Sinai Tapestry by Edward Whittemore Read Free Book Online Page A

secret? What kind of a society is it?
    A masturbation society, said the leader with dignity.
    Strongbow roared with laughter.
    Masturbation? Is that all? What’s so secret about that? And why in God’s name are we speaking Greek?
    You are elected, intoned the seven young men in unison.
    I am? To what?
    Our society. The Seven Immortals.
    Immortal you say? Because you masturbate?
    The Seven were stunned. There had never been any question of explaining their society to anyone, let alone justifying its purpose. They stood in line speechless. Strongbow smiled.
    The Seven Sages of Greece, are you? How often do you meet to exchange your wisdom?
    Two evenings a week.
    Not enough, said Strongbow. Am I to confine myself to masturbating only two evenings a week? Ridiculous.
    No one’s confined. That’s just when we meet formally.
    But why be formal about it at all? A ludicrous notion.
    The leader began talking about charity and fraternity. He even mentioned kings and archbishops and famous statesmen who had been members of the society, but all these impressive names Strongbow waved aside with a long sweep of his arm.
    Listen, o wise men. Masturbation is certainly relaxing, but why have a society for it and one that is secret at that? Nonsense. Pure farce.
    You don’t mean you’re refusing election, stammered the leader.
    Of course that’s what I mean. What an absurdity.
    But no one has refused election in five hundred years.
    Distinctly odd. Now I’ve cooled down from my bath and I think I should dress and get along with my duties. The chapter I’m reading has to do with Solanum nigrum, probably known to you as deadly nightshade, composed in Cordoba in 756, learned but not quite right. Shall I explain the irregularities to you? We’ll have to switch from Greek to Arabic but of course you can carry on with your usual activities.
    The door opened. The seven young men slinked away into the longest night of 1836. Midnight had come and gone and in refusing to accept immortality Strongbow had insufferably effronted over three hundred of the most powerful Englishmen of his day, not to mention the memories of another three thousand dead heroes of his race, an insult that would be well remembered nearly half a century later when he published his monumental thirty-three-volume study entitled Levantine Sex.
    Nor was it merely his intellectual ferocity, his savage fighting skills or his insolent disregard for tradition that caused him to be viewed as dangerous at Cambridge. There was also his unfathomable manner.
    For of course no one realized Strongbow was deaf and that he could only understand others by reading their lips. Therefore anyone outside his field of vision was ignored as if nonexistent, just as any event occurring behind his back was ignored as if nonexistent.
    There was the disturbing occasion in the spring, for example, when a heavy downpour caused half the botanical laboratory at Cambridge to collapse at dawn. The laboratory was thought to be empty but the thunderous crash was so great the entire university rushed to the spot within minutes.
    What they saw standing on what had once been the third floor, the precipice only a few inches behind his feet, was Strongbow bent over a microscope studying the lines of a new spring leaf, oblivious to the destruction that had jolted everyone from their beds.
    Strongbow’s concentration, in sum, was frighteningly aloof and apart. Because of his unnatural height he bore only a distorted resemblance to a man and the only voices he seemed to hear were those of plants. In other eras he might have been burned at the stake as the Antichrist, and undoubtedly it was only because his nineteenth-century world was so rational that he was merely regarded as exceptionally perverse, maniacal and un-English.
    But significantly, it was this very rationality that Strong-bow would one day assault with such devastating results.
    His career at Cambridge culminated in an episode both brilliant and