48

HORIESE AND FELIX

This is an unfinished story that appeared in La Flèche No. 13, June 15, 1932. It was subtitled “Symbolic Story—Sixth Arcanum,” which refers to the sixth arcanum of the Tarot, which is The Lovers. “Horiese” is an ancient Egyptian name, befitting a priest or priestess. At the end of the story it says “to be continued,” but it never was. Naglowska signed it with one of her pseudonyms, “Hanoum.”

The sea was very rough when Felix finally decided to challenge the waters with his swimming.

He could have done it sooner, during the months of summer, for example, when the sky was propitious and the crystalline surface did not oppose human effort, but such was Felix’s destiny: he must not undertake great things except at the most difficult moment. His “happy” name had no doubt earned him this destiny . . .

The sea was very rough. Enormous waves pushed one another with an infernal frenzy, in a hurry to shoot the excess of their foam into the greenish crevasses.

They were arriving on the shore like walls of transparent marble, crashing noisily on the damp and desolate sand.

The sky was heavy, dark gray.

Felix was standing, arms crossed on his chest. He received the glacial ardor of the wind full in his face, but his body was warmed by it.

“Yes,” he said to himself, “I need real danger to attempt the experiment.”

And he imagined, coming out of the waves, the impalpable silhouette of the unreal woman who, during a ferocious coitus that he was consummating with a savage lover, brusquely stopped him in the middle of his amorous effusions and said to him in an imperial voice: “I don’t want your death in the arms of this unworthy creature. I’ll receive you in my castle and teach you something else, if you swim there.”

Felix then left the bed of shame to respectfully interrogate the divine apparition, but his frightened lover brought forth unworthy words and so ruined the spell he had been under.

The lover left and did not come back; but in the soul of Felix there was a storm.

He wanted to know where the castle of the impalpable fairy was, and the waters that he would have to swim across.

He searched a long time and finally found someone to whom the woman had appeared under the same circumstances. That someone pointed out to him the road that he would have to travel to the shore where he now found himself . . .

He had arrived on a sunny day, and he had been able to spot, far off, the marvelous isle where the fairy’s castle was built. But he lacked training and gave up the idea of the long swim, although the season was propitious.

Felix loved storms, but the monotonous calm weakened him . . .

He looked at the furious waters, joyfully received the icy wind, and his courage rose within him.

“One more wave,” he said to himself, “and I’ll throw myself into the currents.”

The wave arrived: enormous, menacing, cold. It spit a grayish spume and roared with anger and rage.

That only lasted for a brief instant, but it seemed to Felix that the wave contained all the malefic forces spread through the world: all the forces that oppose the freedom of the spirit, the royal enfranchisement of Man.

The wave broke at the feet of Felix, and, crazy with joy, the young man threw himself into the sea.

Certainly, consciousness must remain silent if the other voice, that of the spirit, is to triumph.

Ordinary consciousness is limited. It knows its weakness in the face of the imperial caprice of Nature; that is why it trembles and becomes fearful when it is necessary to act in a way other than usual.

Intellectual consciousness has no foothold except on the rigidity of the laws of death. Life surpasses it.

Felix quieted his discursive consciousness, as he fought with an unusual heroism against the rage of the sea. He gave free rein to his elementary forces, those that desire, those that are life, and thus triumphed in the terrible test.

He arrived at the other shore because his combat with the unchained currents was in reality a game of love with them.

He fell upon the flowered grass like a sword of steel.

Naked, immobile, his arms extended to the right and left, he lay under the cheery sun of the other shore like a fetish that wants nothing, but can do everything.

In him Life was free and the intellect vanquished . . .

It was then that Horiese, the new Sophia, approached him.

Through the imprecise vapor of her light vestment, the sun kissed her whole body.

Her golden hair was tied back above her neck in the manner of ancient Greece.

Horiese fixed her gaze with its metallic reflections upon Felix and said to him without any passion: “I salute you, man of courage! You have conquered the waters, you are worthy of my love. . . . Rest yourself upon the grass of my island, and when the sun shall have nourished you sufficiently, come into my castle. . . . You will find the key to my door between the two columns of a fountain that you will look for this evening . . . now rest.

Felix hadn’t moved during the brief speech of the strange woman. Afterward everything seemed natural to him, and he knew that nothing was impossible for him. Indifference reigned in him like a calm sheet of water in a blue lake.

The queen of the marvelous island remained near him for a few moments. The expression on her face did not vary, and it was obvious that she did not wish any response on Felix’s part.

Slowly, she distanced herself, like a golden cloud, leaving behind her a trail of aromatic breath that grazed Felix’s sides with a serpentine tickling.

Soon afterward, Felix was sleeping dreamlessly.

When he woke up, the sun was already setting. Long, violet shadows traced regular designs on the green grass.

In the distance, the sea chanted its evening canticle, rhythmed to the calmed breath of the storm.

The sky was absolutely clear: red in the west, fading blue in the east.

Felix did not think about what had happened.

He got up and made a sweeping movement with his two arms, breathing deeply.

He felt stronger than ever, peaceful, well rested.

His mood was joyous.

“It’s funny,” he thought, “I haven’t eaten since yesterday, I’ve made a fantastic effort, but I don’t feel any hunger.”

That was when he remembered the marvelous queen and the brief words she had said at his arrival on this shore.

“Indeed,” he said to himself, “here the sun no doubt replaces nourishment. So much the better!”

. . . And, human curiosity returning to him, Felix decided to explore the country where he was.

The vegetation was abundant. The large palm trees predominated, but there were also tufted bushes upon which splendid flowers blossomed, giving off a very special aroma.

Felix determined that there was no other human or animal there. The animal kingdom was not represented on this island except by many birds of magnificent plumage. They came in all sizes, enormous and minuscule, and each bird gaily sang its special melody.

The works of Man were nowhere visible.

“Still, the queen had spoken to me of her castle, and about a key that I must find near a fountain . . . a strange enigma.”

Now, Felix’s curiosity was really piqued, and at the same time a dull thirst pressed at his throat. The fountain? He felt an imperious need to search for the fountain.

To do this, he covered the whole island patiently and in concentric circles.

He remarked, then, that this land was like the summit of a cone whose base was lost in the water.

Night was now very near, but he had not found the fountain.

Neither was the castle anywhere to be seen.

Felix’s thirst grew from minute to minute. He now discerned its nature.

“The queen had only a light, vaporous vestment, and the sun kissed her body,” Felix said to himself, seeing clearly in his imagination the harmonious contour of Horiese’s flanks. “Does she disappear when night comes?”

This idea lit a terrible flame inside Felix.

“Have I conquered the waters and absorbed the sun to arrive . . . too late?” he asked himself, while the night became darker and darker around him. “Now, no light guides me at all, and I’m devoured by interior fire in the middle of this uninhabited island, plunged into the shadows . . . even shouting wouldn’t help . . .”

He was on the point of giving up when a perfumed breeze came to his nostrils.

“Ah! It’s her perfume!” he shouted. “What is your name, oh marvelous queen? Reveal your name to me, so that I can evoke you . . . Where are you? You are devouring me like a perfidious fire, you undress yourself in my view . . . Have you made me come here at night just so that this would be impossible?”

The conqueror of the waters grieved like the weakest of men.