Authors: Albert Cohen
they are nostalgically committed and attracted and when they fill their mouths with swaggering talk of their race talk of the one blood by which they are joined what are they doing if not reverting to notions of animality which wolves understand well enough though even wolves do not devour their own kind and when they exalt strength or the exercise of body and flesh in the sunlight when like their Hider or their Nietzsche they boast of being inexorable and implacable what are they boasting of if not their return to the great apedom of the primeval forest and in truth when they massacre and torture Jews they are punishing the people of the Holy Law and of the prophets the people who strove to establish the reign of the human on earth oh yes they know or sense that they are the people who live under the sway of nature and that Israel is the people who combat the laws of nature and the bearer of a crazy hope which nature abhors and they instinctively abominate the people which opposes them and which upon Sinai's top did declare war upon the natural upon the animal in man and to this war both the religion of Jews and the religion of Christians have borne witness hosanna hallelujah hosanna in the old religion God whose mettle is the mettle of the Jewish prophet irritable benign and naively earnest God issues decrees without cease He specifies what man must do and more particularly must not do if he is to expunge the taint of nature and animality and thou shalt not kill is the first of His Commandments the first battle-cry in the war on nature oh in my bones I feel the pride of it and in the synagogue I tremble when the descendant of Aaron opens the Ark and brings forth the Scrolls of the Holy Law and holds them out to the people hosanna hallelujah hosanna the Christian religion which descended from my people transformed Gentiledom and through it man has become human across vast tracts of this earth hosanna hallelujah hosanna a new birth a new man Adam a new salvation through faith the Imitation of Christ saving grace which redeems original sin which is at bottom the taint of nature and animality and all these lofty Christian concepts stem directly from the same Jewish determination to change natural man into a child of God into a soul which has been saved in other words into a being who is human hosanna hallelujah hosanna and thus by other more inward paths is the same end achieved which is the humanization of man hosanna hallelujah hosanna two daughters of Jerusalem one Jewish and one Christian and Hitler from the height from which he loves to look down upon nature which he worships hates them both in equal measure for both are queens of mankind and eternal enemies of the laws of nature and whether they know it or not whether they wish it or not men's noblest qualities are rooted in the Jewish soul and the rock on which they stand is the Bible O my lovely Jews to whom I speak in silence know your people Israel venerate your people Israel for seeking schism and separation for having taken up arms against nature and nature's laws but alas men do not and will not see the truth I speak and I remain cold and alone with my royal truth alas all truths unshared and unloved by men are pitiful and become madness O my glorious pitiful girl O my crazy darling girl let us be mad together let us keep each other warm far from them a little while back I looked at myself in the mirror and felt pity for the lonely figure I cut that day wandering through Paris a king without a people the only man who truly loves his people felt pity for myself for I shall die one year ten years from now and my crazy truth will die with me a year hence ten years hence die for ever O my brothers in this earthly life companions from whom I keep my distance fellow galley-slaves tell me oh tell me while she sits sewing and I hold aloft an invisible cup pray tell me what I am doing here a guest at this undistinguished banquet which has been laid since the earliest point of unrecorded time I came I am here but why am I here and what is the point and is there really a point my time has come the hour has come for all of us moving particles and it will pass absurdly pass but where will it go and why perhaps the unmoving dead know ah so much knowledge buried deep poor Solal man or beast I shall die I shall be returned to nature for ever and then where will be my joy and the song I sang as I went to her in our beginnings in a motor car went to her who waited in her Romanian dress and she stood at the door beneath the roses waiting for me in her perfect dress and where will be the exquisite evening when I was a schoolboy often and had just begun a new exercise book with such absurd enthusiasm such poindess trust I sat by my serene mother wlio watched her little boy as he lovingly did his homework in the pool of light cast by the oil-lamp and where tell me pray where has that happiness gone give it a rest come Solal return to your unhinged mode yes it pleases me that my brothers the pious Jews of the ghettos give spangled names to their Law calling it Betrothed and Crowned it pleases me that their parchment Scrolls on which the Holy Law is writ in the ancient script of my people are decorated with unpretentious crowns and wrapped in unlovely velvet and gold for they have no talent for comely abominations but they love their Law with every fibre of their beings oh the Scrolls of the Law in the synagogue in grave procession borne the faithful kiss them and with all my soul I bow before them and feel my heart quicken in my chest quicken for the majesty which passes by and I kiss them too and such is our only act of adoration in the house of the God in whom I do not believe but revere O my dead of ancient days O you who by your Law and your Commandments and your prophets took up arms against nature and her animal laws laws of murder and pillage laws of impurity and injustice O my dead of ancient days holy tribe O my sublime stammering prophets my towering simple impassioned indefatigable spouters of threats and promises fierce defenders of Israel unceasingly lashing a people they would make holy a people whose like is not in nature and such is love such is our love O my dead of ancient days I fervently praise you praise your Law for it is our glory as primates sprung from time without memory our claim to royalty and our divine homeland to fashion our clay into figures of men through obedience to the Law to be metamorphosed into the gnarled and twisted but miraculous bent-backed wanderer a creature monstrous and sublime a new being who may at times be loathsome for these are merely his first faltering steps and he will be imperfect and a failure and a hypocrite for thousands of years this twisted miraculous divine-eyed being this non-animal non-natural monster that is man the product of our own heroic handiwork and in sooth it is our last-ditch heroism to refuse to be what we are that is beasts subject to the rules of nature and to want to be what we are not which is men and this we did without urging for there is nothing that forces us to do it nothing for the universe is not governed nor does it have any meaning beyond its pointless existence in the stark eye of the void and in truth our greatness lies in this obedience to the Law which nothing justifies nor sanctions save our own crazy will and there is neither hope nor reward oh to be in the cellar oh to proclaim the coming of the land of sun and sea our homeland granted to us by the Almighty blessed be His name proclaim the flight from captivity and the mountains will crack and give vent to their joy and beneath the sun of our sky we will establish the everlasting reign of justice whereupon the uncle-in-majesty blesses me he winds the thongs of the Law about my arm and about my head and the no-neck midget with the lustrous eyes places the crown on my head then leads me by the hand to the open coach inlaid with antic gold and sparkling with many-faceted mirrors oh' the splendour of the royal coach as it proceeds bumpily through the slippery cobbled streets ah through the German streets goes the coach of the Law drawn by Isaac and Jacob the centenarian solemn-bearded horses with long oval faces watchful faces thoughtful faces striving to be human while I stand in. the coach king of the race which challenged nature and nature's laws king of the loving race beloved of the Lord and chosen by Him a king upright in the old coach adorned with cherubim bearing flaming torches lurching through the German streets a pitching tossing battered coach followed by the midget walking with difficulty on her twisted legs accompanied by her wondrous blind sister and the uncle-in-majesty and behind them come the halt with shining eyes epileptics noble old men astoundingly handsome adolescents all pied-pipered by the king of rubies and sapphires who stands in the open coach the priest and king who holds aloft the Scrolls of the Commandments and smiles with joy unconfined for behold oh miracle wrought by the Law the Germans are magically metamorphosed into men and cease singing of the joy of seeing their knives stream with the blood of Israel cease proclaiming their murderous joy and instead acclaim the king they smile at him oh miracle wrought by the Law they love the king of the Jews who greets them with gentleness and raises on high the Law that is Mother and Betrothed and raimented in velvet and gold and crowned with silver who unremittingly holds out the Holy Law to them while two crookbacked but princely boys with saucer eyes garlanded in blue support his arms for heavy is the Law and from time to time the two ancient nags stop and turn their gentle fearful heads turn their enormous eyes lovingly on their king then resume their trembling careful progress but why do I now find myself in this forest alive with whispering fears the rustling starts a cold sweat and enemies lurk behind trees and icy fingers of fear run up and down my spine and there are dangerous footsteps behind me in this forest on this mountain and why am I nailed no I nail myself to the door of this cathedral on this mountain I pierce my own side with a nail from the cellar one of the long nails she gave me as a souvenir I who proclaim undyingly into the dark wind that the day of the never-ending kiss will dawn who nail myself oh those naked dead men yonder the skeletal incinerated dead with faces pain-twisted by torture who now quicken and rise up in the flames resuscitated helpless hapless victims O my lovely dead dears and yonder the empty coach goes on its doomed way threatening to overturn but pressing ever onwards eternally bearing the august Mother of the Jews raimented in velvet and gold and crowned with silver and the two gaunt horses advance indefatig-ably their hooves slipping in a shower of sparks and they stumble and drop to their knees then struggle bravely to their feet ancient asthmatic broken obedient stubborn creatures painfully plodding and now and then turning their gentle faces to behold their bloody king and still the two sublime palfreys lathered by the sweat of death trudge along the everlastingly windswept road suddenly taking fright and the horse Isaac coughs like a man while the midget with the large round eyes pretends to laugh at the man nailed to the wart-studded door and then wipes the tears from his cheeks for he cannot bear the pain of leaving his earthly children all alone and the midget weeps now weeps openly and suddenly bids him ringingly to offer up the prayer laid down in the ritual for the hour has come and the king has nailed his throat to the wart-studded door and blood spurts black and red and he intones the last prayer proclaims the Oneness of God Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One and his body arches convulsively and his eyes are upturned and white for ever yes my darling I love you more and more and silently I shout it from the rooftops of my heart while you sit there quietly restitching the hems which I unpicked to give your life a brief point I worship you who sit there sewing making damp little spittly noises as do all needlewomen intent on the task in hand I love the even rhythm of your breathing as you sew I love your serene and demure face as you sew for your face is so kind and gentle that it makes me kind and gentle too makes me a schoolboy once more hello a rumble never mind I can live with a few rumbles I can even respect rumbling and greet it with a smile because it comes from my sweet seamstress I watch lovingly as you wet your finger and twist the cotton to make it fine enough to thread lovingly through the needle eyes asquint and lips placidly pursed as you lovingly ply the looping needle so serious so thoughtful and I feel at peace as I watch you sew I sit in the lee of a mother hunched over her sacred toil sweet slave and mother oh how your task becomes you oh how noble and natural your face seems now but why must I forever be spread-eagling myself on you to make you happy such a shame my love my soothing seamstress the way you ply your needle your fingers moving with a purpose have a quality of such resigned pensive sweetness and I adore you but why must I always be straddling you like an animal to keep you happy and talking of which the two-backed beast has made only one appearance in the week since my return and that was the night I got back and you are probably starting to worry because you want my love you women are obsessed with the need to be shown proof that you are loved by having your man climb all over you anyway I'll try but not tonight maybe tomorrow of course you love me your conscious even worships me and goes on worshipping me but your unconscious isn't as crazy for me as it used to be oh no darling your unconscious would much prefer to be the lawful wedded wife of that English lord who has just got back to London after leading an expedition to the Himalayas would much prefer to be able to throw a party and invite delightful influential well-bred friends to celebrate the absurd mountain triumph of dear manly hubby so calm a man of few words poised universally popular a man with an ideal a man who loves animals and strong tea and gravely inhales aromatic tobacco through manfully clenched teeth from the briar pipe you bought for him you took a good long look at that photo of him in your magazine twenty seconds at least oh yes my darling your unconscious has its knife in me for being exotic but not very sporty not swimming enough talking too much not leaping around enough in the open air and being far too much of an infidel furthermore your unconscious doesn't care at all for my dressing-gowns which it thinks are too long though your conscious mind thinks them aristocratic your unconscious also loathes my whirling worry-beads and my silk socks it would much prefer the thick woolly sort and the hobnailed boots as worn by the aforementioned peer and mountain-climber and then again