London, 1893

We eat the tongues of songbirds.
     A return to the Hellenic ideal.
     Our motto: Lend yourself to your desires.
     We are informed by the new sciences: mesmerism, telepathy.
     We know the minds of others.
     We revel in the ambiguous, the sinister.
     Just yesterday, we encountered a bourgeois with a potbelly and thick sideburns. He walked with a cane and a satisfied swagger. We trailed him through the streets of Mayfair, our faces white as plaster. We smiled. Not because we were pleased. But in order to show our distaste. 
     Imagine the glacial stare of a Dandy. He is always turned out. Never emotionally spontaneous.
    We are the sickness of the century.
    We are exhausted.
    There are many disappointments here.
    Many minor degradations.
    We smoke a cigarette. And then another.
    Our fingertips are yellowed.
    We recline on pillows. They are the color of pomegranates.
    We seek illusion.
    We seek the invention of a Paradise.
    We dream of living in an ancient hospital. We want to ramble its empty gray wards. We want the lingering scent of a long-ago death. The filter of a pale light in the corridors.
    At times, we think of King Ludwig of Bavaria. He is said to have built for himself an artificial world—mechanical animals with amber-glass eyes—a man-made cave, encrusted with shining jewels. There was music in his trees. Handsome soldiers dressed as nymphs and satyrs. They cavorted. The king would catch them in the darkness. He kissed them and stroked their well-made bodies.
    We find that we have come to despise families, mothers and fathers. We despise little children.
    We are left limp, used up by life. 
    We avoid thoughts of the hateful period in which we live. We delve into other places, other times.
    The possibility of marriage is abhorrent to us.
    We have lost touch with our school friends. We live in rented rooms above a tavern.
    Our family has some wealth. We have no need to find employment.
    We hate churches. We hate ministers. We hate candlelight and the middleclass.
    In coffee houses, we speak with darkly attractive young men. We never form true connections. But we like to look into their black eyes. We like to imagine touching their full-lipped mouths.
    In those same establishments, we have encountered certain pieces of literature. The dark young men carry pamphlets, the authors of which are unknown to us. The pages contain intricate descriptions of aesthetic pleasures—the distillations of black magicians, the varied scents of burning resins. We find obscure investigations into quintessence. There are interviews with men who claim to have sailed the mare tenebrarum and found the "pale continent."
    We read too of the Roman Empire, of Emperor Hadrian. He took a lover called Antinous, beautiful and firm. The young man drowned, one bright afternoon, in the Nile. He was found floating, facedown, in the rushes. Some days later, Antinous’ body appeared, a shining vessel, suspended in the air above the river. He was marble-eyed, golden-lipped. The emperor saw this vision and fell to his knees. He made worship. The men and women of Khartoum fell to their knees and also made worship.
    In the margins of these passages, someone has scrawled notes in a trembling hand:
         
          There are gods, one of the notes says. But they are not the gods anyone has thought to name.

    We smoke a cigarette.
    We consider the meaning of such notes.
    Normally, the notes accompany descriptions of a place in London. The place is never named. Yet we have come to recognize its details. It is composed of a maze of broken columns and subterranean chambers. There is a smell of myrrh. There is a sound of moving water. This place is haunted by an ancient world. It is said to be located near the remnants of the old Roman Wall. Several of the hand-written notes repeat two words:

           Hadrian’s Palace.

   We have read descriptions of the palace’s great subterranean fountains, the waters of which are dyed black. There are said to be cavernous theaters in the palace and rooms where fine banquets have turned to dust. Men gather in this sunken realm. They speak softly to one another. They know each other well.
    We think of beautiful Antinous, young lover of the emperor. We picture him, floating in the air above the Nile. A holy body. Erotic, divine.
    We think of Hadrian and his worship.
    We wonder, for a moment, if the emperor brought his worship here.
    We wonder if the ancient world may still exist somewhere beneath the London paving stones.
    We wonder if, for us, it might provide escape.
    "Who made the notes in these pamphlets?" we ask one of the dark young men at the coffee house.
    "Notes?" he says. He sips his black coffee and looks at us with his black eyes.
    We nod. "The hurried ones," we say. "Here." We point to the cramped handwriting in the pamphlet’s margin.
    The dark young man gazes at the writing and then the answer comes: "Ephraim," he says. "Ephraim made the notes."
    "And where is Ephraim now?" we ask.
    "He’s dead," the dark young man says.
    "How did he die?"
    The dark young man shrugs. "How does anyone die?"
    We steal one of the pamphlets. We read the scribbled notes carefully. We walk the streets near the Roman Wall, searching for some entrance to the sunken realm. We listen for the sounds of moving water. We try to catch the scent of Myrrh. There are gods, we think. But they are not the gods that anyone has thought to name. We look for landmarks. We hunt for signs. Yet, there is nothing.
    We find ourselves hungering for Hadrian’s Palace. For secrecy and worship.
    For camaraderie in the dust.
    We cannot return to the coffee house for several weeks.
    Our father visits our rented room.
    He angers us with dinners, with common talk of finance and sales. He tells us how our brothers and sisters are faring.
   We eat the tongues of song birds, we remind ourselves. A return to the Hellenic ideal.
     When finally we visit the coffee house once more, there is something different in the air. The dark young men who have gathered there do not speak to one another. They do not read their pamphlets. We ask one of them what has happened (is this perhaps the same young man we spoke to before?) He points to a dim table in one corner of the room. At the table sits another young man, all alone. His head is lowered. His clothes look ragged. His big hands are pale, folded on the tabletop.
    We go to him. We sit in the seat opposite. "Are you Ephraim?" we say.
    His raises his head to look at us.
    We are afraid when we see his eyes, his lips.
    Ephraim is dead, we think. And then: How does anyone die?
    Even though we are afraid, we ask the note-maker our question. "Where is it? Where is Hadrian’s Palace."
    The young man smiles at us. It is a secret smile. An awful smile.
    "You...know...my...name," he says finally, haltingly
    "Ephraim," we say. "Your name is Ephraim. Please, we are tired."
    "I was tired," Ephraim says.
    "We are tired of London," we say. "Sick of the age. We want an escape. A return to—"
    "I wanted escape," Ephraim says.
    We wonder if he is mocking us.
    "And you found it, didn’t you?"
    "I found it," Ephraim says. He lowers his head again.
    We want to reach out, to touch his hand. To rouse him. But we fear the hand would be cold.
    "Tell us," we say. "Tell us where to find Hadrian’s Palace, that underground realm, that ancient world."
    Ephraim makes a strange clicking sound with his teeth.
    His tongue lolls from his mouth. It is the color of blood.
    "I was tired," he says again. "I was tired."
    We stand. We walk from the coffee house. We are frightened. We tell ourselves that the dark young men have nothing more to offer us. We are determined to find Hadrian’s Palace. Determined to find it this very night.
    We eat the tongues of songbirds, we think.
    And then: There are gods, yes. And we will name them. Every one.

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