Chapter 20. 36 Stratagems.

March 20, 1988

“Inspired by a proud idea,
Young Germaine devised a plan,
To make a maiden fall in love,
With all the spirit of his clan:
Rejected, betrayed, and driven forth,
From native lands, from earthly soil,
Where peasants sow the humble rye,
And homage give to ancient toil –
He stood before the world with pride,
As once did Adam, bare and free,
Resembling revellers who bide,
In taverns drinking endlessly –
In tattered rags, in worn-out guise,
But with a soul that held the world,
With all its countless shifting masks,
Its width and depth within it swirled.

Thus did he stand before his freedom,
A stranger to all, but not to self,
He was both nation and dominion,
The very essence of life itself.
Thus did he stand before Alexandra –
Young Germaine, child of strife,
Heir to the spirit of Leonardo,
A youth whose soul was pierced by life,
By arrows of relentless Eros:
Who, knowing later her disdain,
The youthful Charite denying,
And bringing him but grief and pain –
Did not create a new beginning,
But ended what could not remain.
And so young Germaine, spirit’s heir,
A budding historian by fate,
A servant of fair Clio, where
On Parnassus was her state –
Cried out with agony untamed,
Sharper than bullets forged of lead,
Yet patient, though his soul was maimed,
An emblem of endurance bred.

From out his wounded soul he drew
The arrows Cupid once had cast,
Exchanging curls for tonsure true,
For science, in seclusion vast.
And though his soul bore bleeding scars,
And blood ran freely without end –
This was the cure for passion’s curse,
That bondage bitter did portend:
For love unblessed, unshared, unclaimed,
For one who loves, unloved in turn,
For one who proclaims fiery flames,
While ashes cold are all that burn –
That one has truly lived indeed!
Germaine had loved her – what of need?
She was the essence of existence,
But sought advantage, self’s persistence.
Aspiring always to the skies,
He plunged instead to earthly ties –
Her smile, her glance, her bosom’s rise,
Green leaves that breathed before his eyes.

Though that green breathed a chilling shade,
Of childhood dreams, naïve and bright,
Which life’s harsh storm would soon degrade,
And leave but tears in endless night.
Bereft of love, pursued, alone,
Germaine embraced the love of lore –
Estranged from many, yet his own,
He was to self worth more and more.
At times he left his lofty heights,
Descending to the worldly mire,
To strip the truth of veils and rites,
And wake the slumbering earth entire –
Yet never let himself be god
Unto his spirit’s own abode.

Bearing a burden of vast knowledge,
With his antique simplicity,
He sought with slow but steady courage
To find the great within the small, you see:
To truly grasp the deep design,
Of ancient stratagems revered,
And in a moment all combined,
He felt both bliss and sorrow seared.
His soul with tears, his mind with song,
Passions blazing bright and strong:
He swore revenge on his belle,
And thirty-six days’ siege began –
To topple bastions, storm the walls,
And claim his triumph midst the throng.

Young Germaine! Historian child!
Ah, if only you had known,
That only wise is he in life,
Who tames revenge and leaves it lone!
Not he who out of darkness seeks,
To conjure something out of naught –
A fire from the ashes bleak,
Or lake amidst the desert wrought.

So on the first day he began,
To don the cloak of stratagem:
Measured were his words and planned,
Concealing purpose deep in them.
And longing seas and skies to cross,
Deceiving heaven with his gloss,
Though burning coldly deep inside,
He crossed the Rubicon with pride…

[The poem continues through all 36 stratagems, each day describing Germaine’s calculated acts of love, deceit, advance, and retreat – from words and silences, from feigned neglect to sudden passion, until at last the cycle completes in flight: the final stratagem. Having awakened love in Alexandra’s heart by cunning art, he abandons her, cold and triumphant, yet inwardly shadowed by twilight, for love born of stratagems could bring only rejection.]

At that very moment, when Lucien Savary placed the final period in his work, the world around him – in the guise of people – suddenly erupted, as if to express in the sincerest and most reverent manner their recognition of the author’s mastery and poetic power.

Yet in truth, those same people were sitting in the stands of the Tokyo Dome stadium, in rapture not over Savary’s verses, but at the sight of Mike Tyson, who, employing one of the 36 Stratagems, defeated Tony Tubbs by technical knockout in the second round, thus retaining the undisputed world heavyweight boxing title.