“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.
Meanwhile, Mamduh, traveled from city to city in search of new beauty. My harem became famous throughout Arabia.
I built an enormous wall around my estate, and within it my mistresses wandered, displaying their charms, and chattering endlessly. Sixty giant eunuchs, with drawn swords, walked among them, settling disputes, punishing or admonishing like judges, and calling out at my approach: “Our master! Kneel! Kneel! Our master!”
Kotikokura became my chief steward, and relegated to himself a small number of women, black and yellow-skinned. He seemed to relish mistresses in whom the attributes of femininity were enormously emphasized.
“What lost love do you seek among them, Kotikokura?”
He grinned.
“Even in our first amours, Kotikokura, we seek something that came before them perhaps in some dimly remembered dream, or in some dimly remembered life…”
He scratched his nose, and rearranged his turban.
I distributed my harem, like a strange and complicated chess. Sooner or later, I hoped, by divers moves, to capture the King of Love—Perfection. I tried the ways of Flower-of-the-Evening, but before long her devices began to pall. They left the board in disarray, without checkmating the King. I invented new and fantastic moves by applying the law of permutation, which I had just learned from my wise teacher.
I achieved an infinity of variations.
I built many pavilions, the pavilion of color, the pavilion of perfume, the pavilion of touch, the pavilion of size. Pleasure was a thousand-stringed harp. Each note, each shade, melted almost imperceptibly into the next. Eyes, tiny and brilliant as beads, softened until I met the tender glance of the wounded gazelle. Blackest skin turned to brown, brown to yellow, yellow to white. There were breasts like hillocks rising upward; breasts like enormous grapes hanging from a vine; breasts like fists of rock; breasts like hazel-nuts whose sharp points were dotted scarlet.
Love assumed numberless hues and numberless shapes. Hair short and stiff like quills, melting into masses of gold, flowing about the ankles; hips round and wide as hoops, dwindling until they became straight vertical lines; perfumes pungent as the taste of green apples upon the edges of teeth, luxuriant as of roses full-blown, delicate as the air at dawn; lips thin as a line drawn with the point of an artist’s brush, thickening, broadening, until they filled the mouth like ripe fire-colored pomegranates, whose honey overruns.
I was the master harpist, playing string after string. The sound was often pleasurable, but the tune lacked perfection. I combined pavilion with pavilion; mingled incongruities, uniting the grotesque and the abnormal, the monstrous and the normal.
Always the King of Love eluded me, playing hide-and-seek, mocking, laughing…
I consulted with Mamduh. His advice was intelligent and the result of much experience, but always in the end futile.
“I shall devise a tune that will bring all strings into play at once… Do you think I can thus ensnare Pleasure?”
Mamduh combed his beard leisurely with his fingers. Evading somewhat my question, he answered: “Who shall play the tune more perfectly than Cartaphilus?”
Petals of flowers covered the garden with a heavy carpet. The resources of the entire harem were enlisted for the Bath of Beauty.
I was a rock in the midst of a vast sea of flesh, perfumed with a thousand scents, moving and undulating above and below me… Billows rising and falling, accompanied by stifled murmurs and groans—waves caressing and laving, like soft tongues, or beating against me like open palms—my body ablaze in an ocean of concupiscence, delighted and tortured…an amorous delirium—a nightmare and a gorgeous dream—an orgy of lust… Jets of love, quivering and hot, splashing back into the flames—billows rising and beating the rock—obstinate, determined… Breasts and buttocks and mouths and hands and bellies—a fury of passion, laughing, weeping, groaning…
A muscular rock, still inexorable, still unyielding—a thousand tongues of flame surrounding it, seeking to melt it—beating against it like hammers, scorching, tearing, lapping…
A sea stiffened by the furious caress of the tempest. Then a sea without motion. The rock crumbled into the billows. Hot ashes smothered the flames, but left still unextinguished, the volcano beneath.
Where was the King of Love? My hand sought, but captured only shadows… My eyes glared, but discovered nothing… My ears heard, in the distance…laughter…like the laughter of Salome…
“Do you believe that a thousand women equal one Salome, Kotikokura?”
He walked off, suddenly remembering something which needed his immediate attention.
“My excellent friends,” I said to Ali and Mamduh, “is it possible to achieve unity through diversity?”
Ali shrugged his shoulders and replied with a long string of incomprehensible equations.
Mamduh, more practical, however, replied. “There is always some virgin, harboring some unsuspected delight.”