The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (36 page)

A moment later the Wandering Jew reached us. When he was within hailing distance, the cabbalist shouted to him, ‘Well, can I still aspire to Solomon's daughters?'

‘No, no,' the Jew shouted back. ‘You have no right to them any more, and you have even lost the power you had over spirits above the twenty-second class. And I trust you won't keep the power you acquired over me much longer.'

The cabbalist seemed plunged in thought for a few moments and then said, ‘Very well. I'll do as my sister. We'll speak about this another time. Meanwhile, Señor Traveller, I command you to walk between the mule of this young officer and the mule carrying this other young gentleman, the glory of geometry. Tell them the story of your life. And I warn you, do so honestly and straightforwardly.'

The Jew seemed to want to refuse but the cabbalist addressed a few unintelligible words to him and the hapless wanderer began as follows:

‘The very one,' said the Jew. Then he continued as follows:

Meanwhile, civil war broke out throughout the Roman Empire. Pompey sought asylum with Ptolemy Denys, who had him beheaded. This act of treachery, which was designed to bring him Caesar's favour, had the opposite effect. Caesar decided to put Cleopatra back on the throne. The inhabitants of Alexandria took the side of their king with a zeal which has scarcely been equalled in history. But he drowned in an accident. Nothing then stood in the way of Cleopatra's ambition and her gratitude was unbounded.

Before Caesar left Egypt he married Cleopatra to young Ptolemy,
who was both her brother and brother-in-law, being the younger brother of Ptolemy Denys, to whom she had first been married. This prince was then eleven years old. Cleopatra was pregnant. Her child was called Caesarion so that there would be no doubt about his paternity.

My grandfather, who was then twenty-five, then considered marriage himself. That is late for a Jew, but he had a strong disinclination to choose a wife from an Alexandrian family. Not that we were looked upon as schismatic by the Jews of Jerusalem, but there could only be one temple according to our religion and the general opinion was that our Egyptian temple, founded by Onias, would lead to schism as had the temple of Samaria, which the Jews looked upon as the abomination of desolation.

These pious motives and feelings of distaste which are never absent from court life, made my father want to retire to the sacred city of the Lord and marry there. But at about that time a Jew from Jerusalem, called Hillel, came to Alexandria with his family on business. My grandfather's choice fell on his elder daughter, Melea. The wedding was celebrated with extraordinary magnificence. Cleopatra and her husband honoured it with their presence.

A few days later the queen summoned my grandfather and said to him, ‘My dear Hiskias, I have just learnt that Caesar has been appointed perpetual dictator. He is the master of the race which conquered the world and fortune has placed him higher than she has placed any mortal up till now, far above Belus, Sesostris, Cyrus and Alexander. I am more proud than ever of loving the father of my little Caesarion. The child will soon be four years old. I want Caesar to see him and to hold him in his arms. Within two months I want to have left for Rome. As you will appreciate, I must make my appearance there as a queen. I want the least of my slaves to be dressed in gold cloth and the meanest of my furniture to be made of solid gold encrusted with jewels. As for me, I shall only wear pearls and my dress will be made of the lightest weave of the finest Byssus silk. Take all my caskets and all the gold there is in my palace. My treasurer will give you a hundred thousand golden talents. It is the price of two provinces which I have sold to the King of the Arabs. Go, and be ready in two months.'

Cleopatra was then twenty-five years old. Her young brother, whom she had married four years before, was then only fifteen years old. He loved her with an extraordinarily violent passion. When he discovered that she was to go away he broke out in the most dreadful despair, and when he took leave of the queen and saw her ship sail off, he was in such distress that people feared for his life.

Cleopatra set sail and arrived at the port of Ostia in less than three weeks. She found there magnificent gondolas waiting to take her up the Tiber, and it would be fair to say that she entered in triumph into that very city which monarchs rarely entered except chained to the chariots of Roman generals.

Caesar, who was the most gallant of men as well as the greatest, received Cleopatra with boundless courtesy but with a little less affection than she expected. The queen, who set greater store by ambition than she did by feelings, took little notice of this, desiring only to get to know Rome. As she was not lacking in perception she was quick to notice the dangers threatening the dictator. She spoke to him of them, but anything resembling fear can have no place in the hearts of heroes. Seeing that Caesar refused to listen to her, Cleopatra thought of benefiting herself from what she had observed. It seemed to her certain that Caesar would end up the victim of a conspiracy and that the Roman world would then be divided into two factions. One was the Friends of Liberty, which had as its figurehead the aged Cicero, a man of great vanity who thought that he had achieved great things because he had made great speeches, and who would have liked not only to devote himself to his leisurely studies in his retreat at Tusculum but also to enjoy all the reputation attached to the active life of statesmen. All the members of this party desired the good but could not bring it about because they were ignorant of human nature. The other party was the Friends of Caesar, brave warriors and still more valiant drinkers, who abandoned themselves to their passions and knew how to exploit those of others. Cleopatra was not slow in choosing between them. She showed great respect for Antony and very little for Cicero, who never forgave her for this, as you can see from several letters that he wrote at this time to Atticus.

Cleopatra did not want to witness the denouement of the drama whose plot she had already fathomed. So she departed for Alexandria.
Her young husband greeted her return with excessive transports of joy. The people of Alexandria were drunk with happiness. By looking as though she shared the delight which she inspired, Cleopatra completely won over the hearts of the Alexandrians. But those who knew her well realized that her effusions were largely founded on political calculation, and that her feelings were more affected than sincere. And indeed when she thought that she could be sure of Alexandria she went to Memphis, where she appeared dressed as Isis, wearing the horns of a cow, which won the affections of the Egyptians there. She even made herself popular with the Nabataeans, the Libyans and all those peoples whose lands border Egypt.

At last the queen returned to Alexandria. Caesar was murdered and civil war broke out in all the provinces of the empire. From that moment on, Cleopatra seemed plunged in sombre thoughts. Those who were closest to her discovered her plan, which was to marry Antony and reign in Rome.

One morning my grandfather went to the queen and presented her with jewels which had just arrived from the Indies. She seemed delighted with them, praised my grandfather's taste and extolled his zeal. She then said to him:

‘My dear Hiskias, here are some excellent crystallized bananas which I believe were brought from India by the same Serendib merchants from whom you obtained these precious stones. Please be so kind as to take these fruits to my young husband and tell him to eat them for the love of me.'

My grandfather did as he was asked and the young king said to him, ‘Since the queen wants me to eat these confections for the love of her, I want you to be witness to the fact that I shall consume them all.'

But before he had eaten three bananas his features became contorted and his eyes seemed to bulge out of his head. He cried out in pain and then fell dead on the floor. My grandfather realized at once that he had been used as the instrument of the most terrible of all crimes. He withdrew, rent his garments, put on sackcloth and covered his head with ashes.

Six weeks later the queen summoned him and said, ‘My dear Hiskias, you must have heard that Octavius, Antony and Lepidus
have divided the empire of the world between them. The East has fallen to my dear Antony. I have decided to join him in Silicia. I want you, my dear Hiskias, to build me a boat in the form of a conch shell lined with mother-of-pearl inside and out. I want the deck to be draped all over with a fine net of gold, through which I will be seen with the attributes of Venus surrounded by graces and cherubs. Go now and carry out my orders with your usual intelligence.'

My grandfather then threw himself at the queen's feet and said, ‘Your Highness, please consider that I am a Jew; anything to do with Greek divinities is in my eyes sacrilegious, and I am bound to have no dealings with them.'

‘I understand,' said the queen. ‘You feel remorse for the death of my young husband. Your sorrow is justified. I feel it myself more than I would have expected. Hiskias, you were not meant for the life of the court. I dispense you from appearing at it.'

My grandfather needed no further persuasion. He went home, packed up and retired to a house that he possessed on the shores of Lake Mareotis. Once there he devoted himself entirely to putting his affairs in order, so as to be able to carry out the plan which he had long been considering of setting up house in Jerusalem as soon as possible. He lived in complete retirement and received no one whom he had known at court, with the exception of Dellius the musician, for whom he had always felt great friendship.

Meanwhile Cleopatra had had the ship built more or less in accordance with her wishes and had set sail for Silicia, whose people really took her to be Venus. And Mark Antony, who thought that the Silicians were not that far wrong, followed Cleopatra back to Egypt, where their marriage was celebrated with a magnificence beyond description.