Maxwell Bodenheim

“ Sobe
Other poisons I have made provided us only with that little frenzied prelude to death. Our victims have amused us somewhat, with unconscious heavings—little, docile marionettes in the torments of poisons. But now, Maldor, our subject, inspired by the ever-increasing loveliness of her body, by the ever-growing flame of her beauty, resists in a torment beyond those instinctive spasms and dimly-felt agonies. Her overwhelming desire to prolong her beauty makes the struggle against death wondrously hideous.
Maldor
But since you say she cannot die, where will those struggles lead her? ”

“ Sobe (speaks as to himself)
Wearisome poisons. A droll flutter ... and then always that dainty monotony—death.
Maldor (speaks swiftly)
But surely our work still holds you, O Master. You have not become reconciled to the empty ferocity of death!
Sobe (speaks gently)
Ah, Maldor, our poisons lend their little flourishes merely to life. I would like to poison death.
Maldor (speaks aggrievedly)
But master, those cringing writhings, those indelicate squirmings and jocund acrobatics which our most fastidious poisons produce—what more tender satisfaction! ”

“ Sobe
Bereft of life, but with a beauty which must resist death, the tortured one remains my own. Thus with my poison I become death’s master. Thus that which should die, does not die. Thus death advancing creates a flame which it cannot stifle.
Maldor
Beware. ”

“ Sobe—
You reason too simply. I cannot promise you life. Perhaps your pleasure will be only that of one who greets a phantom lover. A moment of loveliness and the thought of eternal beauty embalmed in a dark dream, may be all that shall be given to you before death.
Fana
And what else is possible?
Sobe
It is possible that you will become so beautiful that you cannot die. It is possible that Death, feeding your{79} beauty, will exhaust itself in a last gentle caress. Then you will still live, and Death, a eunuch, will drag himself after you.
Fana
But why do you speak so eagerly? ”

“ Fana
My eyes are like madly swinging torches.
{81}
Sobe
Your mouth....
Fana
My mouth is like the little red door to a palace.
Sobe
Your hair....
Fana (eyeing the mirror still)
My hair is like a misty pageant.
Sobe
Your body....
Fana
The wine of my body drenches my clothes.
Sobe
You grow more beautiful.
Fana (becomes exultant)
My beauty gathers over me like rose-flooded armor.
Sobe (whispering)
Death slashes at your armor.
Fana (exultant)
I cannot die.
Sobe
The poison glides softly through your blood.
Fana (she speaks softly)
I cannot die. ”

“ Sobe
I have hidden the drop in wine.
(Fana rises and lifts her veil from her mouth. She drinks, smiling at Maldor, who sits and stares impassively ahead of him. Sobe rises and moves to the back of the room, watching her.)
Fana
I have drunk.
Sobe (softly)
Unveil yourself.
(Fana unveils herself.)
Sobe
Ah!
(He draws aside a panel portiere in the rear draperies, and a long narrow mirror is revealed.)
Sobe
Look.
Fana
Ah!
Sobe (gazing at her intently)
You are beautiful.
Fana (whispering)
I grow more beautiful.
Sobe (he speaks as if growing dazed)
Your eyes.... ”

“ Sobe (gasping)
The poison ... take it away....
Fana (she sings)
My beauty, my beauty is a wildly chanting torrent.
Sobe (speaks and holds his throat and gasps)
Death staggers from you ... and death blindly wanders....
Fana (comes closer to him and speaks mockingly)
Ah, poisoner.
Sobe (in anguish)
My heart breaks. (He staggers; speaks faintly.) I am Death’s master!
(He staggers another step forward and pitches headlong across the scarlet cushion on which he sat. Maldor leans forward and touches his throat as Fana softly laughs.)
Maldor
He is dead. ”

“ Sobe the Poisoner has made a drop of poison which will create beauty and death. In the soul of its victim these two monsters meet and strive against each other. Immortal beauty and death remain clutched in a stifling caress. The poison, as it works upon its victim, renders her more radiant and beautiful each moment, and each moment it paralyses her heart.
Maldor ”

“ He has watched too many frenzied struggles. No longer do they intrigue him. He yearns for something elaborate. He has dreamed of more fragile tortures. The poison he will give you brings no pain, but the beauty it creates within you will sharpen to madness your desire to live, and my master will sit and look into your eyes.
Sobe
Have you finished, Maldor?
Maldor
Yes.
Sobe (gently)
I desire another assistant, Fana. As you see, one who will serve me more faithfully, and whose loves are not so obvious. I will tell you why I am so eager. I wish simply to master death.
Fana
Have you the poison? ”

“ When dropped into the eyes of a virgin, this poison will cause her face to contract in a twitching crescendo.
Sobe (speaks listlessly)
The eyes of a virgin are too blank for a poisoner’s relish.
Maldor (speaks with eager, hopeful emphasis)
The virgin, O Master, provides only the unimportant tinge to the process. The relish lies in the pompous complexity of the poison.
Sobe
Complexity is but a shattered mirror. ”

“ Sobe (speaks gently)
A drop taken into the blood, no more. The skin becomes a milk-tinted pond in which wine-ghosts timidly bathe. The eyes, like purple breasted birds, beat against the day. The mouth blooms into splendours. Ah, Maldor, the drop releases beauty from her thousand prisons. The victim stands washed in a flood of light before which imagination dies.
Maldor (speaks maliciously)
{73}
What unique philanthropy is this? ”

“ But now he has gone, and there is no garden—only a palest purple window.
The Mad Shepherd
We can leap through this window, but it may be a trap.
The Narcissus Peddler
Or a dream?
The Mad Shepherd
Perhaps this is a dream that is true—an endless dream.
The Narcissus Peddler
Can that be death?
Mad Shepherd (pointing to the other’s basket)
With death, you would have left your narcissus behind you, for fragrance itself.
Peddler
If my life has melted to an endless dream, my chase is over. ”

“ Whose scent beats on the sky-walls of your soul.
{18} VIII
You draw my heart about you, as a cloak,
And your words steal over it like a reluctant color:
A color of pain that fears to die.
My heart ripples with your slight turning
But sometimes moves when you are still,
Beckoning to longings that have not reached your mouth.
{19} IX
Sedate and archaic, a twilight-frilled haze
Walks over the meadows like rolled-out centuries
Quivering in sprightly welcome. ”

“ You squat, and sometimes your voice
In which the wind takes no part,
Is like mists of music wedding each other.
A drunken, odor-laced peddler is the morning wind.
He brings you golden-scarfed cities
Whose voices are swirls of bells burdened with summer;
And maidens whose hearts are galloping princes.
And you raise your branches to the sky,
With a whisper that holds the smile you cannot shape.
{48} INTRUSION
The lilies sag with rain-drops:
Their petals hold fire that does not break out. ”

“ On two of these cushions sit Sobe, the Poisoner, and Maldor, his Assistant. They sit to the left and right of the candle, eyeing each other with a softly-smiling melancholy. Sobe is tall, black-bearded, condor-faced, and clad in an orange robe, and black sandals. Maldor is short and smooth-shaven, with the face of a sleepy girl. He wears a white robe and sandals.{70}
Maldor (puzzled and wistful, speaks softly to the Poisoner)
A secretion from the intestines of the cane-rat found in the Hwang-Ho river, sprinkled with the pollen of jasmine-flowers, produces a most wonderful poison, O Master. ”

“ A soul you have—strength has always delicate, secret reasons.
Your soul is a dull question.
I do not care for your strength, but your stiff smile at Time:
A smile which men call rust.
{61} TO AN ENEMY
I despise my friends more than you. ”

“ But as {8}a rule, Bodenheim is as clear-headed as he is colorful. Among the younger men he has no superior in his use of the verbal nuance.
But it is not merely as word-juggler that Bodenheim shines. He has an imagination that he uses both as a tool and as a toy. Personally, I care more for Bodenheim when he plays with his images (as in “Poet to His Love,” “Hill Side Tree” and certain of the poems to “Minna”) , than when his figures attempt to build or destroy something (as in “To An Enemy,” “The Interne,” “Soldiers”) . It is as a decorator that his gifts serve him best. ”

“ Palest purple window, tell me where he is?
(There is a short silence. The Mad Shepherd stands despairingly fingering his reed. The Narcissus Peddler appears from the right. He is an old man, a huge basket of cut narcissus strapped to his back. His body is tall and slender; his face a bit yellow, with a long silver-brown beard. His head is bare. He wears a black velvet coat, pale yellow shirt, soft grey, loose trousers, and black sandals. He rests his basket upon the floor. The Mad Shepherd takes a step toward him, wearily.)
The Narcissus Peddler ”