s black hair. “Good morning,” he smiled, hoping to reassure her that she had not bestowed her favors on a lover who would take them for granted. “It would seem that the God of Love has an even greater store of marvels and surprises than I had realized.”

Without pausing to answer him, the noblewoman leaped out of bed and ran from the room.

Almost immediately, the same maid who had come to the inn stumbled into the bedchamber. One look at the naked guest caused her such convulsions of embarrassment that she nearly dropped the heavy silver tray—on which the mountebank eventually found six sweet rolls, a pot of coffee, and a note inviting him to bid his hostess good-by in the main dining room. Judah ate and dressed quickly, then rushed downstairs; but, when at last he came upon the princess, he became so ashamed and self-conscious that he could hardly speak. “I am sorry,” he mumbled haltingly, “for anything I might have done to offend you.”

“You have not offended me at all,” she replied. “That is just the problem. And now, if you will consent to keep me company while I finish the remainder of my breakfast, I will tell you a story which may help you comprehend my motives.

“When I was fifteen years old,” began the noblewoman, when her guest was seated, “a gang of bandits invaded our family estate. Within a few hours, they had terrified the cowardly royal guards into submission, ransacked our mansion, and beaten my father and brothers to death with barbed whips. The ghastly sights of that morning so stunned and shocked me that two days elapsed before I realized that I myself was among the booty which the gigantic bandit chieftain was bearing off to his mountain hideout.

“In the beginning, I did nothing but curse my captors and spit in their faces; the coarse, brutal robbers, who dressed in swatches of fur and wore their matted hair halfway down their backs, would surely have retaliated, if their captain had not ordered them to leave me in peace. Gradually, however, when the icy winter wind began to shriek through the barren hills, sheer loneliness made me consent to share in their drunken revels and their feasts of roasted horsemeat, to learn to ride bareback on their frothing steeds, and even to help them plan their future raids. At last, at the end of February, I took to warming myself beneath the heavy skins of my protector’s bed.

“But I mean just that,” insisted the princess, noting her listener’s curious look. “For I did not let him have my body. Remember: I was fifteen then, a virgin, with dreams of a pale, perfumed prince who would someday touch me with his cool hands. And I could not bring myself to abandon these dreams for such a muscular and strong-smelling reality.