'Herod was a king. He was not just responsible for himself alone. He couldn't tell himself, as I do: Let others do what they want, I refuse to procreate. Herod was a king and knew that he had to decide not only for himself but also for others, and he decided on behalf of all mankind that man would no longer reproduce. This is how the massacre of the newborns came about. His motives were not as vile as the ones tradition attributes to him. Herod was driven by a most generous wish finally to free the world from mankind's clutches.'
'Your interpretation of Herod pleases me greatly,' said Bertlef. 'It pleases me so much that from now on I shall see the Massacre of the Innocents as you do. But don't forget that at the very moment Herod decided that mankind would cease to exist, there was born in
Bethlehem a little boy who was to elude the king's knife. And this child grew up and told people that only one thing was needed to make life worth living: to love one another. Herod was probably better educated and more experienced. Jesus was certainly wet behind the ears and did not know much about life. All his teachings might be explained by his youth and inexperience. By his naivete, if you wish. And yet he possessed the truth.'
'The truth? Who has proved this truth?' Jakub asked sharply.
'No one,' said Bertlef. 'No one has proved it, and no one ever will prove it. Jesus loved his Father so much that he could not admit his Father's work was bad. He was not led to this conclusion by reason but by love. This is why only our hearts can bring the quarrel between Jesus and Herod to a close. Is it worth being a man, yes or no? I have no proof of it, but, along with Jesus, I believe the answer is yes.' That said, he turned with a smile to Dr. Skreta: 'That is why I sent my wife here to take the cure under the direction of Doctor Skreta, who to my mind is one of the holy disciples of Jesus, for he knows how to perform miracles and bring back to life women's dormant wombs. I drink to his health!'
10
Jakub had always treated Olga with paternal responsibility and playfully liked to call himself her 'old gentleman.' She knew, however, that he had many women with whom things were entirely different, and she envied them. But today, for the first time, she thought there was really something old about Jakub. In the way he behaved with her, she sensed the musti-ness that for the young emanates from the generation of their elders.
Old men are recognizable by their habit of bragging about past sufferings and making a museum of them (ah, these sad museums have so few visitors!). Olga realized that she was the most important living object in Jakub's museum and that Jakub's generously altruistic attitude toward her was meant to move visitors to tears.
Today too the most precious nonliving object in the museum had been revealed to her: the pale-blue tablet. Not long before, when he had unfolded in her presence the piece of paper the tablet was wrapped in, she had been surprised by not feeling the slightest emotion. Though she understood Jakub's contemplation of suicide in a bad time, she found the solemnity with which he let her know about it ridiculous. She found it ridiculous that he had unfolded the tissue paper so cautiously, as if the tablet were a precious diamond. And she didn't see why he wanted to give the poison back to
Dr. Skreta on the day of his departure, since he had maintained that every adult should under all circumstances be in control of his own death. If, once he was abroad, he were stricken by cancer, would he not need the poison? No, for Jakub the tablet was not simply poison, it was a symbolic prop he now wanted to return to the high priest in a religious service. It was enough to make you laugh.
She left the baths and headed toward the Richmond. Despite all her disillusioned reflections, she looked forward to seeing Jakub. She had a great desire to desecrate his museum, to function in it no longer as an object but as a woman. She was thus a bit disappointed to find a note on his door asking her to join him in the room next door, where he was waiting for her with Bertlef and Dr. Skreta. The thought of being in the company of others made her lose heart, all the more so since she didn't know Bertlef, and Dr. Skreta usually treated her with friendly but obvious indifference.
Bertlef quickly made her forget her shyness. He introduced himself with a deep bow and chided Dr. Skreta for not having acquainted him sooner with such an interesting woman.
Skreta responded that Jakub had asked him to look after the young woman, and he had deliberately refrained from introducing her to Bertlef because he knew that no woman could resist him.
Bertlef greeted this excuse with a satisfied smile. Then he picked up the telephone receiver to order dinner.
'It's incredible,'' said Dr. Skreta, 'how our friend
manages to live affluently in this hole where there's not a single restaurant that serves a decent meal.'
Bertlef dug his hand into an open cigar box, beside the telephone, which was filled with half-dollar pieces: 'Avarice is a sin,' he said, and smiled.
Jakub remarked that he had never before met anyone who believed so fervently in God while knowing so well how to enjoy life.
'That is probably because you have never before met a true Christian. The word of the Gospel, as you know, is a message of joy. The enjoyment of life is the most important teaching of Jesus.'
Olga considered this an opportunity to enter the conversation: 'Insofar as I can trust what my teachers said, Christians saw earthly life as a vale of tears and rejoiced in the idea that true life would begin for them after death.'
'My dear young lady,' Bertlef said, 'never believe teachers.'
'And what the saints all did,' Olga went on, 'was to renounce life. Instead of making love they flagellated themselves; instead of discussing things as you and I are doing they retreated to hermitages; and instead of ordering dinner by telephone they chewed roots.'
'You don't understand anything about saints, my dear. These people were immensely attached to the pleasures of life. But they attained them by other means. In your opinion, what is man's supreme pleasure? You could try to guess, but you would be deceiving yourself, because you are not sincere enough. This
is not a reproach, for sincerity requires self-knowledge and self-knowledge is the fruit of age. How could a young woman like you, who radiates youthfulness, be sincere? She cannot be sincere because she does not even know what there is within her. But if she did know, she would, have to admit along with me that the greatest pleasure is to be admired. Do you agree?'
Olga replied that she knew of greater pleasures.
'No,' said Bertlef. 'Take for instance your famous runner, the one every child here knows about because he won three Olympic events. Do you think he renounced life? And yet instead of chatting, making love, and eating well, he surely had to spend his time constantly running round and round a stadium. His training very much resembled what our most celebrated saints did. Saint Makarios of Alexandria, when he was in the desert, regularly refilled a basket with sand, put it on his back, and traveled endless distances in this way day after day until he dropped from total exhaustion. But both for your runner and for Saint Makarios, there was surely a great reward that amply repaid them for all their efforts. Do you know what it is to hear the applause in an immense Olympic stadium? There is no greater joy! Saint Makarios of Alexandria knew why he carried a basket of sand on his back. The glory of his desert marathons soon spread throughout Christendom. And Saint Makarios was like your runner. Your runner, too, first won the five-thousand-meter race, then the ten-thousand-meter, and finally nothing sufficed for him but to win the marathon as
well. The desire for admiration is insatiable. Saint Makarios went to a monastery in Thebes without making himself known and asked to be accepted as a member. Then, when the Lenten fast began, came his hour of glory. All the monks fasted sitting down, but he remained standing for the entire forty-day fast! You have no idea what a triumph that was! Or remember Saint Simeon Stylites! In the desert he built a pillar with a narrow platform on top. There was no room to sit on it, he had to stand. And he remained standing there for the rest of his life, and all Christendom enthusiastically admired this man's incredible record, which seemed to exceed human limits. Saint Simeon Stylites was the Gagarin of the fifth century. Can you imagine the happiness of Saint Genevieve of Paris the day she learned from a Welsh trading mission that Saint Simeon Stylites had heard of her and blessed her from atop his pillar? And why do you think he wanted to set a record? Because he didn't care about life and mankind? Don't be naive! The church fathers knew very well that Saint Simeon Stylites was vain, and they put him
