The Etruscan by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 10th, 2022 in Stories

It was the night of the full moon and the beginning of the spring festival. But when my attendants sought to wash the sacred color from my face and hands, to anoint me and to place a wreath of flowers around my neck, I sent them away.

“Take of my flour and bake the cakes of the gods,” I said. “Choose sacrificial animals from my herd and also give gifts to the poor. Dance the sacrificial dances and play the games of the gods according to custom. But I myself shall retire to solitude.” Nevertheless, I asked both augurs, both interpreters of lightning and both sacrificial priests to make certain that all was done as custom decreed.

I myself burned incense in my room until the air was heavy with the smoke of the gods. Then I stretched out on the triple mattress of my couch, crossed my arms tightly across my chest, and let the moon shine on my face. I sank into a sleep which was not sleep until my limbs became immobile. Then it was that the goddess’s black dog came into my dream, but no longer barking and wild-eyed as before. It came gently, leaped into my lap, and licked my face. In my dream I spoke to it

“I will not have you in your underworld guise, goddess. You have given me unwanted wealth and power that I have not craved. There are no earthly riches with which you could tempt me to content myself with you.”

Her black dog vanished from my lap and the feeling of oppression passed. Then the arms of my lunar body, transparent in the moonlight, reached upward. Again I rejected the goddess. “Not even in my heavenly shape will I worship you,” I said.

My lunar body ceased to delude me. Instead, my guardian spirit, a winged being fairer than the fairest human, took shape before my eyes. She was more alive than any mortal as she approached and seated herself on the edge of my couch with a smile.

“Touch me with your hand,” I implored, “that I may know you at last. I am tired of lusting for all that is earthly and desire only you.”

“Not yet,” she replied. “But some day you will know me. Whomever you have loved on earth you have loved only me in her. We two, you and I, are inseparable but always apart until that moment when I can take you in my arms and bear you away on my powerful wings.”

“It is not your wings that I long for but you yourself,” I said. “I want to hold you in my arms. If not in this life, then in some future life I shall compel you to assume a human shape so that I may discover you with human eyes. Only for that reason do I want to return.”

Her slender fingers caressed my throat. “What a dreadful liar you are, Turms,” she murmured.

I gazed on her flawless beauty, human yet flamelike. “Tell me your name that I may know you,” I pleaded.

“And how domineering you are,” she smiled. “Even if you knew it you could not rule me. But do not fear. When I finally take you in my arms I shall whisper my name in your ear, although you probably will have forgotten it when you awaken to the thunder of immortality.” “I don’t want to forget it,” I protested. “You have done so in the past,” she declared.

No longer able to resist, I extended my arms to embrace her. They closed over nothing, although I still saw her alive before me. Gradually the objects in the room became visible through her being. I sprang up with a start, my fingers clutching at moonbeams. Disconsolately I paced the room, touching the various objects, but my arms lacked strength to lift even the smallest. Again a feeling of oppression came over me and I struck the gong with my fist to summon a human companion. But no sound emanated from it.

When I awakened I was lying on the couch with my arms crossed tightly over my chest. Finding that I could move my limbs, I sat on the edge of the couch and hid my face in my hands.

Through the incense and the terrifying moonlight I tasted the metallic flavor of immortality and smelled its icy scent. Its cold flame nickered before my eyes, its thunder roared in my ears.

I rose defiantly, flung wide my arms and shouted, “I do not fear you, Chimera. I still live the life of a human. Not an immortal but a human among my own kind.”

But I could not forget. I spoke again to her who ever hovered around me invisibly, protecting me with her wings.

“I confess that all I have done of my own selfish will has been wrong and harmful to myself as well as to others. Only in following your guidance, unknowingly and as one who walks in his sleep, have I unerringly done the right thing. But I must still learn for myself what I am and why I am thus.”

Having clarified that, I taunted her. “It is true that you have done your utmost to make me believe, but I do not. So much a human am I still, I will believe only when I awaken in some other life to the roar of the storm and remember and know myself. When that happens I shall be your equal. Then we can better dictate our terms to each other.”

I took the clay vessel from the feet of the goddess, took one pebble after another in my palm and remembered. And having remembered, I wrote down everything to the best of my ability.