Jurgen
A Comedy of Justice:
Electronic Edition
Cabell, James Branch, 1879-1958
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First edition, 1998
ca. 700K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1998.
© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
Call number PS 3505 .A153 J8 1922 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)
The electronic edition is
a part of the UNC-CH
digitization project, Documenting
the American South, or, The Southern Experience in
19th-century America.
Library of Congress Subject Headings,
21st edition, 1998
By
"Of
JURGEN eke they maken mencioun,
Copyright, 1919, by
Before
each tarradiddle,
"Our
gods are good," they tell us;
So
this, your JURGEN, travels
"Others, with better moderation, do either
entertain the vulgar history of Jurgen as a
fabulous addition unto the true and authentic
story of St. Iurgenius of Poictesme, or else we
conceive the literal acception to be a
misconstruction of the symbolical expression:
apprehending a veritable history, in an emblem or
piece of Christian poesy. And this emblematical
construction hath been received by men
not forward to extenuate the acts of saints."
- PHILIP BORSDALE.
"A
forced construction is very idle. If
readers of The High History of Jurgen do
not meddle with the allegory, the allegory
will not meddle with them. Without minding
it at all, the whole is as plain as a pikestaff.
It might as well be pretended that we cannot
see Poussin's pictures without first being told
the allegory, as that the allegory aids us in
understanding Jurgen."
- E. NOEL CODMAN.
"Too urbane to advocate delusion, too hale
for the bitterness of irony, this fable of Jurgen
is, as the world itself, a book wherein each
man will find what his nature enables him
to see; which gives us back each his own
image; and which teaches us each the lesson
that each of us desires to learn."
- JOHN FREDERICK LEWISTAM.
Equally in reading hereinafter will the judicious
waive all allegorical interpretation, if merely because
the suggestions hitherto advanced are inconveniently
various. Thus Verville finds the Nessus shirt a symbol
of retribution, where Bülg, with rather wide divergence,
would have it represent the dangerous gift of genius.
Then it may be remembered that Dr. Codman says,
without any hesitancy, of Mother Sereda: "This
Mother Middle is the world generally (an obvious
anagram of Erda es), and this Sereda rules not merely the
middle of the working-days but the midst of everything.
She is the factor of middleness, of mediocrity, of an
avoidance of extremes, of the eternal compromise
begotten by use and wont. She is the Mrs. Grundy of the
Léshy; she is Comstockery: and her shadow is
common-sense." Yet Codman speaks with certainly no more
authority than Prote, when the latter, in his Origins of
Fable, declares this epos is "a parable of . . .
man's vain journeying in search of that rationality
and justice which his nature craves, and discovers
nowhere in the universe: and the shirt is an emblem of
this instinctive craving, as . . . the shadow symbolizes
conscience. Sereda typifies a surrender to life as
it is, a giving up of man's rebellious self-centredness
and selfishness: the anagram being se dare."
Thus do interpretations throng and clash, and neatly
equal the commentators in number. Yet possibly each
one of these unriddlings, with no doubt a host of others,
is conceivable: so that wisdom will dwell upon none of
them very seriously.
With the origin and the occult meaning of the folklore
of Poictesme this book at least is in no wise concerned:
its unambitious aim has been merely to familiarize
English readers with the Jurgen epos for the tale's
sake. And this tale of old years is one which, by rare
fortune, can be given to English readers almost
unabridged, in view of the singular delicacy and
pure-mindedness of the Jurgen mythos: in all, not more than
a half-dozen deletions have seemed expedient (and have
been duly indicated) in order to remove such sparse and
unimportant outcroppings of medieval frankness as
might conceivably offend the squeamish.
Since this volume is presented simply as a story to be
read for pastime, neither morality nor symbolism is
hereinafter educed, and no "parallels" and "authorities"
are quoted. Even the gaps are left unbridged by
guesswork: whereas the historic and mythological problems
perhaps involved are relinquished to those really
thoroughgoing scholars whom erudition qualifies to deal
with such topics, and tedium does not deter . . . .
In such terms, and thus far, ran the Foreword to the
first issues of this book, whose later fortunes have made
necessary the lengthening of the Foreword with a postscript.
The needed addition - this much at least chiming
with good luck - is brief. It is just that fragment which
some scholars, since the first appearance of this volume,
have asserted - upon what perfect frankness must
describe as not indisputable grounds - to be a portion of the
thirty-second chapter of the complete form of
La Haulte
Histoire de Jurgen.
And in reply to what these scholars assert, discretion
says nothing. For this fragment was, of course, unknown
when the High History was first put into English,
and there in consequence appears, here, little to be won
either by endorsing or denying its claims to authenticity.
Rather, does discretion prompt the appending, without
any gloss or scholia, of this fragment, which deals with
The Judging of Jurgen.
Now a court was held by the Philistines to decide
whether or no King Jurgen should be relegated to limbo.
And when the judges were prepared for judging, there
came into the court a great tumblebug, rolling in front of
him his loved and properly housed young ones. With the
creature came pages, in black and white, bearing a sword,
a staff and a lance.
This insect looked at Jurgen, and its pincers rose erect
in horror. The bug cried to the three judges, "Now, by
St. Anthony! this Jurgen must forthwith be relegated to
limbo, for he is offensive and lewd and lascivious and
indecent."
"And how can that be?" says Jurgen.
"You are offensive," the bug replied, "because this page
has a sword which I choose to say is not a sword. You
are lewd because that page has a lance which I prefer to
think is not a lance. You are lascivious because yonder
page has a staff which I elect to declare is not a staff.
And finally, you are indecent for reasons of which a
description would be objectionable to me, and which
therefore I must decline to reveal to anybody."
"Well, that sounds logical," says Jurgen, "but still, at
the same time, it would be no worse for an admixture
of common-sense. For you gentlemen can see for
yourselves, by considering these pages fairly and as a whole,
that these pages bear a sword and a lance and a staff,
and nothing else whatever; and you will deduce, I
hope, that all the lewdness is in the insectival mind of
him who itches to be calling these things by other names."
The judges said nothing as yet. But they that guarded
Jurgen, and all the other Philistines, stood to this side
and to that side with their eyes shut tight, and all these
said: "We decline to look at the pages fairly and as a
whole, because to look might seem to imply a doubt of
what the tumblebug has decreed. Besides, as long as the
tumblebug has reasons which he declines to reveal, his
reasons stay unanswerable, and you are plainly a prurient
rascal who are making trouble for yourself."
"To the contrary," says Jurgen, "I am a poet, and I
make literature."
"But in Philistia to make literature and to make trouble
for yourself are synonyms," the tumblebug explained.
"I know, for already we of Philistia have been pestered
by three of these makers of literature. Yes, there was
Edgar, whom I starved and hunted until I was tired of it:
then I chased him up a back alley one night, and knocked
out those annoying brains of his. And there was Walt,
whom I chivvied and battered from place to place, and
made a paralytic of him: and him, too, I labelled offensive
and lewd and lascivious and indecent. Then later there
was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in
a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect him to be a
maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he
hid away the greater part of what he had made until after
he was dead, and I could not get at him. That was a
disgusting trick to play on me, I consider. Still, these are
the only three detected makers of literature that have ever
infested Philistia, thanks be to goodness and my vigilance,
but for both of which we might have been no more free
from makers of literature than are the other countries."
"Now, but these three," cried Jurgen, "are the glory of
Philistia: and of all that Philistia has produced, it is these
three alone, whom living ye made least of, that to-day are
honored wherever art is honored, and where nobody
bothers one way or the other about Philistia."
"What is art to me and my way of living?" replied
the tumblebug, wearily. "I have no concern with art and
letters and the other lewd idols of foreign nations. I have
in charge the moral welfare of my young, whom I roll
here before me, and trust with St. Anthony's aid to raise
in time to be God-fearing tumblebugs like me, delighting
in what is proper to their nature. For the rest, I have
never minded dead men being well-spoken-of. No, no, my
lad: once whatever I may do means nothing to you, and
once you are really rotten, you will find the tumblebug
friendly enough. Meanwhile I am paid to protest that
living persons are offensive and lewd and lascivious and
indecent, and one must live."
Then the Philistines who stood to this side and to that
side said in indignant unison: "And we, the reputable
citizenry of Philistia, are not at all in sympathy with
those who would take any protest against the tumblebug
as a justification of what they are pleased to call art. The
harm done by the tumblebug seems to us very slight,
whereas the harm done by the self-styled artist may be
very great."
Jurgen now looked more attentively at this queer creature:
and he saw that the tumblebug was malodorous,
certainly, but at bottom honest and well-meaning; and this
seemed to Jurgen the saddest thing he had found among
the Philistines. For the tumblebug was sincere in his
insane doings, and all Philistia honored him sincerely, so
that there was nowhere any hope for this people.
Therefore King Jurgen addressed himself, as his need
was, to submit to the strange customs of the Philistines.
"Now do you judge me fairly," cried Jurgen to his judges,
"if there be any justice in this mad country. And if
there be none, do you relegate me to limbo or to any other
place, so long as in that place this tumblebug is not
omnipotent and sincere and insane."
And Jurgen waited . . . .
They tell, also, that in the old days, after putting up
the shop-windows for the night, Jurgen was passing the
Cistercian Abbey, on his way home: and one of the monks
had tripped over a stone in the roadway. He was cursing
the devil who had placed it there.
"Fie, brother!" says Jurgen, "and have not the devils
enough to bear as it is?"
"I never held with Origen," replied the monk; "and
besides, it hurt my great-toe confoundedly."
"None the less," observes Jurgen, "it does not behoove
God-fearing persons to speak with disrespect of the
divinely appointed Prince of Darkness. To your further
confusion, consider this monarch's industry! day and
night you may detect him toiling at the task Heaven set
him. That is a thing can be said of few communicants
and of no monks. Think, too, of his fine artistry, as
evidenced in all the perilous and lovely snares of this world,
which it is your business to combat, and mine to lend
money upon. Why, but for him we would both be
vocationless! Then, too, consider his philanthropy! and
deliberate how insufferable would be our case if you and I,
and all our fellow parishioners, were to-day hobnobbing
with other beasts in the Garden which we pretend to
desiderate on Sundays! To arise with swine and lie down
with the hyena? - oh, intolerable!"
Thus he ran on, devising reasons for not thinking too
harshly of the Devil. Most of it was an abridgement of
some verses Jurgen had composed, in the shop when
business was slack.
"I consider that to be stuff and nonsense," was the
monk's glose.
"No doubt your notion is sensible," observed the
pawnbroker: "but mine is the prettier."
Then Jurgen passed the Cistercian Abbey, and was
approaching Bellegarde, when he met a black gentleman,
who saluted him and said:
"Thanks, Jurgen, for your good word."
"Who are you, and why do you thank me?" asks Jurgen.
"My name is no great matter. But you have a kind
heart, Jurgen. May your life be free from care!"
"Save us from hurt and harm, friend, but I am already married."
"Eh, sirs, and a fine clever poet like you!"
"Yet it is a long while now since I was a practising poet."
"Why, to be sure! You have the artistic temperament,
which is not exactly suited to the restrictions of domestic
life. Then I suppose your wife has her own personal
opinion about poetry, Jurgen."
"Indeed, sir, her opinion would not bear repetition, for
I am sure you are unaccustomed to such language."
"This is very sad. I am afraid your wife does not quite
understand you, Jurgen."
"Sir," says Jurgen, astounded, "do you read people's
inmost thoughts?"
The black gentleman seemed much dejected. He
pursed his lips, and fell to counting upon his fingers: as
they moved his sharp nails glittered like flame-points.
"Now but this is a very deplorable thing," says the
black gentleman, "to have befallen the first person I have
found ready to speak a kind word for evil. And in all
these centuries, too! Dear me, this is a most regrettable
instance of mismanagement! No matter, Jurgen, the
morning is brighter than the evening. How I will reward
you, to be sure!"
So Jurgen thanked the simple old creature politely.
And when Jurgen reached home his wife was nowhere to
be seen. He looked on all sides and questioned everyone,
but to no avail. Dame Lisa had vanished in the midst of
getting supper ready - suddenly, completely and inexplicably,
just as (in Jurgen's figure) a windstorm passes and
leaves behind it a tranquillity which seems, by contrast,
uncanny. Nothing could explain the mystery, short of
magic: and Jurgen on a sudden recollected the black
gentleman's queer promise. Jurgen crossed himself.
"How unjustly now," says Jurgen, "do some people get
an ill name for gratitude! And now do I perceive how
wise I am, always to speak pleasantly of everybody, in
this world of tale-bearers."
Then Jurgen prepared his own supper, went to bed, and
slept soundly.
"I have implicit confidence," says he, "in Lisa. I have
particular confidence in her ability to take care of herself
in any surroundings."
That was all very well: but time passed, and presently
it began to be rumored that Dame Lisa walked on
Morven. Her brother, who was a grocer and a member
of the town-council, went thither to see about this report.
And sure enough, there was Jurgen's wife walking in the
twilight and muttering incessantly.
"Fie, sister!" says the town-councillor, "this is very
unseemly conduct for a married woman, and a thing
likely to be talked about."
"Follow me!" replied Dame Lisa. And the town-councillor
followed her a little way in the dusk, but when she
came to Amneran Heath and still went onward, he knew
better than to follow.
Next evening the elder sister of Dame Lisa went to
Morven. This sister had married a notary, and was a
shrewd woman. In consequence, she took with her this
evening a long wand of peeled willow-wood. And there
was Jurgen's wife walking in the twilight and muttering
incessantly.
"Fie, sister!" says the notary's wife, who was a shrewd
woman, "and do you not know that all this while Jurgen
does his own sewing, and is once more making eyes at
Countess Dorothy?"
Dame Lisa shuddered; but she only said, "Follow me!"
And the notary's wife followed her to Amneran Heath,
and across the heath, to where a cave was. This was a
place of abominable repute. A lean hound came to meet
them there in the twilight, lolling his tongue: but the notary's
wife struck thrice with her wand, and the silent
beast left them. And Dame Lisa passed silently into the
cave, and her sister fumed and went home to her children,
weeping.
So the next evening Jurgen himself came to Morven,
because all his wife's family assured him this was the
manly thing to do. Jurgen left the shop in charge of
Urien Villemarche, who was a highly efficient clerk.
Jurgen followed his wife across Amneran Heath until they
reached the cave. Jurgen would willingly have been elsewhere.
For the hound squatted upon his haunches, and seemed
to grin at Jurgen; and there were other creatures abroad,
that flew low in the twilight, keeping close to the ground
like owls; but they were larger than owls and were more
discomforting. And, moreover, all this was just after
sunset upon Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather
more than likely to happen.
So Jurgen said, a little peevishly: "Lisa, my dear, if you
go into the cave I will have to follow you, because it is
the manly thing to do. And you know how easily I take cold."
The voice of Dame Lisa, now, was thin and wailing,
a curiously changed voice. "There is a cross about your
neck. You must throw that away."
Jurgen was wearing such a cross, through motives of
sentiment, because it had once belonged to his dead
mother. But now, to pleasure his wife, he removed the
trinket, and hung it on a barberry bush; and with the
reflection that this was likely to prove a deplorable business,
he followed Dame Lisa into the cave.
Certainly they were curious to look at: for here was
the body of a fine bay horse, and rising from its shoulders,
the sun-burnt body of a young fellow who regarded Jurgen
with grave and not unfriendly eyes. The Centaur
was lying beside a fire of cedar and juniper wood: near
him was a platter containing a liquid with which he was
anointing his hoofs. This stuff, as the Centaur rubbed
it in with his fingers, turned the appearance of his hoofs
to gold.
"Hail, friend," says Jurgen, "if you be the work of God."
"Your protasis is not good Greek," observed the
Centaur, "because in Hellas we did not make such
reservations. Besides, it is not so much my origin as my
destination which concerns you."
"Well, friend, and whither are you going?"
"To the garden between dawn and sunrise, Jurgen."
"Surely, now, but that is a fine name for a garden! and
it is a place I would take joy to be seeing."
"Up upon my back, Jurgen, and I will take you
thither," says the Centaur, and heaved to his feet. Then
said the Centaur, when the pawnbroker hesitated:
"Because, as you must understand, there is no other way.
For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in
what men humorously called real life; so that of course
only imaginary creatures such as I can enter it."
"That sounds very reasonable," Jurgen estimated: "but
as it happens, I am looking for my wife, whom I suspect
to have been carried off by a devil, poor fellow!"
And Jurgen began to explain to the Centaur what had befallen.
The Centaur laughed. "It may be for that reason I
am here. There is, in any event, only one remedy in this
matter. Above all devils - and above all gods, they tell
me, but certainly above all centaurs - is the power of
Koshchei the Deathless, who made things as they are."
"It is not always wholesome," Jurgen submitted, "to
speak of Koshchei. It seems especially undesirable in a
dark place like this."
"None the less, I suspect it is to him you must go for justice."
"I would prefer not doing that," said Jurgen, with
unaffected candor.
"You have my sympathy: but there is no question of
preference where Koshchei is concerned. Do you think,
for example, that I am frowzing in this underground
place by my own choice? and knew your name by
accident?"
Jurgen was frightened, a little. "Well, well! but it is
usually the deuce and all, this doing of the manly thing.
How, then, can I come to Koshchei?"
"Roundabout," says the Centaur. "There is never any
other way."
"And is the road to this garden roundabout?"
"Oh, very much so, inasmuch as it circumvents both
destiny and common-sense."
"Needs must, then," says Jurgen: "at all events, I am
willing to taste any drink once."
"You will be chilled, though, traveling as you are. For
you and I are going a queer way, in search of justice,
over the grave of a dream and through the malice of time.
So you had best put on this shirt above your other clothing."
"Indeed it is a fine snug shining garment, with curious
figures on it. I accept such raiment gladly. And whom
shall I be thanking for his kindness, now?"
"My name," said the Centaur, "is Nessus."
"Well, then, friend Nessus, I am at your service."
And in a trice Jurgen was on the Centaur's back, and
the two of them had somehow come out of the cave, and
were crossing Amneran Heath. So they passed into a
wooded place, where the light of sunset yet lingered,
rather unaccountably. Now the Centaur went westward.
And now about the pawnbroker's shoulders and upon his
breast and over his lean arms glittered like a rainbow the
many-colored shirt of Nessus.
For a while they went through the woods, which were
composed of big trees standing a goodish distance from
one another, with the Centaur's gilded hoofs rustling and
sinking in a thick carpet of dead leaves, all gray and
brown, in level stretches that were unbroken by any
undergrowth. And then they came to a white roadway that
extended due west, and so were done with the woods.
Now happened an incredible thing in which Jurgen would
never have believed had he not seen it with his own eyes:
for now the Centaur went so fast that he gained a little
by a little upon the sun, thus causing it to rise in the west
a little by a little; and these two sped westward in the
glory of a departed sunset. The sun fell full in Jurgen's
face as he rode straight toward the west, so that he
blinked and closed his eyes, and looked first toward this
side, then the other. Thus it was that the country about
him, and the persons they were passing, were seen by him
in quick bright flashes, like pictures suddenly transmuted
into other pictures; and all his memories of this shining
highway were, in consequence, always confused and
incoherent.
He wondered that there seemed to be so many young
women along the road to the garden. Here was a slim
girl in white teasing a great brown and yellow dog that
leaped about her clumsily; here a girl sat in the branches
of a twisted and gnarled tree, and back of her was a
broad muddied river, copper-colored in the sun; and here
shone the fair head of a tall girl on horseback, who
seemed to wait for someone: in fine, the girls along the
way were numberless, and Jurgen thought he recollected
one or two of them.
But the Centaur went so swiftly that Jurgen could not
be sure.
This was a wonderful garden: yet nothing therein was
strange. Instead, it seemed that everything hereabouts
was heart-breakingly familiar and very dear to Jurgen.
For he had come to a broad lawn which slanted northward
to a well-remembered brook: and multitudinous
maples and locust-trees stood here and there, irregularly,
and were being played with very lazily by an irresolute
west wind, so that foliage seemed to toss and ripple everywhere
like green spray: but autumn was at hand, for the
locust-trees were dropping a Danaë's shower of small
round yellow leaves. Around the garden was an unforgotten
circle of blue hills. And this was a place of lucent
twilight, unlit by either sun or stars, and with no shadows
anywhere in the diffused faint radiancy that revealed this
garden, which is not visible to any man except in the brief
interval between dawn and sunrise.
"Why, but it is Count Emmerick's garden at Storisende,"
says Jurgen, "where I used to be having such
fine times when I was a lad."
"I will wager," said Nessus, "that you did not use to
walk alone in this garden."
"Well, no; there was a girl."
"Just so," assented Nessus. "It is a local by-law: and
here are those who comply with it."
For now had come toward them, walking together in
the dawn, a handsome boy and girl. And the girl was
incredibly beautiful, because everybody in the garden saw
her with the vision of the boy who was with her.
"I am Rudolph," said this boy, "and she is Anne."
"And are you happy here?" asked Jurgen.
"Oh, yes, sir, we are tolerably happy: but Anne's father
is very rich, and my mother is poor, so that we cannot be
quite happy until I have gone into foreign lands and come
back with a great many lakhs of rupees and pieces of eight."
"And what will you do with all this money, Rudolph?"
"My duty, sir, as I see it. But I inherit defective eyesight."
"God speed to you, Rudolph!" said Jurgen, "for many
others are in your plight."
Then came to Jurgen and the Centaur another boy
with the small blue-eyed person in whom he took delight.
And this fat and indolent looking boy informed them that
he and the girl who was with him were walking in the
glaze of the red mustard jar, which Jurgen thought was
gibberish and the fat boy said that he and the girl had
decided never to grow any older, which Jurgen said was
excellent good sense if only they could manage it.
"Oh, I can manage that," said this fat boy, reflectively,
"if only I do not find the managing of it uncomfortable."
Jurgen for a moment regarded him, and then gravely
shook hands.
"I feel for you," said Jurgen, "for I perceive that you,
too, are a monstrous clever fellow: so life will get the best
of you."
"But is not cleverness the main thing, sir?"
"Time will show you, my lad," says Jurgen, a little
sorrowfully. "And God speed to you, for many others
are in your plight."
And a host of boys and girls did Jurgen see in the
garden. And all the faces that Jurgen saw were young
and glad and very lovely and quite heart-breakingly
confident, as young persons beyond numbering came toward
Jurgen and passed him there, in the first glow of dawn:
so they all went exulting in the glory of their youth, and
foreknowing life to be a puny antagonist from whom one
might take very easily anything which one desired. And
all passed in couples - "as though they came from the
Ark," said Jurgen. But the Centaur said they followed
a precedent which was far older than the Ark.
"For in this garden," said the Centaur, "each man that
ever lived has sojourned for a little while, with no
company save his illusions. I must tell you again that in this
garden are encountered none but imaginary creatures.
And stalwart persons take their hour of recreation here,
and go hence unaccompanied, to become aldermen and
respected merchants and bishops, and to be admired as
captains upon prancing horses, or even as kings upon tall
thrones; each in his station thinking not at all of the
garden ever any more. But now and then come timid
persons, Jurgen, who fear to leave this garden without an
escort: so these must need go hence with one or another
imaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and bypaths,
because imaginary creatures find little nourishment
in the public highways, and shun them. Thus must these
timid persons skulk about obscurely with their diffident
and skittish guides, and they do not ever venture willingly
into the thronged places where men get horses and build thrones."
"And what becomes of these timid persons, Centaur?"
"Why, sometimes they spoil paper, Jurgen, and
sometimes they spoil human lives."
"Then are these accursed persons," Jurgen considered.
"You should know best," replied the Centaur.
"Oh, very probably," said Jurgen. "Meanwhile here
is one who walks alone in this garden, and I wonder to
see the local by-laws thus violated."
Now Nessus looked at Jurgen for a while without
speaking: and in the eyes of the Centaur was so much
of comprehension and compassion that it troubled Jurgen.
For somehow it made Jurgen fidget and consider this an
unpleasantly personal way of looking at anybody.
"Yes, certainly," said the Centaur, "this woman walks
alone. But there is no help for her loneliness, since the
lad who loved this woman is dead."
"Nessus, I am willing to be reasonably sorry about it.
Still, is there any need of pulling quite such a portentously
long face? After all, a great many other persons have
died, off and on: and for anything I can say to the
contrary, this particular young fellow may have been no
especial loss to anybody."
Again the Centaur said, "You should know best."
Jurgen remembered that: for Jurgen saw this was
Count Emmerick's second sister, Dorothy la Désirée,
whom Jurgen very long ago (a many years before he met
Dame Lisa and set up in business as a pawnbroker) had
hymned in innumerable verses as Heart's Desire.
"And this is the only woman whom I ever loved," Jurgen
remembered, upon a sudden. For people cannot
always be thinking of these matters.
So he saluted her, with such deference as is due to a
countess from a tradesman, and yet with unforgotten
tremors waking in his staid body. But the strangest was
yet to be seen, for he noted now that this was not a
handsome woman in middle life but a young girl.
"I do not understand," he said, aloud: "for you are
Dorothy. And yet it seems to me that you are not the
Countess Dorothy who is Heitman Michael's wife."
And the girl tossed her fair head, with that careless
lovely gesture which the Countess had forgotten.
"Heitman Michael is well enough, for a nobleman, and my
brother is at me day and night to marry the man: and
certainly Heitman Michael's wife will go in satin and
diamonds at half the courts of Christendom, with many
lackeys to attend her. But I am not to be thus purchased."
"So you told a boy that I remember, very long ago.
Yet you married Heitman Michael, for all that, and in the
teeth of a number of other fine declarations."
"Oh, no, not I," said this Dorothy, wondering. "I
never married anybody. And Heitman Michael has
never married anybody, either, old as he is. For he is
twenty-eight, and looks every day of it! But who are
you, friend, that have such curious notions about me?"
"That question I will answer, just as though it were put
reasonably. For surely you perceive I am Jurgen."
"I never knew but one Jurgen. And he is a young man,
barely come of age - " Then as she paused in speech,
whatever was the matter upon which this girl now meditated,
her cheeks were tenderly colored by the thought of
it, and in her knowledge of this thing her eyes took infinite joy.
And Jurgen understood. He had come back somehow
to the Dorothy whom he had loved: but departed, and past
overtaking by the fleet hoofs of centaurs, was the boy who
had once loved this Dorothy, and who had rhymed of her
as his Heart's Desire: and in the garden there was of this
boy no trace. Instead, the girl was talking to a staid and
paunchy pawnbroker, of forty-and-something.
So Jurgen shrugged, and looked toward the Centaur:
but Nessus had discreetly wandered away from them, in
search of four-leafed clovers. Now the east had grown
brighter, and its crimson began to be colored with gold.
"Yes, I have heard of this other Jurgen," says the
pawnbroker. "Oh, Madame Dorothy, but it was he that
loved you!"
"No more than I loved him. Through a whole summer
have I loved Jurgen."
And the knowledge that this girl spoke a wondrous
truth was now to Jurgen a joy that was keen as pain.
And he stood motionless for a while, scowling and biting
his lips.
"I wonder how long the poor devil loved you! He
also loved for a whole summer, it may be. And yet again,
it may be that he loved you all his life. For twenty years
and for more than twenty years I have debated the
matter: and I am as well informed as when I started."
"But, friend, you talk in riddles."
"Is not that customary when age talks with youth?
For I am an old fellow, in my forties: and you, as I
know now, are near eighteen, - or rather, four months
short of being eighteen, for it is August. Nay, more, it
is the August of a year I had not looked ever to see again;
and again Dom Manuel reigns over us, that man of iron
whom I saw die so horribly. All this seems very improbable."
Then Jurgen meditated for a while. He shrugged.
"Well, and what could anybody expect me to do about
it? Somehow it has befallen that I, who am but the
shadow of what I was, now walk among shadows, and we
converse with the thin intonations of dead persons. For,
Madame Dorothy, you who are not yet eighteen, in this
same garden there was once a boy who loved a girl, with
such love as it puzzles me to think of now. I believe that
she loved him. Yes, certainly it is a cordial to the tired
and battered heart which nowadays pumps blood for me,
to think that for a little while, for a whole summer, these
two were as brave and comely and clean a pair of
sweethearts as the world has known."
Thus Jurgen spoke. But his thought was that this was
a girl whose equal for loveliness and delight was not to
be found between two oceans. Long and long ago that
doubtfulness of himself which was closer to him than his
skin had fretted Jurgen into believing the Dorothy he had
loved was but a piece of his imaginings. But certainly
this girl was real. And sweet she was, and innocent she
was, and light of heart and feet, beyond the reach of any
man's inventiveness. No, Jurgen had not invented her;
and it strangely contented him to know as much.
"Tell me your story, sir," says she, "for I love all romances."
"Ah, my dear child, but I cannot tell you very well of
just what happened. As I look back, there is a blinding
glory of green woods and lawns and moonlit nights and
dance music and unreasonable laughter. I remember her
hair and eyes, and the curving and the feel of her red
mouth, and once when I was bolder than ordinary - But
that is hardly worth raking up at this late day. Well, I
see these things in memory as plainly as I now seem to
see your face: but I can recollect hardly anything she
said. Perhaps, now I think of it, she was not very intelligent,
and said nothing worth remembering. But the boy
loved her, and was happy, because her lips and heart were
his, and he, as the saying is, had plucked a diamond from
the world's ring. True, she was a count's daughter and
the sister of a count: but in those days the boy quite
firmly intended to become a duke or an emperor or
something of that sort, so the transient discrepancy did not
worry them."
"I know. Why, Jurgen is going to be a duke, too,"
says she, very proudly, "though he did think, a great while
ago, before he knew me, of being a cardinal, on account
of the robes. But cardinals are not allowed to marry, you
see - And I am forgetting your story, too! What happened then?"
"They parted in September - with what vows it hardly
matters now - and the boy went into Gâtinais, to win his
spurs under the old Vidame de Soyecourt. And presently
- oh, a good while before Christmas! - came the news
that Dorothy la Désirée had married rich Heitman Michael."
"But that is what I am called! And as you know,
there is a Heitman Michael who is always plaguing me.
Is that not strange! for you tell me all this happened a
great while ago."
"Indeed, the story is very old, and old it was when
Methuselah was teething. There is no older and more
common story anywhere. As the sequel, it would be
heroic to tell you this boy's life was ruined. But I do
not think it was. Instead, he had learned all of a sudden
that which at twenty-one is heady knowledge. That was
the hour which taught him sorrow and rage, and sneering,
too, for a redemption. Oh, it was armor that hour
brought him, and a humor to use it, because no woman
now could hurt him very seriously. No, never any more!"
"Ah, the poor boy!" she said, divinely tender, and
smiling as a goddess smiles, not quite in mirth.
"Well, women, as he knew by experience now, were the
pleasantest of playfellows. So he began to play. Rampaging
through the world he went in the pride of his
youth and in the armor of his hurt. And songs he made
for the pleasure of kings, and sword-play he made for the
pleasure of men, and a whispering he made for the
pleasure of women, in places where renown was, and
where he trod boldly, giving pleasure to everybody, in
those fine days. But the whispering, and all that followed
the whispering, was his best game, and the game
he played for the longest while, with many brightly
colored playmates who took the game more seriously than
he did. And their faith in the game's importance, and
in him and his high-sounding nonsense, he very often
found amusing: and in their other chattels too he took
his natural pleasure. Then, when he had played sufficiently,
he held a consultation with divers waning appetites;
and he married the handsome daughter of an estimable
pawnbroker in a fair line of business. And he
lived with his wife very much as two people customarily
live together. So, all in all, I would not say his life
was ruined."
"Why, then, it was," said Dorothy. She stirred uneasily,
with an impatient sigh; and you saw that she was
vaguely puzzled. "Oh, but somehow I think you are a
very horrible old man: and you seem doubly horrible in
that glittering queer garment you are wearing."
"No woman ever praised a woman's handiwork, and
each of you is particularly severe upon her own. But you
are interrupting the saga."
"I do not see" - and those large bright eyes of which
the color was so indeterminable and so dear to Jurgen,
seemed even larger now - "but I do not see how there
could well be any more."
"Still, human hearts survive the benediction of the
priest, as you may perceive any day. This man, at least,
inherited his father-in-law's business, and found it, quite
as he had anticipated, the fittest of vocations for a
cashiered poet. And so, I suppose, he was content. Ah,
yes; but after a while Heitman Michael returned from
foreign parts, along with his lackeys, and plate, and chest
upon chest of merchandise, and his fine horses, and his
wife. And he who had been her lover could see her
now, after so many years, whenever he liked. She was
a handsome stranger. That was all. She was rather
stupid. She was nothing remarkable, one way or another.
This respectable pawnbroker saw that quite
plainly: day by day he writhed under the knowledge.
Because, as I must tell you, he could not retain composure
in her presence, even now. No, he was never able
to do that."
The girl somewhat condensed her brows over this
information. "You mean that he still loved her. Why, but
of course!"
"My child," says Jurgen, now with a reproving forefinger,
"you are an incurable romanticist. The man disliked
her and despised her. At any event, he assured
himself that he did. Well, even so, this handsome stupid
stranger held his eyes, and muddled his thoughts, and put
errors into his accounts: and when he touched her hand
he did not sleep that night as he was used to sleep. Thus
he saw her, day after day. And they whispered that this
handsome and stupid stranger had a liking for young
men who aided her artfully to deceive her husband: but
she never showed any such favor to the respectable
pawnbroker. For youth had gone out of him, and it seemed
that nothing in particular happened. Well, that was his
saga. About her I do not know. And I shall never
know! But certainly she got the name of deceiving Heitman
Michael with two young men, or with five young
men it might be, but never with a respectable pawnbroker."
"I think that is an exceedingly cynical and stupid
story," observed the girl. "And so I shall be off to
look for Jurgen. For he makes love very amusingly,"
says Dorothy, with the sweetest, loveliest meditative smile
that ever was lost to heaven.
And a madness came upon Jurgen, there in the garden
between dawn and sunrise, and a disbelief in such
injustice as now seemed incredible.
"No, Heart's Desire," he cried, "I will not let you go.
For you are dear and pure and faithful, and all my evil
dream, wherein you were a wanton and befooled me, was
not true. Surely, mine was a dream that can never be
true so long as there is any justice upon earth. Why,
there is no imaginable God who would permit a boy to be
robbed of that which in my evil dream was taken from me!"
"And still I cannot understand your talking, about this
dream of yours - !"
"Why, it seemed to me I had lost the most of myself;
and there was left only a brain which played with ideas,
and a body that went delicately down pleasant ways. And
I could not believe as my fellows believed, nor could I love
them, nor could I detect anything in aught they said or did
save their exceeding folly: for I had lost their cordial
common faith in the importance of what use they made
of half-hours and months and years; and because a
jill-flirt had opened my eyes so that they saw too much, I
had lost faith in the importance of my own actions, too.
There was a little time of which the passing might be
made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictable darkness:
and that was all there was of certainty anywhere. Now
tell me, Heart's Desire, but was not that a foolish dream?
For these things never happened. Why, it would not be
fair if these things ever happened!"
And the girl's eyes were wide and puzzled and a little
frightened. "I do not understand what you are saying:
and there is that about you which troubles me unspeakably.
For you call me by the name which none but Jurgen
used, and it seems to me that you are Jurgen; and
yet you are not Jurgen."
"But I am truly Jurgen. And look you, I have done
what never any man has done before! For I have won
back to that first love whom every man must lose, no
matter whom he marries. I have come back again,
passing very swiftly, over the grave of a dream and
through the malice of time, to my Heart's Desire! And
how strange it seems that I did not know this thing was
inevitable!"
"Still, friend, I do not understand you."
"Why, but I yawned and fretted in preparation for
some great and beautiful adventure which was to befall
me by and by, and dazedly I toiled forward. Whereas
behind me all the while was the garden between dawn
and sunrise, and therein you awaited me! Now assuredly,
the life of every man is a quaintly builded tale, in
which the right and proper ending comes first. Thereafter
time runs forward, not as schoolmen fable in a
straight line, but in a vast closed curve, returning to the
place of its starting. And it is by a dim foreknowledge
of this, by some faint prescience of justice and reparation
being given them by and by, that men have heart to
live. For I know now that I have always known this
thing. What else was living good for unless it brought
me back to you?"
But the girl shook her small glittering head, very sadly.
"I do not understand you, and I fear you. For you talk
foolishness and in your face I see the face of Jurgen as
one might see the face of a dead man drowned in muddy
water."
"Yet am I truly Jurgen, and, as it seems to me, for
the first time since we were parted. For I am strong and
admirable - even I, who sneered and played so long,
because I thought myself a thing of no worth at all. That
which has been since you and I were young together is
as a mist that passes: and I am strong and admirable, and
all my being is one vast hunger for you, my dearest, and
I will not let you go, for you, and you alone, are my
Heart's Desire."
Now the girl was looking at him very steadily, with a
small puzzled frown, and with her vivid young soft lips
a little parted. And all her tender loveliness was glorified
by the light of a sky that had turned to dusty palpitating gold.
"Ah, but you say that you are strong and admirable:
and I can only marvel at such talking. For I see that
which all men see."
And then Dorothy showed him the little mirror which
was attached to the long chain of turquoise matrix about
her neck: and Jurgen studied the frightened foolish aged
face that he found in the mirror.
Thus drearily did sanity return to Jurgen: and his
flare of passion died, and the fever and storm and the
impetuous whirl of things was ended, and the man was
very weary. And in the silence he heard the piping cry
of a bird that seemed to seek for what it could not find.
"Well, I am answered," said the pawnbroker: "and
yet I know that this is not the final answer. Dearer than
any hope of heaven was that moment when awed surmises
first awoke as to the new strange loveliness which I
had seen in the face of Dorothy. It was then I noted the
new faint flush suffusing her face from chin to brow so
often as my eyes encountered and found new lights in the
shining eyes which were no longer entirely frank in meeting
mine. Well, let that be, for I do not love Heitman
Michael's wife.
"It is a grief to remember how we followed love, and
found his service lovely. It is bitter to recall the sweetness
of those vows which proclaimed her mine eternally,
- vows that were broken in their making by prolonged
and unforgotten kisses. We used to laugh at Heitman
Michael then; we used to laugh at everything. Thus for
a while, for a whole summer, we were as brave and
comely and clean a pair of sweethearts as the world has
known. But let that be, for I do not love Heitman
Michael's wife.
"Our love was fair but short-lived. There is none
that may revive him since the small feet of Dorothy trod
out this small love's life. Yet when this life of ours too
is over - this parsimonious life which can allow us no
more love for anybody, - must we not win back, somehow,
to that faith we vowed against eternity? and be content
again, in some fair-colored realm? Assuredly I
think this thing will happen. Well, but let that be, for I
do not love Heitman Michael's wife."
"Why, this is excellent hearing," observed Dorothy,
"because I see that you are converting your sorrow into
the raw stuff of verses. So I shall be off to look for
Jurgen, since he makes love quite otherwise and far more
amusingly."
And again, whatever was the matter upon which this
girl now meditated, her cheeks were tenderly colored by
the thought of it, and in her knowledge of this thing her
eyes took infinite joy.
Thus it was for a moment only: for she left Jurgen
now, with the friendliest light waving of her hand; and
so passed from him, not thinking of this old fellow any
longer, as he could see, even in the instant she turned
from him. And she went toward the dawn, in search of
that young Jurgen whom she, who was perfect in all
things, had loved, though only for a little while, not
undeservedly.
"Good and evil keep very exact accounts," replied the
Centaur, "and the face of every man is their ledger.
Meanwhile the sun rises, it is already another workday:
and when the shadows of those two who come to take
possession fall full upon the garden, I warn you, there
will be astounding changes brought about by the requirements
of bread and butter. You have not time to revive
old memories by chatting with the others to whom you
babbled aforetime in this garden."
"Ah, Centaur, in the garden between dawn and sunrise
there was never any other save Dorothy la Désirée."
The Centaur shrugged. "It may be you forget; it is
certain that you underestimate the local population.
Some of the transient visitors you have seen, and in
addition hereabouts dwell the year round all manner of
imaginary creatures. The fairies live just southward,
and the gnomes too. To your right is the realm of the
Valkyries: the Amazons and the Cynocephali are their
allies: all three of these nations are continually at loggerheads
with their neighbors, the Baba-Yagas, whom
Morfei cooks for, and whose monarch is Oh, a person
very dangerous to name. Northward dwell the Lepracauns
and the Men of Hunger, whose king is Clobhair.
My people, who are ruled by Chiron, live even further to
the north. The Sphinx pastures on yonder mountain;
and now the Chimera is old and generally derided, they
say that Cerberus visits the Sphinx at twilight, although
I was never the person to disseminate scandal - "
"Centaur," said Jurgen, "and what is Dorothy doing here?"
"Why, all the women that any man has ever loved live
here," replied the Centaur, "for very obvious reasons."
"That is a hard saying, friend."
Nessus tapped with his forefinger upon the back of
Jurgen's hand. "Worm's-meat! this is the destined food,
do what you will, of small white worms. This by and
by will be a struggling pale corruption, like seething
milk. That too is a hard saying, Jurgen. But it is a
true saying."
"And was that Dorothy whom I loved in youth an
imaginary creature?"
"My poor Jurgen, you who were once a poet! she was
your masterpiece. For there was only a shallow, stupid
and airy, high-nosed and light-haired miss, with no
remarkable good looks, - and consider what your ingenuity
made from such poor material! You should be proud of yourself."
"No, Centaur, I cannot very well be proud of my
folly: yet I do not regret it. I have been befooled by a
bright shadow of my own raising, you tell me, and I
concede it to be probable. No less, I served a lovely
shadow; and my heart will keep the memory of that
loveliness until life ends, in a world where other men
follow pantingly after shadows which are not even pretty."
"There is something in that, Jurgen: there is also
something in an old tale we used to tell in Thessaly,
about a fox and certain grapes."
"Well, but look you, Nessus, there is an emperor that
reigns now in Constantinople and occasionally does
business with me. Yes, and I could tell you tales of by
what shifts he came to the throne - "
"Men's hands are by ordinary soiled in climbing,"
quoth the Centaur.
"And 'Jurgen,' this emperor says to me, not many
months ago, as he sat in his palace, crowned and dreary
and trying to cheat me out of my fair profit on some
emeralds, - 'Jurgen, I cannot sleep of nights, because of
that fool Alexius, who comes into my room with staring
eyes and the bowstring still about his neck. And my
Varangians must be in league with that silly ghost,
because I constantly order them to keep Alexius out of my
bedchamber, and they do not obey me, Jurgen. To be
King of the East is not to the purpose, Jurgen, when one
must submit to such vexations.' Yes, it was Cæsar
Pharamond himself said this to me: and I deduce the
shadow of a crown has led him into an ugly pickle, for
all that he is the mightiest monarch in the world. And
I would not change with Caesar Pharamond, not I who
am a respectable pawnbroker, with my home in fee and
my bit of tilled land. Well, this is a queer world, to
be sure: and this garden is visited by no stranger things
than pop into a man's mind sometimes, without his
knowing how."
"Ah, but you must understand that the garden is
speedily to be remodeled. Yonder you may observe the
two whose requirements are to rid the place of all fantastic
unremunerative notions; and who will develop the
natural resources of this garden according to generally
approved methods."
And from afar Jurgen could see two figures coming
out of the east, so tall that their heads rose above the
encircling hills and glistened in the rays of a sun which
was not yet visible. One was a white pasty-looking
giant, with a crusty expression: he walked with the aid
of a cane. The other was of a pale yellow color: his
face was oily, and he rode on a vast cow that was
called Ædhumla.
"Make way there, brother, with your staff of life," says
the yellow giant, "for there is much to do hereabouts."
"Ay, brother, this place must be altered a deal before
it meets with our requirements," the other grumbled.
"May I be toasted if I know where to begin!"
Then as the giants turned dull and harsh faces toward
the garden, the sun came above the circle of blue hills,
so that the mingled shadows of these two giants fell
across the garden. For an instant Jurgen saw the place
oppressed by that attenuated mile-long shadow, as in
heraldry you may see a black bar painted sheer across
some brightly emblazoned shield. Then the radiancy of
everything twitched and vanished, as a bubble bursts.
And Jurgen was standing in the midst of a field, very
neatly plowed, but with nothing as yet growing in it.
And the Centaur was with him still, it seemed, for there
were the creature's hoofs, but all the gold had been
washed or rubbed away from them in traveling with Jurgen.
"See, Nessus!" Jurgen cried, "the garden is made desolate.
Oh, Nessus, was it fair that so much loveliness
should be thus wasted!"
"Nay," said the Centaur, "nay!" Long and wailingly
he whinneyed, "Nay!"
And when Jurgen raised his eyes he saw that his companion
was not a centaur, but only a strayed riding-horse.
"Were you the animal, then," says Jurgen, "and was
it a quite ordinary animal, that conveyed me to the garden
between dawn and sunrise?" And Jurgen laughed
disconsolately. "At all events, you have clothed me in a
curious fine shirt. And, now I look your bridle is
marked with a coronet. So I will return you to the
castle at Bellegarde, and it may be that Heitman Michael
will reward me."
Then Jurgen mounted this horse and rode away from
the plowed field wherein nothing grew as yet. As they
left the furrows they came to a signboard with writing
on it, in a peculiar red and yellow lettering.
Jurgen paused to decipher this.
"Read me!" was written on the signboard: "read me,
and judge if you understand! So you stopped in your
journey because I called, scenting something unusual,
something droll. Thus, although I am nothing, and even
less, there is no one that sees me but lingers here.
Stranger, I am a law of the universe. Stranger, render
the law what is due the law!"
Jurgen felt cheated. "A very foolish signboard, indeed!
for how can it be 'a law of the universe', when
there is no meaning to it!" says Jurgen. "Why, for
any law to be meaningless would not be fair."
"Forward, then!" he said, "in the name of Koshchei."
And thereafter Jurgen permitted the horse to choose its
own way.
Thus Jurgen came through a forest, wherein he saw
many things not salutary to notice, to a great stone
house like a prison, and he sought shelter there. But he
could find nobody about the place, until he came to a
large hall, newly swept. This was a depressing apartment,
in its chill neat emptiness, for it was unfurnished
save for a bare deal table, upon which lay a yardstick
and a pair of scales. Above this table hung a wicker
cage containing a blue bird, and another wicker cage
containing three white pigeons. And in this hall a woman,
no longer young, dressed all in blue, and wearing a white
towel by way of head-dress was assorting curiously
colored cloths.
She had very bright eyes, with wrinkled lids; and now
as she looked up at Jurgen her shrunk jaws quivered.
"Ah," says she, "I have a visitor. Good day to you,
in your glittering shirt. It is a garment I seem to recognize."
"Good day, grandmother! I am looking for my wife,
whom I suspect to have been carried off by a devil, poor
fellow! Now, having lost my way, I have come to pass
the night under your roof."
"Very good: but few come seeking Mother Sereda of
their own accord."
Then Jurgen knew with whom he talked: and inwardly
he was perturbed, for all the Léshy are unreliable in
their dealings.
So when he spoke it was very civilly. "And what
do you do here, grandmother?"
"I bleach. In time I shall bleach that garment you
are wearing. For I take the color out of all things.
Thus you see these stuffs here, as they are now. Clotho
spun the glowing threads, and Lachesis wove them, as
you observe, in curious patterns, very marvelous to see:
but when I am done with these stuffs there will be no
more color or beauty or strangeness anywhere apparent
than in so many dishclouts."
"Now I
preceive," says Jurgen, "that your power and
dominion is more great than any other power which is
in the world."
He made a song of this, in praise of the Léshy and
their Days, but more especially in praise of the might
of Mother Sereda and of the ruins that have fallen on
Wednesday. To Chetverg and Utornik and Subbota he
gave their due. Pyatinka and Nedelka also did Jurgen
commend for such demolishments as have enregistered
their names in the calendar of saints, no less. Ah, but
there was none like Mother Sereda: hers was the centre
of that power which is the Léshy's. The others did but
nibble at temporal things, like furtive mice: she devastated,
like a sandstorm, so that there were many dustheaps
where Mother Sereda had passed, but nothing else.
And so on, and so on. The song was no masterpiece,
and would not be bettered by repetition. But it was all
untrammeled eulogy, and the old woman beat time to
it with her lean hands: and her shrunk jaws quivered,
and she nodded her white-wrapped head this way and
that way, with a rolling motion, and on her thin lips was
a very proud and foolish smile.
"That is a good song," says she; "oh, yes, an excellent
song! But you report nothing of my sister Pandelis who
controls the day of the Moon."
"Monday!" says Jurgen: "yes, I neglected Monday,
perhaps because she is the oldest of you, but in part
because of the exigencies of my rhyme scheme. We must
let Pandelis go unhymned. How can I remember everything
when I consider the might of Sereda?"
"Why, but," says Mother Sereda, "Pandelis may not
like it, and she may take holiday from her washing some
day to have a word with you. However, I repeat, that is
an excellent song. And in return for your praise of me,
I will tell you that, if your wife has been carried off by
a devil, your affair is one which Koshchei alone can
remedy. Assuredly, I think it is to him you must go for justice."
"But how may I come to him, grandmother?"
"Oh, as to that, it does not matter at all which road
you follow. All highways, as the saying is, lead roundabout
to Koshchei. The one thing needful is not to stand
still. This much I will tell you also for your song's sake,
because that was an excellent song, and nobody ever
made a song in praise of me before to-day."
Now Jurgen wondered to see what a simple old
creature was this Mother Sereda, who sat before him
shaking and grinning and frail as a dead leaf, with her
head wrapped in a common kitchen-towel, and whose
power was so enormous.
"To think of it," Jurgen reflected, "that the world I
inhabit is ordered by beings who are not one-tenth so
clever as I am! I have often suspected as much, and it
is decidedly unfair. Now let me see if I cannot make
something out of being such a monstrous clever fellow."
Jurgen said aloud: "I do not wonder that no practising
poet ever presumed to make a song of you. You are too
majestical. You frighten these rhymesters, who feel
themselves to be unworthy of so great a theme. So it
remained for you to be appreciated by a pawnbroker,
since it is we who handle and observe the treasures of
this world after you have handled them."
"Do you think so?" says she, more pleased than ever.
"Now, may be that was the way of it. But I wonder
that you who are so fine a poet should ever have become a
pawnbroker."
"Well, and indeed, Mother Sereda, your wonder seems
to me another wonder: for I can think of no profession
better suited to a retired poet. Why, there is the variety
of company! for high and low and even the genteel are
pressed sometimes for money: then the plowman slouches
into my shop, and the duke sends for me privately. So
the people I know, and the bits of their lives I pop into,
give me a deal to romance about."
"Ah, yes, indeed," says Mother Sereda, wisely, "that
well may be the case. But I do not hold with romance, myself."
"Moreover, sitting in my shop, I wait there quiet-like
while tribute comes to me from the ends of earth: everything
which men and women have valued anywhere comes
sooner or later to me: and jewels and fine knickknacks
that were the pride of queens they bring me, and wedding
rings, and the baby's cradle with his little tooth marks
on the rim of it, and silver coffin-handles, or it may be
an old frying-pan, they bring me, but all comes to Jurgen.
So that just to sit there in my dark shop quiet-like, and
wonder about the history of my belongings and how they
were made mine, is poetry, and is the deep and high and
ancient thinking of a god who is dozing among what time
has left of a dead world, if you understand me, Mother Sereda."
"I understand: oho, I understand that which pertains
to gods, for a sufficient reason."
"And then another thing, you do not need any turn
for business: people are glad to get whatever you choose
to offer, for they would not come otherwise. So you get
the shining and rough-edged coins that you can feel the
proud king's head on, with his laurel-wreath like millet
seed under your fingers; and you get the flat and greenish
coins that are smeared with the titles and the chins and
hooked noses of emperors whom nobody remembers or
cares about any longer: all just by waiting there quiet-like,
and making a favor of it to let customers give you
their belongings for a third of what they are worth. And
that is easy labor, even for a poet."
"I understand: I understand all labor."
"And people treat you a deal more civilly than any real
need is, because they are ashamed of trafficking with you
at all: I dispute if a poet could get such civility shown him
in any other profession. And finally, there is the long
idleness between business interviews, with nothing to do
save sit there quiet-like and think about the queerness of
things in general: and that is always rare employment for
a poet, even without the tatters of so many lives and
homes heaped up about him like spillikins. So that I
would say in all, Mother Sereda, there is certainly no
profession better suited to an old poet than the profession
of pawnbroking."
"Certainly, there may be something in what you tell
me," observes Mother Sereda. "I know what the Little
Gods are, and I know what work is, but I do not think
about these other matters, nor about anything else. I bleach."
"Ah, and a great deal more I could be saying, too,
godmother, but for the fear of wearying you. Nor would
I have run on at all about my private affairs were it not
that we two are so close related. And kith makes kind,
as people say."
"But how can you and I be kin?"
"Why, heyday, and was I not born upon a Wednesday?
That makes you my godmother, does it not?"
"I do not know, dearie, I am sure. Nobody ever cared
to claim kin with Mother Sereda before this," says she,
pathetically.
"There can be no doubt, though, on the point, no
possible doubt. Sabellius states it plainly. Artemidorus
Minor, I grant you, holds the question debatable, but his
reasons for doing so are tolerably notorious. Besides,
what does all his flimsy sophistry avail against Nicanor's
fine chapter on this very subject? Crushing, I consider
it. His logic is final and irrefutable. What can anyone
say against Sævius Nicanor? - ah, what indeed?"
demanded Jurgen.
And he wondered if there might not have been perchance
some such persons somewhere, after all. Their
names, in any event, sounded very plausible to Jurgen.
"Ah, dearie, I was never one for learning. It may be
as you say."
"You say 'it may be', godmother. That embarrasses
me, rather, because I was about to ask for my christening
gift, which in the press of other matters you overlooked
some forty years back. You will readily conceive that
your negligence, however unintentional, might possibly
give rise to unkindly criticism: and so I felt I ought to
mention it, in common fairness to you."
"As for that, dearie, ask what you will within the
limits of my power. For mine are all the sapphires and
turquoises and whatever else in this dusty world is blue;
and mine likewise are all the Wednesdays that have ever
been or ever will be: and any one of these will I freely
give you in return for your fine speeches and your tender heart."
"Ah, but, godmother, would it be quite just for you to
accord me so much more than is granted to other persons?"
"Why, no: but what have I to do with justice? I
bleach. Come now, then, do you make a choice! for I
can assure you that my sapphires are of the first water,
and that many of my oncoming Wednesdays will be well
worth seeing."
"No, godmother, I never greatly cared for jewelry:
and the future is but dressing and undressing, and
shaving, and eating, and computing percentage, and so
on; the future does not interest me now. So I shall
modestly content myself with a second-hand Wednesday,
with one that you have used and have no further need
of: and it will be a Wednesday in the August of such and
such a year."
Mother Sereda agreed to this. "But there are certain
rules to be observed," says she, "for one must have system."
As she spoke, she undid the towel about her head, and
she took a blue comb from her white hair: and she
showed Jurgen what was engraved on the comb. It
frightened Jurgen, a little: but he nodded assent.
"First, though," says Mother Sereda, "here is the blue
bird. Would you not rather have that, dearie, than your
Wednesday? Most people would."
"Ah, but, godmother," he replied, "I am Jurgen. No,
it is not the blue bird I desire."
So Mother Sereda took from the wall the wicker cage
containing the three white pigeons: and going before him,
with small hunched shoulders, and shuffling her feet along,
the flagstones, she led the way into a courtyard, where,
sure enough, they found a tethered he-goat. Of a dark
blue color this beast was, and his eyes were wiser than the
eyes of a beast.
Then Jurgen set about that which Mother Sereda said
was necessary.
As it chanced, the first person he encountered was his
mother Azra, whom Coth had loved very greatly but not
long. And Jurgen talked with Azra of what clothes he
would be likely to need in Gâtinais, and of how often he
would write to her. She disparaged the new shirt he was
wearing, as was to be expected, since Azra had always
preferred to select her son's clothing rather than trust to
Jurgen's taste. His new horse she admitted to be a
handsome animal; and only hoped he had not stolen it from
anybody who would get him into trouble. For Azra, it
must be recorded, had never any confidence in her son;
and was the only woman, Jurgen felt, who really
understood him.
And now as his beautiful young mother impartially
petted and snapped at him, poor Jurgen thought of that
very real dissension and severance which in the oncoming
years was to arise between them; and of how she would
die without his knowing of her death for two whole
months; and of how his life thereafter would be changed,
somehow, and the world would become an unstable place
in which you could no longer put cordial faith. And he
foreknew all the remorse he was to shrug away, after the
squandering of so much pride and love. But these things
were not yet: and besides, these things were inevitable.
"And yet that these things should be inevitable is
decidedly not fair," said Jurgen.
So it was with all the persons he encountered. The
people whom he loved when at his best as a fine young
fellow were so very soon, and through petty causes, to
become nothing to him, and he himself was to be converted
into a commonplace tradesman. And living seemed to
Jurgen a wasteful and inequitable process.
Then Jurgen left the home of his youth, and rode
toward Bellegarde, and tethered his horse upon the heath,
and went into the castle. Thus Jurgen came to Dorothy.
She was lovely and dear, and yet, by some odd turn, not
quite so lovely and dear as the Dorothy he had seen in
the garden between dawn and sunrise. And Dorothy, like
everybody else, praised Jurgen's wonderful new shirt.
"It is designed for such festivals," said Jurgen,
modestly - "a little notion of my own. A bit extreme,
some persons might consider it, but there is no pleasing
everybody. And I like a trifle of color."
For there was a masque that night at the castle of
Bellegarde: and wildly droll and sad it was to Jurgen to
remember what was to befall so many of the participants.
Jurgen had not forgotten this Wednesday, this ancient
Wednesday upon which Messire de Montors had brought
the Confraternity of St. Médard from Brunbelois, to
enact a masque of The Birth of Hercules, as the vagabonds
were now doing, to hilarious applause. Jurgen
remembered it was the day before Bellegarde discovered
that Count Emmerick's guest, the Vicomte de Puysange,
was in reality the notorious outlaw, Perion de la Forêt.
Well, yonder the yet undetected impostor was talking
very earnestly with Dame Melicent: and Jurgen knew all
that was in store for this pair of lovers.
Meanwhile, as Jurgen reflected, the real Vicomte de
Puysange was at this moment lying in a delirium, yonder
at Benoit's: to-morrow the true Vicomte would be recognized,
and within the year the Vicomte would have
married Félise de Soyecourt, and later Jurgen would meet
her, in the orchard; and Jurgen knew what was to happen
then also.
And Messire de Montors was watching Dame Melicent,
sidewise, while he joked with little Ettarre, who was this
night permitted to stay up later than usual, in honor of
the masque: and Jurgen knew that this young bishop was
to become Pope of Rome, no less; and that the child he
joked with was to become the woman for possession of
whom Guiron des Rocques and the surly-looking small
boy yonder, Maugis d'Aigremont, would contend with
each other until the country hereabouts had been
devastated, and the castle wherein Jurgen now was had
been besieged, and this part of it burned. And wildly
droll and sad it was to Jurgen thus to remember all
that was going to happen to these persons, and to all
the other persons who were frolicking in the shadow
of their doom and laughing at this trivial masque.
For here - with so much of ruin and failure impending,
and with sorrow prepared so soon to smite a many of
these repellers in ways foreknown to Jurgen; and with
death resistlessly approaching so soon to make an end
of almost all this company in some unlovely fashion that
Jurgen foreknew exactly, - here laughter seemed
unreasonable and ghastly. Why, but Reinault yonder, who
laughed so loud, with his cropped head flung back: would
Reinault be laughing in quite this manner if he knew the
round strong throat he thus exposed was going to be cut
like the throat of a calf, while three Burgundians held
him? Jurgen knew this thing was to befall Reinault
Vinsauf before October was out. So he looked at Reinault's
throat, and shudderingly drew in his breath between
set teeth.
"And he is worth a score of me, this boy!" thought
Jurgen: "and it is I who am going to live to be an old
fellow, with my bit of land in fee, years after dirt clogs
those bright generous eyes, and years after this fine
big-hearted boy is wasted! And I shall forget all about him,
too. Marion l'Edol, that very pretty girl behind him, is
to become a blotched and toothless haunter of alleys, a
leering plucker at men's sleeves! And blue-eyed Colin
here, with his baby mouth, is to be hanged for that matter
of coin-clipping - let me recall, now, - yes, within six
years of to-night! Well, but in a way, these people are
blessed in lacking foresight. For they laugh, and I cannot
laugh, and to me their laughter is more terrible than
weeping. Yes, they may be very wise in not glooming
over what is inevitable; and certainly I cannot go so far
as to say they are wrong: but still, at the same time - !
And assuredly, living seems to me in everything a
wasteful and inequitable process."
Thus Jurgen, while the others passed a very pleasant
evening.
And presently, when the masque was over, Dorothy
and Jurgen went out upon the terrace, to the east of
Bellegarde, and so came to an unforgotten world of
moonlight. They sat upon a bench of carved stone near
the balustrade which overlooked the highway: and the
boy and the girl gazed wistfully beyond the highway, over
luminous valleys and tree-tops. Just so they had sat
there, as Jurgen perfectly remembered, when Mother
Sereda first used this Wednesday.
"My Heart's Desire," says Jurgen,"I am sad to-night.
For I am thinking of what life will do to us, and what
offal the years will make of you and me."
"My own sweetheart," says she, "and do we not know
very well what is to happen?" And Dorothy began to
talk of all the splendid things that Jurgen was to do, and
of the happy life which was to be theirs together.
"It is horrible," he said: "for we are more fine than
we shall ever be hereafter. We have a splendor for which
the world has no employment. It will be wasted. And
such wastage is not fair."
"But presently you will be so and so," says she: and
fondly predicts all manner of noble exploits which, as
Jurgen remembered, had once seemed very plausible to
him also. Now he had clearer knowledge as to the
capacities of the boy of whom he had thought so well.
"No, Heart's Desire: no, I shall be quite otherwise."
" - and to think how proud I shall be of you! 'But
then I always knew it', I shall tell everybody, very
condescendingly - "
"No, Heart's Desire: for you will not think of me at all."
"Ah, sweetheart! and can you really believe that I shall
ever care a snap of my fingers for anybody but you?"
Then Jurgen laughed a little; for Heitman Michael
came now across the lonely terrace, in search of Madame
Dorothy: and Jurgen foreknew this was the man to whom
within two months of this evening Dorothy was to give
her love and all the beauty that was hers, and with whom
she was to share the ruinous years which lay ahead.
But the girl did not know this, and Dorothy gave a little
shrugging gesture. "I have promised to dance with him,
and so I must. But the old fellow is a great plague."
For Heitman Michael was nearing thirty, and this to
Dorothy and Jurgen was an age that bordered upon senility.
"Now, by heaven," said Jurgen, "wherever Heitman
Michael does his next dancing it will not be hereabouts."
Jurgen had decided what he must do.
And then Heitman Michael saluted them civilly. "But
I fear I must rob you of this fair lady, Master Jurgen,"
says he.
Jurgen remembered that the man had said precisely
this a score of years ago; and that Jurgen had mumbled
polite regrets, and had stood aside while Heitman Michael
bore off Dorothy to dance with him. And this dance had
been the beginning of intimacy between Heitman Michael
and Dorothy.
"Heitman," says Jurgen, "the bereavement which you
threaten is very happily spared me, since, as it happens.
the next dance is to be mine."
"We can but leave it to the lady," says Heitman
Michael, laughing.
"Not I," says Jurgen. "For I know too well what
would come of that. I intend to leave my destiny to no one."
"Your conduct, Master Jurgen, is somewhat strange,"
observed Heitman Michael.
"Ah, but I will show you a thing yet stranger. For,
look you, there seem to be three of us here on this
terrace. Yet I can assure you there are four."
"Read me the riddle, my boy, and have done."
"The fourth of us, Heitman, is a goddess that wears
a speckled garment and has black wings. She can boast
of no temples, and no priests cry to her anywhere,
because she is the only deity whom no prayers can move
or any sacrifices placate. I allude, sir, to the eldest
daughter of Nox and Erebus."
"You speak of death, I take it."
"Your apprehension, Heitman, is nimble. Even so, it
is not quick enough, I fear, to forerun the whims of
goddesses. Indeed, what person could have foreseen that
this implacable lady would have taken such a strong fancy
for your company."
"Ah, my young bantam," replies Heitman Michael, "it
is quite true that she and I are acquainted. I may even
boast of having despatched one or two stout warriors to
serve her underground. Now, as I divine your meaning,
you plan that I should decrease her obligation by sending
her a whippersnapper."
"My notion, Heitman, is that since this dark goddess is
about to leave us, she should not, in common gallantry,
be permitted to go hence unaccompanied. I propose
therefore, that we forthwith decide who is to be her escort."
Now Heitman Michael had drawn his sword. "You
are insane. But you extend an invitation which I have
never yet refused."
"Heitman," cries Jurgen, in honest gratitude and
admiration, "I bear you no ill-will. But it is highly necessary
you die to-night, in order that my soul may not
perish too many years before my body."
With that he too whipped out his sword.
So they fought. Now Jurgen was a very acceptable
swordsman, but from the start he found in Heitman
Michael his master. Jurgen had never reckoned upon
that, and he considered it annoying. If Heitman Michael
perforated Jurgen the future would be altered, certainly,
but not quite as Jurgen had decided it ought to be
remodeled. So this unlooked-for complication seemed
preposterous, and Jurgen began to be irritated by the
suspicion that he was getting himself killed for nothing at all.
Meanwhile his unruffled tall antagonist seemed but to
play with Jurgen, so that Jurgen was steadily forced back
toward the balustrade. And presently Jurgen's sword
was twisted from his hand, and sent flashing over the
balustrade, into the public highway.
"So now, Master Jurgen," says Heitman Michael, "that
is the end of your nonsense. Why, no, there is not any
occasion to posture like a statue. I do not intend to kill
you. Why the devil's name, should I? To do so would
only get me an ill name with your parents: and besides
it is infinitely more pleasant to dance with this lady, just
as I first intended." And he turned gaily toward Madame
Dorothy.
But Jurgen found this outcome of affairs insufferable.
This man was stronger than he, this man was of the sort
that takes and uses gallantly all the world's prizes which
mere poets can but respectfully admire. All was to do
again: Heitman Michael, in his own hateful phrase,
would act just as he had first intended, and Jurgen would
be brushed aside by the man's brute strength. This man
would take away Dorothy, and leave the life of Jurgen to
become a business which Jurgen remembered with
distaste. It was unfair.
So Jurgen snatched out his dagger, and drove it deep
into the undefended back of Heitman Michael. Three
times young Jurgen stabbed and hacked the burly soldier,
just underneath the left ribs. Even in his fury Jurgen
remembered to strike on the left side.
It was all very quickly done. Heitman Michael's arms
jerked upward, and in the moonlight his fingers spread
and clutched. He made curious gurgling noises. Then
the strength went from his knees, so that he toppled
backward. His head fell upon Jurgen's shoulder, resting there
for an instant fraternally; and as Jurgen shuddered away
from the abhorred contact, the body of Heitman Michael
collapsed. Now he lay staring upward, dead at the feet
of his murderer. He was horrible looking, but he was
quite dead.
"What will become of you?" Dorothy whispered, after
a while. "Oh, Jurgen, it was foully done, that which you
did was infamous! What will become of you, my dear?"
"I will take my doom," says Jurgen, "and without
whimpering, so that I get justice. But I shall certainly
insist upon justice." Then Jurgen raised his face to the
bright heavens. "The man was stronger than I and
wanted what I wanted. So I have compromised with
necessity, in the only way I could make sure of getting
that which was requisite to me. I cry for justice to the
power that gave him strength and gave me weakness, and
gave to each of us his desires. That which I have done, I
have done. Now judge!"
Then Jurgen tugged and shoved the heavy body of
Heitman Michael, until it lay well out of sight, under
the bench upon which Jurgen and Dorothy had been
sitting. "Rest there, brave sir, until they find you. Come
to me now, my Heart's Desire. Good, that is excellent.
Here I sit with my true love, upon the body of my enemy.
Justice is satisfied, and all is quite as it should be. For
you must understand that I have fallen heir to a fine
steed, whose bridle is marked with a coronet, - prophetically,
I take it, - and upon this steed you will ride pillion
with me to Lisuarte. There we will find a priest to marry
us. We will go together into Gâtinais. Meanwhile, there
is a bit of neglected business to be attended to." And
he drew the girl close to him.
For Jurgen was afraid of nothing now. And Jurgen thought:
"Oh, that I could detain the moment! that I could make
some fitting verses to preserve this moment in my own
memory! Could I but get into words the odor and the
thick softness of this girl's hair as my hands, that are
a-quiver in every nerve of them, caress her hair; and get
into enduring words the glitter and the cloudy shadowings
of her hair in this be-drenching moonlight! For I shall
forget all this beauty, or at best I shall remember this
moment very dimly."
"You have done very wrong - " says Dorothy.
Says Jurgen, to himself: "Already the moment passes
this miserably happy moment wherein once more life
shudders and stands heart-stricken at the height of bliss!
it passes, and I know even as I lift this girl's soft face
to mine, and mark what faith and submissiveness and
expectancy is in her face, that whatever the future holds
for us, and whatever of happiness we two may know
hereafter, we shall find no instant happier than this, which
passes from us irretrievably while I am thinking about
it, poor fool, in place of rising to the issue."
" - And heaven only knows what will become of you
Jurgen - "
Says Jurgen, still to himself: "Yes, something must
remain to me of all this rapture, though it be only guilt
and sorrow: something I mean to wrest from this high
moment which was once wasted fruitlessly. Now I am
wiser: for I know there is not any memory with less
satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we
resisted. So I will not waste the one real passion I have
known, nor leave unfed the one desire which ever caused
me for a heart-beat to forget to think about Jurgen's
welfare. And thus, whatever happens, I shall not always
regret that I did not avail myself of this girl's love before
it was taken from me."
So Jurgen made such advances as seemed good to him.
And he noted, with amusing memories of how much
afraid he had once been of shocking his Dorothy's notions
of decorum, that she did not repulse him very vigorously.
"Here, over a dead body! Oh, Jurgen, this is horrible!
Now, Jurgen, remember that somebody may come any
minute! And I thought I could trust you! Ah, and is
this all the respect you have for me!" This much she
said in duty. Meanwhile the eyes of Dorothy were
dilated and very tender.
"Faith, I take no chances, this second time. And so
whatever happens, I shall not always regret that which I
left undone."
Now upon his lips was laughter, and his arms were
about the submissive girl. And in his heart was an unnamable
depression and a loneliness, because it seemed to
him that this was not the Dorothy whom he had seen in
the garden between dawn and sunrise. For in my arms
now there is just a very pretty girl who is not over-careful
in her dealings with young men, thought Jurgen, as
their lips met. Well, all life is a compromise; and a
pretty girl is something tangible, at any rate. So he
laughed, triumphantly, and prepared for the sequel.
But as Jurgen laughed triumphantly, with his arm beneath
the head of Dorothy, and with the tender face of
Dorothy passive beneath his lips, and with unreasonable
wistfulness in his heart, the castle bell tolled midnight.
What followed was curious: for as Wednesday passed,
the face of Dorothy altered, her flesh roughened under
his touch, and her cheeks fell away, and fine lines came
about her eyes, and she became the Countess Dorothy
whom Jurgen remembered as Heitman Michael's wife.
There was no doubt about it, in that be-drenching moonlight:
and she was leering at him, and he was touching
her everywhere, this horrible lascivious woman, who was
certainly quite old enough to know better than to permit
such liberties. And her breath was sour and nauseous.
Jurgen drew away from her, with a shiver of loathing,
and he closed his eyes, to shut away that sensual face.
"No," he said; "it would not be fair to what we owe to
others. In fact, it would be a very heinous sin. We
should weigh such considerations occasionally, madame."
Then Jurgen left his temptress, with simple dignity.
"I go to search for my dear wife, madame, in a frame of
mind which I would strongly advise you to adopt toward
your husband."
And he went straightway down the terraces of Bellegarde,
and turned southward to where his horse was
tethered upon Amneran Heath: and Jurgen was feeling
very virtuous.
"Well, well," he said, "now that my Wednesday is done
with, and I am again a reputable pawnbroker, let us
remember the advisability of sometimes doing the manly
thing! It was into this cave that Lisa went. So into this
cave go I, for the second time, rather than home to my
unsympathetic relatives-in-law. Or at least, I think I am
going - "
"Ay," said a squeaking voice, "this is the time. A ab
hur hus!"
"High time!"
"Oh, more than time!"
"Look, the man in the oak!"
"Oho, the fire-drake!"
Thus many voices screeched and wailed confusedly.
But Jurgen, staring about him, could see nobody: and all
the tiny voices seemed to come from far overhead, where
nothing was visible save the clouds which of a sudden
were gathering; for a wind was rising, and already the
moon was overcast. Now for a while that noise high in
the air became like a wrangling of sparrows, wherein no
words were distinguishable.
Then said a small shrill voice distinctly: "Note now,
sweethearts, how high we pass over the wind-vexed
heath, where the gallows' burden creaks and groans
swaying to and fro in the night! Now the rain breaks
loose as a hawk from the fowler, and grave Queen Holda
draws her tresses over the moon's bright shield. Now
the bed is made, and the water drawn, and we the bride's
maids seek for the lass who will be bride to Sclaug."
Said another: "Oh, search for a maid with golden
hair, who is perfect, tender and pure, and fit for a king
who is old as love, with no trace of love in him. Even
now our grinning dusty master wakes from sleep, and his
yellow fingers shake to think of her flower-soft lips who
comes to-night to his lank embrace and warms the ribs
that our eyes have seen. Who will be bride to Sclaug?"
And a third said: "The wedding-gown we have
brought with us, we that a-questing ride: and a maid will
go hence on Phorgemon in Cleopatra's shroud. Hah,
Will o'the Wisp will marry the couple - "
"No, no! let Brachyotus!"
"No, be it Kitt with the candle-stick!"
"Eman hetan, a fight, a fight!"
"Oho, Tom Tumbler, 'ware of Stadlin!"
"Hast thou the marmaritin, Tib?"
"A ab hur hus!"
"Come, Bembo, come away!"
So they all fell to screeching and whistling and wrangling
high over Jurgen's head, and Jurgen was not pleased
with his surroundings.
"For these are the witches of Amneran about some
deviltry or another in which I prefer to take no part. I
now regret that I flung away a cross in this neighborhood
so very recently, and trust the action was understood. If
my wife had not made a point of it, and had not positively
insisted upon it, I would never have thought of doing
such a thing. I intended no reflection upon anybody.
Even so, I consider this heath to be unwholesome. And
upon the whole, I prefer to seek whatever I may
encounter in this cave."
So in went Jurgen, for the second time.
And the tale tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen
could see no one. But the cave stretched straight forward,
and downward, and at the far end was a glow of
light. Jurgen went on and on, and so came to the place
where he had found the Centaur. This part of the cave
was now vacant. But behind where Nessus had lain in
wait for Jurgen was an opening in the cave's wall, and
through this opening streamed the light. Jurgen stooped
and crawled through the orifice.
He stood erect. He caught his breath sharply. Here
at his feet was, of all things, a tomb carved with the
recumbent effigy of a woman. Now this part of the cave
was lighted by lamps upon tall iron stands, so that everything
was clearly visible, even to Jurgen, whose eyesight
had of late years failed him. This was certainly a low
flat tombstone such as Jurgen had seen in many churches:
but the tinted effigy thereupon was curious, somehow
Jurgen looked more closely. He touched the thing.
Then he recoiled, because there is no mistaking the feel
of dead flesh. The effigy was not colored stone: it was
the body of a dead woman. More unaccountable still, it
was the body of Félise de Puysange, whom Jurgen had
loved very long ago in Gâtinais, a great many years
before he set up in business as a pawnbroker.
Very strange it was to Jurgen again to see her face. He
had often wondered what had become of this large brown
woman; had wondered if he were really the first man for
whom she had put a deceit upon her husband; and had
wondered what sort of person Madame Félise de
Puysange had been in reality.
"Two months it was that we played at intimacy, was
it not, Félise? You comprehend, my dear, I really
remember very little about you. But I recall quite clearly
the door left just a-jar, and how as I opened it gently I
would see first of all the lamp upon your dressing-table,
turned down almost to extinction, and the glowing dust
upon its glass shade. Is it not strange that our exceeding
wickedness should have resulted in nothing save the
memory of dust upon a lamp chimney? Yet you were
very handsome, Félise. I dare say I would have liked
you if I had ever known you. But when you told me of
the child you had lost, and showed me his baby picture,
I took a dislike to you. It seemed to me you were betraying
that child by dealing over-generously with me:
and always between us afterward was his little ghost.
Yet I did not at all mind the deceits you put upon your
husband. It is true I knew your husband rather intimately
- . Well, and they tell me the good Vicomte
was vastly pleased by the son you bore him some months
after you and I had parted. So there was no great harm
done, after all - "
Then Jurgen saw there was another woman's body
lying like an effigy upon another low flat tomb, and
beyond that another, and then still others. And Jurgen
whistled.
"What, all of them!" he said. "Am I to be confronted
with every pound of tender flesh I have embraced? Yes,
here is Graine, and Rosamond, and Marcouève, and
Elinor. This girl, though, I do not remember at all. And
this one is, I think, the little Jewess I purchased from
Hassan Bey in Sidon, but how can one be sure? Still,
this is certainly Judith, and this is Myrina. I have half
a mind to look again for that mole, but I suppose it
would be indecorous. Lord, how one's women do add
up! There must be several scores of them in all. It is
the sort of spectacle that turns a man to serious thinking.
Well, but it is a great comfort to reflect that I dealt
fairly with every one of them. Several of them treated
me most unjustly, too. But that is past and done with:
and I bear no malice toward such fickle and short-sighted
creatures as could not be contented with one
lover, and he the Jurgen that was!"
Thereafter, Jurgen, standing among his dead, spread
out his arms in an embracing gesture.
"Hail to you, ladies, and farewell! for you and I have
done with love. Well, love is very pleasant to observe
as he advances, overthrowing all ancient memories with
laughter. And yet for each gay lover who concedes the
lordship of love, and wears intrepidly love's liveries, the
end of all is death. Love's sowing is more agreeable than
love's harvest: or, let us put it, he allures us into byways
leading nowhither, among blossoms which fall before the
first rough wind: so at the last, with much excitement
and breath and valuable time quite wasted, we find that
the end of all is death. Then would it have been more
shrewd, dear ladies, to have avoided love? To the contrary,
we were unspeakably wise to indulge the high-hearted
insanity that love induced; since love alone can
lend young people rapture, however transiently, in a
world wherein the result of every human endeavor is
transient, and the end of all is death."
Then Jurgen courteously bowed to his dead loves, and
left them, and went forward as the cave stretched.
But now the light was behind him, so that Jurgen's
shadow, as he came to a sharp turn in the cave, loomed
suddenly upon the cave wall, confronting him. This
shadow was clear-cut and unarguable.
Jurgen regarded it intently. He turned this way,
then the other; he looked behind him, raised one hand,
shook his head tentatively; then he twisted his head sideways
with his chin well lifted, and squinted so as to get
a profile view of this shadow. Whatever Jurgen did the
shadow repeated, which was natural enough. The odd
part was that it in nothing resembled the shadow which
ought to attend any man, and this was an uncomfortable
discovery to make in loneliness deep under ground.
"I do not exactly like this," said Jurgen. "Upon my
word, I do not like this at all. It does not seem fair. It
is perfectly preposterous. Well" - and here he shrugged,
- "well, and what could anybody expect me to do
about it? Ah, what indeed! So I shall treat the incident
with dignified contempt, and continue my exploration
of this cave."
Here suspended from the roof of the vault was a
kettle of quivering red flames. These lighted a very old
and villainous looking man in full armor, girded with a
sword, and crowned royally: he sat erect upon a throne,
motionless, with staring eyes that saw nothing. Back of
him Jurgen noted many warriors seated in rows, and all
staring at Jurgen with wide-open eyes that saw nothing.
The red flaming of the kettle was reflected in all these
eyes, and to observe this was not pleasant.
Jurgen waited non-commitally. Nothing happened.
Then Jurgen saw that at this unengaging monarch's feet
were three chests. The lids had been ripped from two
of them, and these were filled with silver coins. Upon
the middle chest, immediately before the king, sat a
woman, with her face resting against the knees of the
glaring, withered, motionless, old rascal.
"And this is a young woman. Obviously! Observe
the glint of that thick coil of hair! the rich curve of the
neck! Oh, clearly, a tidbit fit to fight for, against any
moderate odds!"
So ran the thoughts of Jurgen. Bold as a dragon now,
he stepped forward and lifted the girl's head.
Her eyes were closed. She was, even so, the most
beautiful creature Jurgen had ever imagined.
"She does not breathe. And yet, unless memory fails
me, this is certainly a living woman in my arms. Evidently
this is a sleep induced by necromancy. Well, it is
not for nothing I have read so many fairy tales. There
are orthodoxies to be observed in the awakening of every
enchanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may be,
poor dear! is nowhere in this neighborhood, because I
hear nobody talking. So I may consider myself at liberty
to do the traditional thing by this princess. Indeed, it is
the only fair thing for me to do, and justice demands it."
In consequence, Jurgen kissed the girl. Her lips
parted and softened, and they assumed a not unpleasant
sort of submissive ardor. Her eyes, enormous when
seen thus closely, had languorously opened, had viewed
him without wonder, and then the lids had fallen, about
half-way, just as, Jurgen remembered, the eyelids of a
woman ought to do when she is being kissed properly.
She clung a little, and now she shivered a little, but not
with cold: Jurgen perfectly remembered that ecstatic
shudder convulsing a woman's body: everything, in fine,
was quite as it should be. So Jurgen put an end to the
kiss, which, as you may surmise, was a tolerably lengthy affair.
His heart was pounding as though determined to burst
from his body, and he could feel the blood tingling at his
finger-tips. He wondered what in the world had come
over him, who was too old for such emotions.
Yet, truly, this was the loveliest girl that Jurgen had
ever imagined. Fair was she to look on, with her shining
gray eyes and small smiling lips, a fairer person might
no man boast of having seen. And she regarded Jurgen
graciously, with her cheeks flushed by that red flickering
overhead, and she was very lovely to observe. She was
clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her
neck was a collar of red gold. When she spoke her
voice was music.
"I knew that you would come," the girl said, happily.
"I am very glad that I came," observed Jurgen.
"But time presses."
"Time sets an admirable example, my dear Princess - "
"Oh, messire, but do you not perceive that you have
brought life into this horrible place! You have given of
this life to me, in the most direct and speedy fashion.
But life is very contagious. Already it is spreading by infection."
And Jurgen regarded the old king, as the girl indicated.
The withered ruffian stayed motionless: but from
his nostrils came slow augmenting jets of vapor, as
though he were beginning to breathe in a chill place.
This was odd, because the cave was not cold.
"And all the others too are snorting smoke," says
Jurgen. "Upon my word I think this is a delightful
place to be leaving."
First, though, he unfastened the king's sword-belt, and
girded himself therewith, sword, dagger and all. "Now
I have arms befitting my fine shirt," says Jurgen.
Then the girl showed him a sort of passage way, by
which they ascended forty-nine steps roughly hewn in
stone, and so came to daylight. At the top of the stairway
was an iron trapdoor, and this door at the girl's
instruction Jurgen lowered. There was no way of fastening
the door from without.
"But Thragnar is not to be stopped by bolts or padlocks,"
the girl said. "Instead, we must straightway
mark this door with a cross, since that is a symbol which
Thragnar cannot pass."
Jurgen's hand had gone instinctively to his throat.
Now he shrugged. "My dear young lady, I no longer
carry the cross. I must fight Thragnar with other weapons."
"Two sticks will serve, laid crosswise - "
Jurgen submitted that nothing would be easier than to
lift the trapdoor, and thus dislodge the sticks. "They
will tumble apart without anyone having to touch them,
and then what becomes of your crucifix?"
"Why, how quickly you think of everything!" she said,
admiringly. "Here is a strip from my sleeve, then. We
will tie the twigs together."
Jurgen did this, and laid upon the trapdoor a recognizable
crucifix. "Still, when anyone raises the trapdoor
whatever lies upon it will fall off. Without disparaging
the potency of your charm, I cannot but observe that in
this case it is peculiarly difficult to handle. Magician or
no, I would put heartier faith in a stout padlock."
So the girl tore another strip, from the hem of her
gown, and then another from her right sleeve, and with
these they fastened their cross to the surface of the
trapdoor, in such a fashion that the twigs could not be
dislodged from beneath. They mounted the fine steed whose
bridle was marked with a coronet, the girl riding pillion,
and they turned westward, since the girl said this was best.
For, as she now told Jurgen, she was Guenevere, the
daughter of Gogyrvan, King of Glathion and the Red
Islands. So Jurgen told her he was the Duke of Logreus,
because he felt it was not appropriate for a pawnbroker
to be rescuing princesses: and he swore, too, that he
would restore her safely to her father, whatever Thragnar
might attempt. And all the story of her nefarious
capture and imprisonment by King Thragnar did Dame
Guenevere relate to Jurgen, as they rode together through
the pleasant May morning.
She considered the Troll King could not well molest
them. "For now you have his charmed sword, Caliburn,
the only weapon with which Thragnar can be slain.
Besides, the sign of the cross he cannot pass. He beholds
and trembles."
"My dear Princess, he has but to push up the trapdoor
from beneath, and the cross, being tied to the trapdoor,
is promptly moved out of his way. Failing this expedient,
he can always come out of the cave by the other
opening, through which I entered. If this Thragnar has
any intelligence at all and a reasonable amount of tenacity,
he will presently be at hand."
"Even so, he can do no harm unless we accept a
present from him. The difficulty is that he will come in disguise."
"Why, then, we will accept gifts from nobody."
"There is, moreover, a sign by which you may distinguish
Thragnar. For if you deny what he says, he will
promptly concede you are in the right. This was the
curse put upon him by Miramon Lluagor, for a detection
and a hindrance."
"By that unhuman trait," says Jurgen, "Thragnar
ought to be very easy to distinguish."
"Sir knight," says he, speaking hollowly from the
closed helmet, "you must yield to me that lady."
"I think," says Jurgen, civilly, "that you are mistaken."
So they fought, and presently, since Caliburn was a
resistless weapon, and he who wore the scabbard of
Caliburn could not be wounded, Jurgen prevailed; and gave
the strange knight so heavy a buffet that the knight fell senseless.
"Do you think," says Jurgen, about to unlace his
antagonist's helmet, "that this is Thragnar?"
"There is no possible way of telling," replied Dame
Guenevere: "if it is the Troll King he should have offered
you gifts, and when you contradicted him he should have
admitted you were right. Instead, he proffered nothing,
and to contradiction he answered nothing, so that proves
nothing."
"But silence is a proverbial form of assent. At all
events, we will have a look at him."
"But that too will prove nothing, since Thragnar goes
about his mischiefs so disguised by enchantments as
invariably to resemble somebody else, and not himself at all."
"Such dishonest habits introduce an element of uncertainty,
I grant you," says Jurgen. "Still, one can rarely
err by keeping on the safe side. This person is, in any
event, a very ill-bred fellow, with probably immoral
intentions. Yes, caution is the main thing, and in justice to
ourselves we will keep on the safe side."
So without unloosing the helmet, he struck off the
strange knight's head, and left him thus. The Princess
was now mounted on the horse of their deceased assailant.
"Assuredly," says Jurgen then, "a magic sword is a
fine thing, and a very necessary equipment, too, for a
knight errant of my age."
"But you talk as though you were an old man, Messire
de Logreus!"
"Come now," thinks Jurgen, "this is a princess of rare
discrimination. What, after all, is forty-and-something
when one is well-preserved? This uncommonly intelligent
girl reminds me a little of Marcouève, whom I
loved in Artein: besides, she does not look at me as
women look at an elderly man. I like this princess, in
fact, I adore this princess. I wonder now what would
she say if I told her as much?"
But Jurgen did not tempt chance that time, for just
then they encountered a boy who had frizzed hair and
painted cheeks. He walked mincingly, in a curious garb
of black bespangled with gold lozenges, and he carried a
gilded dung fork.
Then Jurgen and the Princess came to a black and
silver pavilion standing by the roadside. At the door of
the pavilion was an apple-tree in blossom: from a branch
of this tree was suspended a black hunting-horn,
silver-mounted. A woman waited there alone. Before her was
a chess-board, with the ebony and silver pieces set ready
for a game, and upon the table to her left hand glittered
flagons and goblets of silver. Eagerly this woman rose
and came toward the travellers.
"Oh, my dear Jurgen," says she, "but how fine you
look in that new shirt you are wearing! But there was
never a man had better taste in dress, as I have always
said: and it is long I have waited for you in this pavilion,
which belongs to a black gentleman who seems to be a
great friend of yours. And he went into Crim Tartary
this morning, with some missionaries, by the worst piece
of luck, for I know how sorry he will be to miss you,
dear. Now, but I am forgetting that you must be very
tired and thirsty, my darling, after your travels. So do
you and the young lady have a sip of this, and then we
will be telling one another of our adventures."
For this woman had the appearance of Jurgen's wife,
Dame Lisa, and of none other.
Jurgen regarded her with two minds. "You certainly
seem to be Lisa. But it is a long while since I saw Lisa
in such an amiable mood."
"You must know," says she, still smiling, "that I have
learned to appreciate you since we were separated."
"The fiend who stole you from me may possibly have
brought about that wonder. None the less, you have met
me riding at adventure with a young woman. And you
have assaulted neither of us, you have not even raised
your voice. No, quite decidedly, here is a miracle beyond
the power of any fiend."
"Ah, but I have been doing a great deal of thinking,
Jurgen dear, as to our difficulties in the past. And it
seems to me that you were almost always in the right."
Guenevere nudged Jurgen. "Did you note that? This
is certainly Thragnar in disguise."
"I am beginning to think that at all events it is not
Lisa." Then Jurgen magisterially cleared his throat.
"Lisa, if you indeed be Lisa, you must understand I am
through with you. The plain truth is that you tire me.
You talk and talk: no woman breathing equals you at
mere volume and continuity of speech: but you say
nothing that I have not heard seven hundred and eighty
times if not oftener."
"You are perfectly right, my dear," says Dame Lisa,
piteously. "But then I never pretended to be as clever
as you."
"Spare me your beguilements, if you please. And
besides, I am in love with this princess. Now spare me
your recriminations, also, for you have no real right to
complain. If you had stayed the person whom I promised
the priest to love, I would have continued to think
the world of you. But you did nothing of the sort. From
a cuddlesome and merry girl, who thought whatever I
did was done to perfection, you elected to develop into
an uncommonly plain and short-tempered old woman."
And Jurgen paused. "Eh?" said he, "and did you not
do this?"
Dame Lisa answered sadly: "My dear, you are perfectly
right, from your way of thinking. However, I
could not very well help getting older."
"But, oh, dear me!" says Jurgen, "this is astonishingly
inadequate impersonation, as any married man would see
at once. Well, I made no contract to love any such plain
and short-tempered person. I repudiate the claims of
any such person, as manifestly unfair. And I pledge
undying affection to this high and noble Princess Guenevere,
who is the fairest lady that I have ever seen."
"You are right," wailed Dame Lisa, "and I was entirely
to blame. It was because I loved you, and wanted
you to get on in the world and be a credit to my father's
line of business, that I nagged you so. But you will
never understand the feelings of a wife, nor will you
understand that even now I desire your happiness above
all else. Here is our wedding-ring, then, Jurgen. I give
you back your freedom. And I pray that this princess
may make you very happy, my dear. For surely you
deserve a princess if ever any man did."
Jurgen shook his head. "It is astounding that a demon
so much talked about should be so poor an impersonator.
It raises the staggering supposition that the majority of
married women must go to Heaven. As for your ring, I
am not accepting gifts this morning, from anyone. But
you understand, I trust, that I am hopelessly enamored
of the Princess on account of her beauty."
"Oh, and I cannot blame you, my dear. She is the
loveliest person I have ever seen."
"Hah, Thragnar!" says Jurgen, "I have you now. A
woman might, just possibly, have granted her own
homeliness: but no woman that ever breathed would have
conceded the Princess had a ray of good looks."
So with Caliburn he smote, and struck off the head of
this thing which foolishly pretended to be Dame Lisa.
"Well done! oh, bravely done !" cried Guenevere.
"Now the enchantment is dissolved, and Thragnar is
slain by my clever champion."
"I could wish there were some surer sign of that,"
said Jurgen. "I would have preferred that the pavilion
and the decapitated Troll King had vanished with a peal
of thunder and an earthquake and such other phenomena
as are customary. Instead, nothing is changed except
that the woman who was talking to me a moment since
now lies at my feet in a very untidy condition. You
conceive, madame, I used to tease her about that twisted
little-finger, in the days before we began to squabble:
and it annoys me that Thragnar should not have omitted
even Lisa's crooked little-finger on her left hand. Yes,
such painstaking carefulness worries me. For you conceive
also, madame, it would be more or less awkward if
I had made an error, and if the appearance were in
reality what it seemed to be, because I was pretty trying
sometimes. At all events, I have done that which seemed
equitable, and I have found no comfort in the doing of
it, and I do not like this place."
Now there was shouting and the bells all rang when the
people knew their Princess was returned to them: the
houses were hung with painted cloths and banners, and
trumpets sounded, as Guenevere and Jurgen came to the
King in his Hall of Judgment. And this Gogyrvan, that
was King of Glathion and Lord of Enisgarth and Camwy
and Sargyll, came down from his wide throne, and he
embraced first Guenevere, then Jurgen.
"And demand of me what you will, Duke of Logreus,"
said Gogyrvan, when he had heard the champion's name,
"and it is yours for the asking. For you have restored
to me the best loved daughter that ever was the pride of
a high king."
"Sir," replied Jurgen, reasonably, "a service rendered
so gladly should be its own reward. So I am asking that
you do in turn restore to me the Princess Guenevere, in
honorable marriage, do you understand, because I am a
poor lorn widower, I am tolerably certain, but I am quite
certain I love your daughter with my whole heart."
Thus Jurgen, whose periods were confused by emotion.
"I do not see what the condition of your heart has to
do with any such unreasonable request. And you have
no good sense to be asking this thing of me when here
are the servants of Arthur, that is now King of the
Britons, come to ask for my daughter as his wife. That
you are Duke of Logreus you tell me, and I concede a
duke is all very well: but I expect you in return to concede
a king takes precedence, with any man whose daughter
is marriageable. But to-morrow or the next day it
may be, you and I will talk over your reward more
privately. Meanwhile it is very queer and very frightened
you are looking, to be the champion who conquered Thragnar."
For Jurgen was staring at the great mirror behind the
King's throne. In this mirror Jurgen saw the back of
Gogyrvan's crowned head, and beyond this, Jurgen saw a
queer and frightened looking young fellow, with sleek
black hair, and an impudent nose, and wide-open bright
brown eyes which were staring hard at Jurgen: and the
lad's very red and very heavy lips were parted, so that
you saw what fine strong teeth he had: and he wore a
glittering shirt with curious figures on it.
"I was thinking," says Jurgen, and he saw the lad in
the mirror was speaking too, "I was thinking that is a
remarkable mirror you have there."
"It is like any other mirror," replies the King, "in that
it shows things as they are. But if you fancy it as your
reward, why, take it and welcome."
"And are you still talking of rewards!" cries Jurgen.
"why, if that mirror shows things as they are, I have
come out of my borrowed Wednesday still twenty-one.
Oh, but it was the clever fellow I was, to flatter Mother
Sereda so cunningly, and to fool her into such generosity!
And I wonder that you who are only a king, with bleared
eyes under your crown, and with a drooping belly under
all your royal robes, should be talking of rewarding a fine
young fellow of twenty-one, for there is nothing you
have which I need be wanting now."
"Then you will not be plaguing me any more with your
nonsense about my daughter: and that is excellent news."
"But I have no requirement to be asking your good
graces now," said Jurgen, "nor the good will of any man
alive that has a handsome daughter or a handsome wife.
For now I have the aid of a lad that was very recently
made Duke of Logreus: and with his countenance I can
look out for myself, and I can get justice done me
everywhere, in all the bedchambers of the world."
And Jurgen snapped his fingers, and was about to turn
away from the King. There was much sunlight in the
hall, so that Jurgen in this half-turn confronted his
shadow as it lay plain upon the flagstones. And Jurgen
looked at it very intently.
"Of course," said Jurgen presently, "I only meant in a
manner of speaking, sir: and was paraphrasing the splendid
if hackneyed passage from Sornatius, with which you
are doubtless familiar, in which he goes on to say, so
much more beautifully than I could possibly express
without quoting him word for word, that all this was
spoken jestingly, and without the least intention of
offending anybody, oh, anybody whatever, I can assure
you, sir."
"Very well," said Gogyrvan Gawr: and he smiled, for
no reason that was apparent to Jurgen, who was still
watching his shadow sidewise. "To-morrow, I repeat, I
must talk with you more privately. To-day I am giving
a banquet such as was never known in these parts,
because my daughter is restored to me, and because my
daughter is going to be queen over all the Britons."
So said Gogyrvan, that was King of Glathion and Lord
of Enisgarth and Camwy and Sargyll: and this was done.
And everywhere at the banquet Jurgen heard talk of this
King Arthur who was to marry Dame Guenevere, and of
the prophecy which Merlin Ambrosius had made as to the
young monarch. For Merlin had predicted:
"He shall afford succor, and shall tread upon the necks
of his enemies: the isles of the ocean shall be subdued by
him, and he shall possess the forests of Gaul: the house
of Romulus shall fear his rage, and his acts shall be food
for the narrators."
"Why, then," says Jurgen, to himself, "this monarch
reminds me in all things of David of Israel, who was so
splendid and famous, and so greedy, in the ancient ages.
For to these forests and islands and necks and other
possessions, this Arthur Pendragon must be adding my one
ewe lamb; and I lack a Nathan to convert him to repentance.
Now, but this, to be sure, is a very unfair thing."
Then Jurgen looked again into a mirror: and presently
the eyes of the lad he found therein began to twinkle.
"Have at you, David!" said Jurgen, valorously; "since
after all, I see no reason to despair."
For these were quiet times in Glathion, now that the
war with Rience of Northgalis was satisfactorily ended:
and love-making was now everywhere in vogue. By way
of diversion, gentlemen hunted and fished and rode
a-hawking and amicably slashed and battered one another
in tournaments: but their really serious pursuit was
love-making, after the manner of chivalrous persons, who
knew that the King's trumpets would presently be
summoning them into less softly furnished fields of action,
from one or another of which they would return feet
foremost on a bier. So Jurgen sighed and warbled and
made eyes with many excellent fighting-men: and the
Princess listened with many other ladies whose hearts
were not of flint. And Gogyrvan meditated.
Now it was the kingly custom of Gogyrvan when his
dinner was spread at noontide, not to go to meat until all
such as demanded justice from him had been furnished
with a champion to redress the wrong. One day as the
gaunt old King sat thus in his main hall, upon a seat of
green rushes covered with yellow satin, and with a
cushion of yellow satin under his elbow, and with his
barons ranged about him according to their degrees, a
damsel came with a very heart-rending tale of the
oppression that was on her.
Gogyrvan blinked at her, and nodded. "You are the
handsomest woman I have seen in a long while," says he,
irrelevantly. "You are a woman I have waited for. Duke
Jurgen of Logreus will undertake this adventure."
There being no help for it, Jurgen rode off with this
Dame Yolande, not very well pleased: but as they rode
he jested with her. And so, with much laughter by the
way, Yolande conducted him to the Green Castle, of
which she had been dispossessed by Graemagog, a most
formidable giant.
"Now prepare to meet your death, sir knight!" cried
Graemagog, laughing horribly, and brandishing his club;
"for all knights who come hither I have sworn to slay."
"Well, if truth-telling were a sin you would be a very
virtuous giant," says Jurgen, and he flourished Thragnar's
sword, resistless Caliburn.
Then they fought, and Jurgen killed Graemagog. Thus
was the Green Castle restored to Dame Yolande, and the
maidens who attended her aforetime were duly released
from the cellarage. They were now maidens by courtesy
only, but so tender is the heart of women that they all
wept over Graemagog.
Yolande was very grateful, and proffered every manner
of reward.
"But, no, I will take none of these fine jewels, nor
money, nor lands either," says Jurgen. "For Logreus, I
must tell you, is a fairly well-to-do duchy, and the killing
of giants is by way of being my favorite pastime. He is
well paid that is well satisfied. Yet if you must reward
me for such a little service, do you swear to do what you
can to get me the love of my lady, and that will suffice."
Yolande, without any particular enthusiasm, consented
to attempt this: and indeed Yolande, at Jurgen's request,
made oath upon the Four Evangelists that she would do
everything within her power to aid him.
"Very well," said Jurgen, "you have sworn, and it is
you whom I love."
Surprise now made her lovely. Yolande was frankly
delighted at the thought of marrying the young Duke of
Logreus, and offered to send for a priest at once.
"My dear," says Jurgen, "there is no need to bother a
priest about our private affairs."
She took his meaning, and sighed. "Now I regret,"
said she, "that I made so solemn an oath. Your trick
was unfair."
"Oh, not at all," said Jurgen: "and presently you will
not regret it. For indeed the game is well worth the candle."
"How is that shown, Messire de Logreus?"
"Why, by candle-light," says Jurgen, - "naturally."
"In that event, we will talk no further of it until this evening."
So that evening Yolande sent for him. She was, as
Gogyrvan had said, a remarkably handsome woman, sleek
and sumptuous and crowned with a wealth of copper-colored
hair. To-night she was at her best in a tunic of
shimmering blue, with a surcote of gold embroidery, and
with gold embroidered pendent sleeves that touched the
door. Thus she was when Jurgen came to her.
"Now," says Yolande, frowning, "you may as well
come out straightforwardly with what you were hinting
at this morning."
But first Jurgen looked about the apartment, and it was
lighted by a tall gilt stand whereon burned candles.
He counted these, and he whistled. "Seven candles!
upon my word, sweetheart, you do me great honor, for
this is a veritable illumination. To think of it, now, that
you should honor me, as people do saints, with seven
candles! Well, I am only mortal, but none the less I am
Jurgen, and I shall endeavor to repay this sevenfold
courtesy without discount."
"Oh, Messire de Logreus," cried Dame Yolande, "but
what incomprehensible nonsense you talk! You misinterpret
matters, for I can assure you I had nothing of that
sort in mind. Besides, I do not know what you are
talking about."
"Indeed, I must warn you that my actions often speak
more unmistakably than my words. It is what learned
persons term an idiosyncrasy."
" - And I certainly do not see how any of the saints
can be concerned in this. If you had said the Four
Evangelists now! For we were talking of the Four
Evangelists, you remember, this morning - Oh, but
how stupid it is of you, Messire de Logreus, to stand
there grinning and looking at me in a way that makes me blush!"
"Well, that is easily remedied," said Jurgen, as he blew
out the candles, "since women do not blush in the dark."
"What do you plan, Messire de Logreus?"
"Ah, do not be alarmed!" said Jurgen. "I shall deal
fairly with you."
And in fact Yolande confessed afterward that, considering
everything, Messire de Logreus was very generous.
Jurgen confessed nothing: and as the room was
profoundly dark nobody else can speak with authority as
to what happened there. It suffices that the Duke of
Logreus and the Lady of the Green Castle parted later
on the most friendly terms.
"You have undone me, with your games and your
candles and your scrupulous returning of courtesies,"
said Yolande, and yawned, for she was sleepy; "but I fear
that I do not hate you as much as I ought to."
"No woman ever does," says Jurgen, "at this hour."
He called for breakfast, then kissed Yolande - for this,
as Jurgen had said, was their hour of parting, - and he
rode away from the Green Castle in high spirits.
"Why, what a thing it is again to be a fine young fellow!"
said Jurgen. "Well, even though her big brown
eyes protrude too much - something like a lobster's - she
is a splendid woman, that Dame Yolande: and it is a
comfort to reflect I have seen justice was done her."
Then he rode back to Cameliard, singing with delight
in the thought that he was riding toward the Princess
Guenevere, whom he loved with his whole heart.
"I lament that Dame Yolande dealt over-thriftily with
you," the King said, first of all: "for I estimated you two
would be as spark and tinder, kindling between you an
amorous conflagration to burn up all this nonsense about
my daughter."
"Thrift, sir," said Jurgen, discreetly, "is a proverbial
virtue, and fires may not consume true love."
"That is the truth," Gogyrvan admitted, "whoever says
it." And he sighed.
Then for a while he sat in nodding meditation. To-night
the old King wore a disreputably rusty gown of
black stuff, with fur about the neck and sleeves of it, and
his scant white hair was covered by a very shabby black
cap. So he huddled over a small fire in a large stone fireplace
carved with shields; beside him was white wine and
red, which stayed untasted while Gogyrvan meditated
upon things that fretted him.
"Now, then!" says Gogyrvan Gawr: "this marriage
with the high King of the Britons must go forward, of
course. That was settled last year, when Arthur and his
devil-mongers, the Lady of the Lake and Merlin Ambrosius,
were at some pains to rescue me at Carohaise. I
estimate that Arthur's ambassadors, probably the
devil-mongers themselves, will come for my daughter before
June is out. Meanwhile, you two have youth and love for
playthings, and it is spring."
"What is the season of the year to me," groaned Jurgen
"when I reflect that within a week or so the lady of my
heart will be borne away from me forever? How can I
be happy, when all the while I know the long years of
misery and vain regret are near at hand?"
"You are saying that," observed the King, "in part because
you drank too much last night, and in part because
you think it is expected of you. For in point of fact, you
are as happy as anyone is permitted to be in this world,
through the simple reason that you are young. Misery,
as you employ the word, I consider to be a poetical
trophe: but I can assure you that the moment you are no
longer young the years of vain regret will begin, either way."
"That is true," said Jurgen, heartily.
"How do you know? Now then, put it I were insane
enough to marry my daughter to a mere duke, you would
grow damnably tired of her: I can assure you of that
also, for in disposition Guenevere is her sainted mother
all over again. She is nice looking, of course, because in
that she takes after my side of the family: but, between
ourselves, she is not particularly intelligent, and she will
always be making eyes at some man or another. To-day
it appears to be your turn to serve as her target, in a fine
glittering shirt of which the like was never seen in
Glathion. I deplore, but even so I cannot deny, your
rights as the champion who rescued her: and I must bid
you make the most of that turn."
"Meanwhile, it occurs to me, sir, that it is unusual to
betroth your daughter to one man, and permit her to go
freely with another."
"If you insist upon it," said Gogyrvan Gawr, "I can of
course lock up the pair of you, in separate dungeons, until
the wedding day. Meanwhile, it occurs to me you should
be the last commentator to grumble."
"Why, I tell you plainly, sir, that critical persons would
say you are taking very small care of your daughter's honor."
"To that there are several answers," replied the King.
"One is that I remember my late wife as tenderly as
possible, and I reflect I have only her word for it as to
Guenevere's being my daughter. Another is that,
though my daughter is a quiet and well-conducted young
woman, I never heard King Thragnar was anything of
this sort."
"Oh, sir," said Jurgen, horrified, "whatever are you hinting!"
"All sorts of things, however, happen in caves, things
which it is wiser to ignore in sunlight. So I ignore: I
ask no questions: my business is to marry my daughter
acceptably, and that only. Such discoveries as may be
made by her husband afterward are his affair, not mine.
This much I might tell you, Messire de Logreus, by way
of answer. But the real answer is to bid you consider
this: that a woman's honor is concerned with one thing
only, and it is a thing with which the honor of a man is
not concerned at all."
"But now you talk in riddles, King, and I wonder what
it is you would have me do."
Gogyrvan grinned. "Obviously, I advise you to give
thanks you were born a man, because that sturdier sex
has so much less need to bother over breakage."
"What sort of breakage, sir?" says Jurgen.
Gogyrvan told him.
Duke Jurgen for the second time looked properly horrified.
"Your aphorisms, King, are abominable, and of a
sort unlikely to quiet my misery However, we were
speaking of your daughter, and it is she who must be
considered rather than I."
"Now I perceive that you take my meaning perfectly.
Yes, in all matters which concern my daughter I would
have you lie like a gentleman."
"Well, I am afraid, sir," said Jurgen, after a pause,
"that you are a person of somewhat degraded ideals."
"Ah, but you are young. Youth can afford ideals, being
vigorous enough to stand the hard knocks they earn their
possessor. But I am an old fellow cursed with a tender
heart and tolerably keen eyes. That combination, Messire
de Logreus, is one which very often forces me to jeer out
of season, simply because I know myself to be upon the
verge of far more untimely tears."
Thus Gogyrvan replied. He was silent for a while,
and he contemplated the fire. Then he waved a shriveled
hand toward the window, and Gogyrvan began to speak,
meditatively:
"Messire de Logreus, it is night in my city of Cameliard.
And somewhere one of those roofs harbors a girl
whom we will call Lynette. She has a lover - we will say
he is called Sagramor. The names do not matter.
To-night, as I speak with you, Lynette lies motionless in the
carved wide bed that formerly was her mother's. She is
thinking of Sagramor. The room is dark save where
moonlight silvers the diamond-shaped panes of ancient
windows. In every corner of the room mysterious
quivering suggestions lurk."
"Ah, sire," says Jurgen, "you also are a poet!"
"Do not interrupt me, then! Lynette, I repeat, is
thinking of Sagramor. Again they sit near the lake,
under an apple-tree older than Rome. The knotted
branches of the tree are upraised as in benediction: and
petals - petals, fluttering, drifting, turning, - interminable
white petals fall silently in the stillness. Neither speaks:
for there is no need. Silently he brushes a petal from the
blackness of her hair, and silently he kisses her. The
lake is dusky and hard-seeming as jade. Two lonely stars
hang low in the green sky. It is droll that the chest of
a man is hairy, oh, very droll! And a bird is singing,
a silvery needle of sound moves fitfully in the stillness.
Surely high Heaven is thus quietly colored and thus
strangely lovely. So at least thinks little Lynette, lying
motionless like a little mouse, in the carved wide bed
wherein Lynette was born."
"A very moving touch, that," Jurgen interpolated.
"Now, there is another sort of singing: for now the
pot-house closes, big shutters bang, feet shuffle, a drunken
man hiccoughs in his singing. It is a love-song he is
murdering. He sheds inexplicable tears as he lurches
nearer and nearer to Lynette's window, and his heart
is all magnanimity, for Sagramor is celebrating his latest
conquest. Do you not think that this or something very
like this is happening to-night in my city of Cameliard,
Messire de Logreus?"
"It happens momently," said Jurgen, "everywhere. For
thus is every woman for a little while, and thus is every
man for all time."
"That being a dreadful truth," continued Gogyrvan,
"you may take it as one of the many reasons why I
jeer out of season in order to stave off far more untimely
tears. For this thing happens: in my city it happens,
and in my castle it happens. King or no, I am
powerless to prevent its happening. So I can but shrug
and hearten my old blood with a fresh bottle. No less,
I regard the young woman, who is quite possibly my
daughter, with considerable affection: and it would be
salutary for you to remember that circumstance, Messire
de Logreus, if ever you are tempted to be candid."
Jurgen was horrified. "But with the Princess, sir, it is
unthinkable that I should not deal fairly."
King Gogyrvan continued to look at Jurgen. Gogyrvan
Gawr said nothing, and not a muscle of him moved.
"Although of course," said Jurgen, "I would, in simple
justice to her, not ever consider volunteering any
information likely to cause pain."
"Again I perceive," said Gogyrvan, "that you understand
me. Yet I did not speak of my daughter only, but
of everybody."
"How then, sir, would you have me deal with everybody?"
"Why, I can but repeat my words," says Gogyrvan,
very patiently: "I would have you lie like a gentleman.
And now be off with you, for I am going to sleep. I
shall not be wide awake again until my daughter is safely
married. And that is absolutely all I can do for you."
"Do you think this is reputable conduct, King?"
"Oh, no!" says Gogyrvan, surprised. "It is what we
call philanthropy."
Now the appearance of Guenevere, whom Jurgen loved
with an entire heart, was this: - She was of middling
height, with a figure not yet wholly the figure of a woman.
She had fine and very thick hair, and the color of it was
the yellow of corn floss. When Guenevere undid her hair
it was a marvel to Jurgen to note how snugly this hair
descended about the small head and slender throat, and
then broadened boldly and clothed her with a loose soft
foam of pallid gold. For Jurgen delighted in her hair;
and with increasing intimacy, loved to draw great strands
of it back of his head, crossing them there, and pressing
soft handfuls of her perfumed hair against his cheeks as
he kissed the Princess.
The head of Guenevere, be it repeated, was small: you
wondered at the proud free tossing movements of that
little head which had to sustain the weight of so much
hair. The face of Guenevere was colored tenderly and
softly: it made the faces of other women seem the work
of a sign-painter, just splotched in anyhow. Gray eyes
had Guenevere, veiled by incredibly long black lashes that
curved incredibly. Her brows arched rather high above
her eyes: that was almost a fault. Her nose was delicate
and saucy: her chin was impudence made flesh: and her
mouth was a tiny and irresistible temptation.
"And so on, and so on! But indeed there is no sense
at all in describing this lovely girl as though I were taking
an inventory of my shopwindow," said Jurgen. "Analogues
are all very well, and they have the unanswerable
sanction of custom: none the less, when I proclaim that
my adored mistress's hair reminds me of gold I am quite
consciously lying. It looks like yellow hair, and nothing
else: nor would I willingly venture within ten feet of any
woman whose head sprouted with wires, of whatever
metal. And to protest that her eyes are as gray and
fathomless as the sea is very well also, and the sort of
thing which seems expected of me: but imagine how horrific
would be puddles of water slopping about in a lady's
eyesockets! If we poets could actually behold the monsters
we rhyme of, we would scream and run. Still, I
rather like this sirvente."
For he was making a sirvente in praise of Guenevere.
It was the pleasant custom of Gogyrvan's court that
every gentleman must compose verses in honor of the
lady of whom he was hopelessly enamored; as well as that
in these verses he should address the lady (as one whose
name was too sacred to mention) otherwise than did her
sponsors. So Duke Jurgen of Logreus duly rhapsodized
of his Phyllida.
"I borrow for my dear love the appellation of that
noted but by much inferior lady who was beloved by
Ariphus of Belsize," he explained. "You will remember
Poliger suspects she was a princess of the house of
Scleroveus: and you of course recall Pisander's masterly
summing-up of the probabilities, in his Heraclea."
"Oh, yes," she said. And the courtiers of Gogyrvan
Gawr, like Mother Sereda, were greatly impressed by
young Duke Jurgen's erudition.
For Jurgen was Duke of Logreus nowadays, with his
glittering shirt and the coronet upon his bridle to show
for it. Awkwardly this proved to be an earl's coronet,
but incongruities are not always inexplicable.
"It was Earl Giarmuid's horse. You have doubtless
heard of Giarmuid: but to ask that is insulting."
"Oh, not at all. It is humor. We perfectly understand
your humor, Duke Jurgen."
"And a very pretty fighter I found this famous Giarmuid
as I traveled westward. And since he killed my
steed in the heat of our conversation, I was compelled to
take over his horse, after I had given this poor Giarmuid
proper interment. Oh, yes, a very pretty fighter,
and I had heard much talk of him in Logreus. He was
Lord of Orc and Persaunt, you remember, though of
course the estate came by his mother's side."
"Oh, yes," they said. "You must not think that we
of Glathion are quite shut out from the great world. We
have heard of all these affairs. And we have also heard
fine things of your duchy of Logreus, messire."
"Doubtless," said Jurgen; and turned again to his singing.
"Lo, for I pray to thee, resistless Love," he descanted,
"that thou to-day make cry unto my love, to Phyllida
whom I, poor Logreus, love so tenderly, not to deny me
love! Asked why, say thou my drink and food is love,
in days wherein I think and brood on love, and truly find
naught good in aught save love, since Phyllida hath taught
me how to love."
Here Jurgen groaned with nicely modulated ardor; and
he continued: "If she avow such constant hate of love as
would ignore my great and constant love, plead thou no
more! With listless lore of love woo Death resistlessly,
resistless Love, in place of her that saith such scorn of
love as lends to Death the lure and grace I love."
Thus Jurgen sang melodiously of his Phyllida, and
meant thereby (as everybody knew) the Princess Guenevere.
Since custom compelled him to deal in analogues,
he dealt wholesale. Gems and metals, the blossoms of
the field and garden, fires and wounds and sunrises and
perfumes, an armory of lethal weapons, ice and a concourse
of mythological deities were his starting-point.
Then the seas and heavens were dredged of phenomena
to be mentioned with disparagement, in comparison with
one or another feature of Duke Jurgen's Phyllida.
Zoology and history, and generally the remembered contents
of his pawnshop, were overhauled and made to
furnish targets for depreciation: whereas in dealing with
the famous ladies loved by earlier poets, Duke Jurgen
was positively insulting, allowing hardly a rag of merit.
Still, he was careful to be just: and he allowed that these
poor creatures might figure advantageously enough in
eyes which had never beheld his Phyllida. And to all this
information the lady whom he hymned attended willingly.
"She is a princess," reflected Jurgen. "She is quite
beautiful. She is young, and whatever her father's
opinion, she is reasonably intelligent, as women go. Nobody
could ask more. Why, then, am I not out of my
head about her? Already she permits a kiss or two when
nobody is around, and presently she will permit more.
And she thinks I am quite the cleverest person living.
Come, Jurgen, man! is there no heart in this spry young
body you have regained? Come, let us have a little honest
rapture and excitement over this promising situation!"
But somehow Jurgen could not manage it. He was
interested in what, he knew, was going to happen. Yes,
undoubtedly he looked forward to more intimate converse
with this beautiful younger princess, but it was rather as
one anticipates partaking of a favorite dessert. Jurgen
felt that a liaison arranged for in this spirit was neither
one thing or the other.
"If only I could feel like a cold-blooded villain, now,
I would at worst be classifiable. But I intend the girl
no harm, I am honestly fond of her. I shall talk my
best, broaden her ideas, and give her, I flatter myself,
considerable pleasure: vulgar prejudices apart, I shall
leave her no whit the worse. Why, the dear little thing,
not for the ransom of seven emperors would I do her
any hurt! And in these matters discretion is everything,
simply everything. No, quite decidedly, I am not a
cold-blooded villain; and I shall deal fairly with the Princess."
Thus Jurgen was disappointed by his own emotions, as
he turned them from side to side, and prodded them,
and shifted to a fresh viewpoint, only to find it no more
favorable than the one relinquished: but he veiled the
inadequacy of his emotions with very moving fervors.
The tale does not record his conversations with Guenevere:
for Jurgen now discoursed plain idiocy, as one
purveys sweetmeats to a child in fond astonishment at
the pet's appetite. And leisurely Jurgen advanced: there
was no hurry, with weeks wherein to accomplish everything:
meanwhile this routine work had a familiar pleasantness.
For the amateur co-ordinates matters, knowing that
one thing axiomatically leads to another. There is no
harm at all in respectful allusions to a love that comprehends
its hopelessness: it was merely a fact which Jurgen
mentioned, and was about to pass on; only Guenevere,
in modesty, was forced to disparage her own attractions,
as an inadequate cause for so much misery. Common
courtesy demanded that Jurgen enter upon a rebuttal. To
emphasize one point in this, the orator was forced to
take the hand of his audience: but strangers did that every
day, with nobody objecting; moreover, the hand was
here, not so much seized as displayed by its detainer,
as evidence of what he contended. How else was he to
prove the Princess of Glathion had the loveliest hand in
the world? It was not a matter he could request Guenevere
to accept on hearsay: and Jurgen wanted to deal
fairly with her.
Well, but before relinquishing the loveliest hand in
the world a connoisseur will naturally kiss each fingertip:
this is merely a tribute to perfection, and has no
personal application. Besides, a kiss, wherever deposited,
as Jurgen pointed out, is, when you think of it, but a
ceremonial, of no intrinsic wrongfulness. The girl
demurring against this apothegm - as custom again exacted
- was, still in common fairness, convinced of her error.
So now, says Jurgen presently, you see for yourself. Is
anything changed between us? Do we not sit here, just
as we were before? Why, to be sure! a kiss is now
attestedly a quite innocuous performance, with nothing
very fearful about it one way or the other. It even has
its pleasant side. Thus there is no need to make a
pother over kisses or over an arm about you, when it
is more comfortable sitting so: how can one reasonably
deny to a sincere friend what is accorded to a cousin or
an old cloak? It would be nonsense, as Jurgen demonstrated
with a very apt citation from Napsacus.
Then, sitting so, in the heat of conversation a speaker
naturally gesticulates: and a deal of his eloquence is
dependent upon his hands. When anyone is talking it is
discourteous to interrupt, whereas to lay hold of a gentleman’s
hand outright, as Jurgen parenthesized, is a little
forward. No, he really did not think it would be quite
proper for Guenevere to hold his hand. Let us preserve
decorum, even in trifles.
"Ah, but you know that you are doing wrong!"
"I doing wrong! I, who am simply sitting here and
talking my poor best in an effort to entertain you! Come
now, Princess, but tell me what you mean!"
"You should know very well what I mean."
"But I protest to you I have not the least notion. How
can I possibly know what you mean when you refuse to
tell me what you mean?"
And since the Princess declined to put into words just
what she meant, things stayed as they were, for the while.
Thus did Jurgen co-ordinate matters, knowing that one
thing axiomatically leads to another. And in short,
affairs sped very much as Jurgen had anticipated.
Now, by ordinary, Jurgen talked with Guenevere in
dimly lighted places. He preferred this, because then
he was not bothered by that unaccountable shadow whose
presence in sunlight put him out. Nobody ever seemed
to notice this preposterous shadow; it was patent, indeed,
that nobody could see it save Jurgen: none the less, the
thing worried him. So even from the first he remembered
Guenevere as a soft voice and a delectable perfume
in twilight, as a beauty not clearly visioned.
And Gogyrvan's people worried him. The hook-nosed
tall old King had been by Jurgen dismissed from thought,
as an enigma not important enough to be worth the
trouble of solving. Gogyrvan at once seemed to be
schooling himself to patience under some private annoyance
and to be revolving in his mind some private jest;
he was queer, and probably abominable: but to grant the
old rascal his due, he was not meddlesome.
The people about Gogyrvan, though, were perplexing.
These men who considered that all you possessed was
loaned you to devote to the service of your God, your
King and every woman who crossed your path, could
hardly be behaving rationally. To talk of serving God
sounded as sonorously and as inspiritingly as a drum:
yes, and a drum had nothing but air in it. The priests
said so-and-so: but did anybody believe the gallant
Bishop of Merion, for example, was always to be
depended upon?
"I would like the opinion of Prince Evrawc's wife as
to that," said Jurgen, with a grin. For it was well-known
that all affairs between this Dame Alundyne and the
Bishop were so discreetly managed as to afford no reason
for any scandal whatever.
As for serving the King, there in plain view was
Gogyrvan Gawr, for anyone who so elected, to regard and
grow enthusiastic over: Gogyrvan might be shrewd
enough, but to Jurgen he suggested very little of the
Lord's anointed. To the contrary, he reminded you of
Jurgen's brother-in-law, the grocer, without being graced
by the tradesman's friendly interest in customers.
Gogyrvan Gawr was a person whom Jurgen simply could
not imagine any intelligent Deity selecting as steward.
And finally, when it came to serving women, what sort
of service did women most cordially appreciate? Jurgen
had his answer pat enough, but it was an answer not
suitable for utterance in a mixed company.
"No one of my honest opinions, in fact, is adapted to
further my popularity in Glathion, because I am a monstrous
clever fellow who does justice to things as they
are. Therefore I must remember always, in justice to
myself, that I very probably hold traffic with madmen.
Yet Rome was a fine town, and it was geese who saved it.
These people may be right; and certainly I cannot go
so far as to say they are wrong: but still, at the same
time - ! Yes, that is how I feel about it."
Thus did Jurgen abide at the chivalrous court of
Glathion, and conform to all its customs. In the matter
of love-songs nobody protested more movingly that the
lady whom he loved (quite hopelessly, of course),
embodied all divine perfections: and when it came to
knightly service, the possession of Caliburn made the
despatching of thieves and giants and dragons seem
hardly sportsmanlike. Still, Jurgen fought a little, now
and then, in order to conform to the customs of Glathion:
and the Duke of Logreus was widely praised as a very
promising young knight.
And all the while he fretted because he could just
dimly perceive that ideal which was served in Glathion,
and the beauty of this ideal, but could not possibly believe
in it. Here was, again, a loveliness perceived in twilight,
a beauty not clearly visioned.
"Yet am not I a monstrous clever fellow," he would
console himself, "to take them all in so completely? It
is a joke to which, I think, I do full justice."
So Jurgen abode among these persons to whom life
was a high-hearted journeying homeward. God the
Father awaited you there, ready to punish at need, but
eager to forgive, after the manner of all fathers: that
one became a little soiled in traveling, and sometimes
blundered into the wrong lane, was a matter which
fathers understood: meanwhile here was an ever-present
reminder of His perfection incarnated in woman, the
finest and the noblest of His creations. Thus was every
woman a symbol to be honored magnanimously and
reverently. So said they all.
"Why, but to be sure!" assented Jurgen. And in support
of his position he very edifyingly quoted Ophelion,
and Fabianus Papirius, and Sextius Niger to boot.
"But I would never consider doing such a thing," said
Guenevere: "and whatever must you think of me, to
make such a proposal!"
"That too, my dearest, is a matter which I can only
explain in private."
"And if I were to report your insolence to my father - "
"You would annoy him exceedingly: and from such
griefs it is our duty to shield the aged."
"And besides, I am afraid."
"Oh, my dearest," says Jurgen, and his voice quavered,
because his love and his sorrow seemed very great to
him: "but, oh, my dearest, can it be that you have not
faith in me! For with all my body and soul I love you,
as I have loved you ever since I first raised your face
between my hands, and understood that I had never
before known beauty. Indeed, I love you as, I think, no
man has ever loved any woman that lived in the long
time that is gone, for my love is worship, and no less.
The touch of your hand sets me to trembling, dear; and
the look of your gray eyes makes me forget there is anything
of pain or grief or evil anywhere: for you are the
loveliest thing God ever made, with joy in the new skill
that had come to His fingers. And you have not faith in me!"
Then the Princess gave a little sobbing laugh of content
and repentance, and she clasped the hand of her
grief-stricken lover. "Forgive me, Jurgen, for I cannot
bear to see you so unhappy!"
"Ah, and what is my grief to you!" he asks of her, bitterly.
"Much, oh, very much, my dear!" she whispered.
So in the upshot Jurgen was never to forget that
moment wherein he waited behind the door, and through
the crack between the half-open door and the door-frame
saw Guenevere approach irresolutely, a wavering white
blur in the dark corridor. She came to talk with him
where they would not be bothered with interruptions: but
she came delightfully perfumed, in her night-shift, and
in nothing else. Jurgen wondered at the way of these
women even as his arms went about her in the gloom.
He remembered always the feel of that warm and slender
and yielding body, naked under the thin fabric of the
shift, as his arms first went about her: of all their
moments together that last breathless minute before
either of them had spoken stayed in his memory as the
most perfect.
And yet what followed was pleasant enough, for now it
was to the wide and softly cushioned throne of a king,
no less, that Guenevere and Jurgen resorted, so as to
talk where they would not be bothered with interruptions.
The throne of Gogyrvan was perfectly dark, under its
canopy, in the unlighted hall, and in the dark nobody can
see what happens.
Thereafter these two contrived to talk together nightly
upon the throne of Glathion: but what remained in
Jurgen's memory was that last moment behind the door
and the six tall windows upon the east side of the hall,
those windows which were of commingled blue and silver,
but were all an opulent glitter, throughout that time in
the night when the moon was clear of the tree-tops and
had not yet risen high enough to be shut off by the eaves.
For that was all which Jurgen really saw in the Hall of
Judgment. There would be a brief period wherein upon
the floor beneath each window would show a narrow
quadrangle of moonlight: but the windows were set in a
wall so deep that this soon passed. On the west side
were six windows also, but about these was a porch;
so no light ever came from the west.
Thus in the dark they would laugh and talk with
lowered voices. Jurgen came to these encounters well
primed with wine, and in consequence, as he quite
comprehended, talked like an angel, without confining
himself exclusively to celestial topics. He was often
delighted by his own brilliance, and it seemed to him a pity
there was no one handy to take it down: so much of his
talking was necessarily just a little over the head of any
girl, however beautiful and adorable.
And Guenevere, he found, talked infinitely better at
night. It was not altogether the wine which made him
think that, either: the girl displayed a side she veiled in
the day time. A girl, far less a princess, is not supposed
to know more than agrees with a man's notion of maidenly
ignorance, she contended.
"Nobody ever told me anything about so many interesting
matters. Why, I remember - " And Guenevere
narrated a quaintly pathetic little story, here irrelevant, of
what had befallen her some three or four years earlier.
"My mother was living then: but she had never said a
word about such things, and frightened as I was, I did
not go to her."
Jurgen asked questions.
"Why, yes. There was nothing else to do. I cannot
talk freely with my maids and ladies even now. I cannot
question them, that is: of course I can listen as they
talk among themselves. For me to do more would be
unbecoming in a princess. And I wonder quietly about
so many things!" She educed instances. "After that I
used to notice the animals and the poultry. So I worked
out problems for myself, after a fashion. But nobody
ever told me anything directly."
"Yet I dare say that Thragnar - well, the Troll King,
being very wise, must have made zoology much clearer."
"Thragnar was a skilled enchanter," says a demure
voice in the dark; "and through the potency of his
abominable arts, I can remember nothing whatever about
Thragnar."
Jurgen laughed, ruefully. Still, he was tolerably sure
about Thragnar now.
So they talked: and Jurgen marvelled, as millions of
men had done aforetime, and have done since, at the
girl's eagerness, now that barriers were down, to discuss
in considerable detail all such matters as etiquette had
previously compelled them to ignore. About her ladies
in waiting, for example, she afforded him some very
curious data: and concerning men in general she asked
innumerable questions that Jurgen found delicious.
Such innocence combined - upon the whole - with a
certain moral obtuseness, seemed inconceivable. For to
Jurgen it now appeared that Guenevere was behaving
with not quite the decorum which might fairly be
expected of a princess. Contrition, at least, one might
have looked for, over this hole and corner business:
whereas it worried him to note that Guenevere was
coming to accept affairs almost as a matter of course.
Certainly she did not seem to think at all of any wickedness
anywhere: the utmost she suggested was the necessity
of being very careful. And while she never contradicted
him in these private conversations, and submitted
in everything to his judgment, her motive now
appeared to be hardly more than a wish to please him.
It was almost as though she were humoring him in his
foolishness. And all this within six weeks! reflected
Jurgen: and he nibbled his finger-nails, with a mental
side-glance toward the opinions of King Gogyrvan Gawr.
But in daylight the Princess remained unchanged. In
daylight Jurgen adored her, but with no feeling of intimacy.
Very rarely did occasion serve for them to be
actually alone in the day time. Once or twice, though
he kissed her in open sunlight: and then her eyes were
melting but wary, and the whole affair was rather flat.
She did not repulse him: but she stayed a princess,
appreciative of her station, and seemed not at all the invisible
person who talked with him at night in the Hall of Judgment.
Presently, by common consent, they began to avoid each
other by daylight. Indeed, the time of the Princess was
now pre-occupied: for now had come into Glathion a
ship with saffron colored sails, and having for its figurehead
a dragon that was painted with thirty colors. Such
was the ship which brought Messire Merlin Ambrosius
and Dame Anaïtis, the Lady of the Lake, with a great
retinue, to fetch young Guenevere to London, where she
was to be married to King Arthur.
First there was a week of feasting and tourneys and
high mirth of every kind. Now the trumpets blared, and
upon a scaffolding that was gay with pennons and smart
tapestries King Gogyrvan sat nodding and blinking in his
brightest raiment, to judge who did the best: and into the
field came joyously a press of dukes and earls and barons
and many famous knights, to contend for honor and a
trumpery chaplet of pearls.
Jurgen shrugged, and honored custom. The Duke of
Logreus acquitted himself with credit in the opening
tournament, unhorsing Sir Dodinas le Sauvage, Earl Roth
of Meliot, Sir Epinogris, and Sir Hector de Maris: then
Earl Damas of Listenise smote like a whirlwind, and
Jurgen slid contentedly down the tail of his fine horse.
His part in the tournament was ended, and he was heartily
glad of it. He preferred to contemplate rather than share
in such festivities: and he now followed his bent with
a most exquisite misery, because he considered that never
had any other poet occupied a situation more picturesque.
By day he was the Duke of Logreus, which in itself
was a notable advance upon pawnbroking: after nightfall
he discounted the peculiar privileges of a king. It was
the secrecy, the deluding of everybody, which he especially
enjoyed: and in the thought of what a monstrous
clever fellow was Jurgen, he almost lost sight of the fact
that he was miserable over the impending marriage of
the lady he loved.
Once or twice he caught the tail-end of a glance from
Gogyrvan's bright old eye. Jurgen by this time abhorred
Gogyrvan, as a person of abominably unjust dealings.
"To take no better care of his own daughter," Jurgen
considered, "is infamous. The man is neglecting his
duties as a father, and to do that is not fair."
All three were seasoned topers, so Jurgen went to bed
prepared for anything. Later he sat up in bed, and
found it was much as he had suspected. The room was
haunted, and at the foot of his couch were two ghosts:
one an impudent-looking leering phantom, in a suit of
old-fashioned armor, and the other a beautiful pale lady,
in the customary flowing white draperies.
"Good-morning to you both," says Jurgen, "and sorry
am I that I cannot truthfully observe I am glad to see
you. Though you are welcome enough if you can manage
to haunt the room quietly." Then, seeing that both phantoms
looked puzzled, Jurgen proceeded to explain. "Last
year, when I was traveling upon business in Westphalia,
it was my grief to spend a night in the haunted castle
of Neuedesberg, for I could not get any sleep at all in
that place. There was a ghost in charge who persisted in
rattling very large iron chains and in groaning dismally
throughout the night. Then toward morning he took the
form of a monstrous cat, and climbed upon the foot of
my bed: and there he squatted yowling until daybreak.
And as I am ignorant of German, I was not able to convey
to him any idea of my disapproval of his conduct.
Now I trust that as compatriots, or as I might say with
more exactness, as former compatriots, you will appreciate
that such behavior is out of all reason."
"Messire," says the male ghost, and he oozed to his
full height, "you are guilty of impertinence in harboring
such a suspicion. I can only hope it proceeds from ignorance."
"For I am sure," put in the lady, "that I always disliked
cats, and we never had them about the castle."
"And you must pardon my frankness, messire," continued
the male ghost, "but you cannot have moved widely
in noble company if you are indeed unable to distinguish
between members of the feline species and of the reigning
family of Glathion."
"Well, I have seen dowager queens who justified some
such confusion," observed Jurgen. "Still, I entreat the
forgiveness of both of you, for I had no idea that I was
addressing royalty."
"I was King Smoit," explained the male phantom,
"and this was my ninth wife, Queen Sylvia Tereu."
Jurgen bowed as gracefully, he flattered himself, as
was possible in his circumstances. It is not easy to bow
gracefully while sitting erect in bed.
"Often and over again have I heard of you, King
Smoit," says Jurgen. "You were the grandfather of
Gogyrvan Gawr, and you murdered your ninth wife, and
your eighth wife, and your fifth wife, and your third
wife too: and you went under the title of the Black King,
for you were reputed the wickedest monarch that ever
reigned in Glathion and the Red Islands."
It seemed to Jurgen that King Smoit evinced
embarrassment, but it is hard to be quite certain when a
ghost is blushing. "Perhaps I was spoken of in some
such terms," says Smoit, "for the neighbors were censorious
gossips, and I was not lucky in my marriages.
And I regret, I bitterly regret, to confess that, in a
moment of extreme yet not quite unprovoked excitement,
I assassinated the lady whom you now behold."
"And I am sure, through no fault of mine," says Sylvia Tereu.
"Certainly, my dear, you resisted with all your might.
I only wish that you had been a larger and a brawnier
woman. But you, messire, can now perceive, I suppose,
the folly of expecting a high King of Glathion, and the
queen that he took delight in, to sit upon your bed and howl?"
So then, upon reflection, Jurgen admitted he had never
had that experience; nor, he handsomely added, could he
recall any similar incident among his friends.
"The notion is certainly preposterous," went on King
Smoit, and very grimly he smiled. "We are drawn hither
by quite other intentions. In fact, we wish to ask of
you, as a member of the family, your assistance in a
delicate affair."
"I would be delighted," Jurgen stated, "to aid you in
any possible way. But why do you call me a member of
the family?"
"Now, to deal frankly," says Smoit, with a grin, "I
am not claiming any alliance with the Duke of Logreus - "
"Sometimes," says Jurgen, "one prefers to travel incognito.
As a king, you ought to understand that."
- "My interest is rather in the grandson of Steinvor.
Now you will remember your grandmother Steinvor as,
I do not doubt, a charming old lady. But I remember
Steinvor, the wife of Ludwig, as one of the loveliest girls
that a king's eyes ever lighted on."
"Oh, sir," says Jurgen, horrified, "and what is this you
are telling me!"
"Merely that I had always an affectionate nature,"
replied King Smoit, "and that I was a fine upstanding
young king in those days. And one of the results of my
being these things was your father, whom men called
Coth the son of Ludwig. But I can assure you Ludwig
had done nothing to deserve it."
"Well, well!" said Jurgen: "all this is very scandalous:
and very upsetting, too, it is to have a brand-new grandfather
foisted upon you at this hour of the morning.
Still, it happened a great while ago: and if Ludwig did
not fret over it, I see no reason why I should do so. And
besides, King Smoit, it may be that you are not telling
me the truth."
"If you doubt my confession, messire my grandson,
you have only to look into the next mirror. It is precisely
on this account that we have ventured to dispel your
slumbers. For to me you bear a striking resemblance.
You have the family face."
Now Jurgen considered the lineaments of King Smoit
of Glathion. "Really," said Jurgen, "of course it is very
flattering to be told that your appearance is regal. I do
not at all know what to say in reply to the implied compliment,
without seeming uncivil. I would never for a
moment question that you were much admired in your
day, sir, and no doubt very justly so. None the less -
well, my nose, now, from such glimpses of it as mirrors
have hitherto afforded, does not appear to be a snub-nose."
"Ah, but appearances are proverbially deceitful," observed
King Smoit.
"And about the left hand corner," protested Queen
Sylvia Tereu, "I detect a distinct resemblance."
"Now I may seem unduly obtuse," said Jurgen, "for
I am a little obtuse. It is a habit with me, a very bad
habit formed in early infancy, and I have never been able
to break myself of it. And so I have not any notion at
what you two are aiming."
Replied the ghost of King Smoit: "I will explain.
Just sixty-three years ago to-night I murdered my ninth
wife in circumstances of peculiar brutality, as you with
rather questionable taste have mentioned."
Then Jurgen was somewhat abashed, and felt that it did
not become him, who had so recently cut off the head of
his own wife, to assume the airs of a precisian. "Of
course," says Jurgen, more broad-mindedly, "these little
family differences are always apt to occur in married life."
"So be it! Though, by the so-and-sos of Ursula's
eleven thousand traveling companions, there was a time
wherein I would not have brooked such criticism. Ah,
well, that time is overpast, and I am a bloodless thing that
the wind sweeps at the wind's will through lands in which
but yesterday King Smoit was dreaded. So I let that
which has been be."
"Well, that seems reasonable," said Jurgen,
"and to be
a trifle rhetorical is the privilege of grandfathers. Therefore
I entreat you, sir, to continue."
"Two years afterward I followed the Emperor Locrine
in his expedition against the Suevetii, an evil and luxurious
people who worship Gozarin peculiarly, by means of
little boats. I must tell you, grandson, that was a goodly
raid, conducted by a band of tidy fighters in a land of
wealth and of fine women. But alack, as the saying is,
in our return from Osnach my loved general Locrine
was captured by that arch-fiend Duke Corineus of Cornwall:
and I, among many others who had followed the
Emperor, paid for our merry larcenies and throat-cuttings
a very bitter price. Corineus was not at all broad-minded,
not what you would call a man of the world.
So it was in a noisome dungeon that I was incarcerated,
- I, Smoit of Glathion, who conquered Enisgarth and
Sargyll in open battle and fearlessly married the heiress
of Camwy! But I spare you the unpleasant details. It
suffices to say that I was dissatisfied with my quarters.
Yet fain to leave them as I became, there was but one
way. It involved the slaying of my gaoler, a step which
was, I confess, to me distasteful. I was getting on in
life, and had grown tired of killing people. Yet, to
mature deliberation, the life of a graceless varlet, void
of all gentleness and with no bowels of compassion, and
deaf to suggestions of bribery, appeared of no overwhelming
importance."
"I can readily imagine, grandfather, that you were not
deeply interested in either the nature or the anatomy of
your gaoler. So you did what was unavoidable."
"Yes, I treacherously slew him, and escaped in an
impenetrable disguise to Glathion, where not long afterward
I died. My dying just then was most annoying, for I
was on the point of being married, and she was a remarkably
attractive girl, - King Tyrnog's daughter, from
Craintnor way. She would have been my thirteenth
wife. And not a week before the ceremony I tripped
and fell down my own castle steps, and broke my neck.
It was a humiliating end for one who had been a warrior
of considerable repute. Upon my word, it made me think
there might be something, after all, in those old superstitions
about thirteen being an unlucky number. But
what was I saying? - oh, yes! It is also unlucky to be
careless about one's murders. You will readily understand
that for one or two such affairs I am condemned
yearly to haunt the scene of my crime on its anniversary:
such an arrangement is fair enough, and I make no complaint,
though of course it does rather break into the
evening. But it happened that I treacherously slew my
gaoler with a large cobble-stone on the fifteenth of June.
Now the unfortunate part, the really awkward feature,
was that this was to an hour the anniversary of the death
of my ninth wife."
"And you murdering insignificant strangers on such a
day!" said Queen Sylvia. "You climbing out of jail
windows jigged out as a lady abbess, on an anniversary
you ought to have kept on your knees in unavailing
repentance! But you were a hard man, Smoit, and it was
little loving courtesy you showed your wife at a time
when she might reasonably look to be remembered, and
that is a fact."
"My dear, I admit it was heedless of me. I could not
possibly say more. At any rate, grandson, I discovered
after my decease that such heedlessness entailed my
haunting on every fifteenth of June at three in the morning
two separate places."
"Well, but that was justice," says Jurgen.
"It may have been justice," Smoit admitted: "but my
point is that it happened to be impossible. However, I
was aided by my great-great-grandfather Penpingon
Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief. He too had the family
face; and in every way resembled me so closely that he
impersonated me to everyone's entire satisfaction; and
with my wife's assistance re-enacted my disastrous crime
upon the scene of its occurrence, June after June."
"Indeed," said Queen Sylvia, "he handled his sword
infinitely better than you, my dear. It was a thrilling
pleasure to be murdered by Penpingon Vreichvras ap
Mylwald Glasanief, and I shall always regret him."
"For you must understand, grandson, that the term of
King Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mywald Glasanief's stay
in Purgatory has now run out, and he has recently gone
to Heaven. That was pleasant for him, I dare say, so
I do not complain. Still, it leaves me with no one to take
my place. Angels, as you will readily understand, are not
permitted to perpetrate murders, even in the way of kindness.
It might be thought to establish a dangerous precedent."
"All this," said Jurgen, "seems regrettable, but not
strikingly explicit. I have a heart and a half to serve
you, sir, with not seven-eighths of a notion as to what you
want of me. Come, put a name to it!"
"You have, as I have said, the family face. You are,
in fact, the living counterpart of Smoit of Glathion. So
I beseech you, messire my grandson, for this one night
to impersonate my ghost, and with the assistance of
Queen Sylvia Tereu to see that at three o'clock the White
Turret is haunted to everyone's satisfaction. Otherwise,"
said Smoit, gloomily, "the consequences will be deplorable."
"But I have had no experience at haunting," Jurgen
confessed. "It is a pursuit in which I do not pretend to
competence: and I do not even know just how one goes
about it."
"That matter is simple, although mysterious preliminaries
will be, of course, necessitated, in order to convert
a living person into a ghost - "
"The usual preliminaries, sir, are out of the question:
and I must positively decline to be stabbed or poisoned
or anything of that kind, even to humor my grandfather."
Both Smoit and Sylvia protested that any such radical
step would be superfluous, since Jurgen's ghostship was
to be transient. In fact, all Jurgen would have to do
would be to drain the embossed goblet which Sylvia Tereu
held out to him, with Druidical invocations.
And for a moment Jurgen hesitated. The whole business
seemed rather improbable. Still, the ties of kin are
strong, and it is not often one gets the chance to aid,
however slightly, one's long-dead grandfather: besides,
the potion smelt very invitingly.
"Well," says Jurgen, "I am willing to taste any drink
once." Then Jurgen drank.
The flavor was excellent. Yet the drink seemed not to
affect Jurgen, at first. Then he began to feel a trifle
light-headed. Next he looked downward, and was surprised
to notice there was nobody in his bed. Closer
investigation revealed the shadowy outline of a human
figure, through which the bedclothing had collapsed.
This, he decided, was all that was left of Jurgen. And
it gave him a queer sensation. Jurgen jumped like a
startled horse, and so violently that he flew out of bed,
and found himself floating imponderably about the room.
Now Jurgen recognized the feeling perfectly. He had
often had it in his sleep, in dreams wherein he would bend
his legs at the knees so that his feet came up behind him,
and he would pass through the air without any effort.
Then it seemed ridiculously simple, and he would wonder
why he never thought of it before. And then he would reflect:
"This is an excellent way of getting around. I will
come to breakfast this way in the morning,and show Lisa
how simple it is. How it will astonish her, to be sure,
and how clever she will think me!" And then Jurgen
would wake up, and find that somehow he had forgotten
the trick of it.
But just now this manner of locomotion was undeniably
easy. So Jurgen floated around his bed once or twice,
then to the ceiling, for practice. Through inexperience,
he miscalculated the necessary force, and popped through
into the room above, where he found himself hovering
immediately over the Bishop of Merion. His eminence
was not alone, but as both occupants of the apartment
were asleep, Jurgen witnessed nothing unepiscopal. Now
Jurgen rejoined his grandfather, and girded on charmed
Caliburn, and demanded what must next be done.
"The assassination will take place in the White Turret,
as usual. Queen Sylvia will instruct you in the details.
You can invent most of the affair, however, as the Lady
of the Lake, who occupies this room to-night, is very
probably unacquainted with our terrible history."
Then King Smoit observed that it was high time he
kept his appointment in Cornwall, and he melted into
air, with an easy confidence that bespoke long practise:
and Jurgen followed Queen Sylvia Tereu.
Now this was a gloomy and high-paneled apartment,
with exactly the traditional amount of moonlight streaming
through two windows. Any ghost, even an apprentice,
could have acquitted himself with credit in such
surroundings, and Jurgen thought he did extremely well.
He was atavistically brutal, and to improvise the accompanying
dialogue he did not find difficult. So everything
went smoothly, and with such spirit that Anaïtis was
presently wakened by Queen Sylvia's very moving wails
for mercy, and sat erect in bed, as though a little startled.
Then the Lady of the Lake leaned back among the pillows,
and witnessed the remainder of the terrible scene
with remarkable self-possession.
So it was that the tragedy swelled to its appalling
climax, and subsided handsomely. With the aid of
Caliburn, Jurgen had murdered his temporary wife. He
had dragged her insensate body across the floor, by the
hair of her head, and had carefully remembered first to
put her comb in his pocket, as Queen Sylvia had requested,
so that it would not be lost. He had given vent
to several fiendish "Ha-ha's" and all the old high
imprecations he remembered: and in short, everything had
gone splendidly when he left the White Turret with a
sense of self-approval and Queen Sylvia Tereu.
The two of them paused in the winding stairway; and
in the darkness, after he had restored her comb, the
Queen was telling Jurgen how sorry she was to part
with him.
"For it is back to the cold grave I must be going now,
Messire Jurgen, and to the tall flames of Purgatory: and
it may be that I shall not ever see you any more."
"I shall regret the circumstance, madame," says Jurgen,
"for you are the loveliest person I have ever seen."
The Queen was pleased. "That is a delightfully boyish
speech, and one can see it comes from the heart. I only
wish that I could meet with such unsophisticated persons
in my present abode. Instead, I am herded with
battered sinners who have no heart, who are not frank
and outspoken about anything, and I detest their affectations."
"Ah, then you are not happy with your husband,
Sylvia? I suspected as much."
"I see very little of Smoit. It is true he has eight
other wives all resident in the same flame, and cannot well
show any partiality. Two of his Queens, though, went
straight to Heaven: and his eighth wife, Gudrun, we are
compelled to fear, must have been an unrepentant sinner,
for she has never reached Purgatory. But I always distrusted
Gudrun, myself: otherwise I would never have
suggested to Smoit that he have her strangled in order
to make me his queen. You see, I thought it a fine
thing to be a queen, in those days, Jurgen, when I was an
artless slip of a girl. And Smoit was all honey and
perfume and velvet, in those days, Jurgen, and little did
I suspect the cruel fate that was to befall me."
"Indeed, it is a sad thing, Sylvia, to be murdered by
the hand which, so to speak, is sworn to keep an eye on
your welfare, and which rightfully should serve you on
its knees."
"It was not that I minded. Smoit killed me in a fit
of jealousy, and jealousy is in its blundering way a
compliment. No, a worse thing than that befell me, Jurgen,
and embittered all my life in the flesh." And Sylvia
began to weep.
"And what was that thing, Sylvia?"
Queen Sylvia whispered the terrible truth. "My husband
did not understand me."
"Now, by Heaven," says Jurgen, "when a woman tells
me that, even though the woman dead, I know what
it is she expects of me."
So Jurgen put his arm about the ghost of Queen
Sylvia Tereu, and comforted her. Then, finding her
quite willing to be comforted, Jurgen sat far a while upon
the dark steps, with one arm still about Queen Sylvia.
The effect of the potion had evidently worn off, because
Jurgen found himself to be composed no longer of cool
imponderable vapor, but of the warmest and hardest
sort of flesh everywhere. But probable the effect of the
wine which Jurgen had drunk earlier in the evening had
not worn off: for now Jurgen began to talk wildishly in
the dark, about the necessity of his, in some way, avenging
the injury inflicted upon his nominal grandfather,
Ludwig, and Jurgen drew his sword, charmed Caliburn.
"For, as you perceive," said Jurgen, "I carry such
weapons as are sufficient for all ordinary encounters.
And am I not to use them, to requite King Smoit for
the injustice he did poor Ludwig? Why, certainly I
must. It is my duty."
"Ah, but Smoit by this is back in Purgatory," Queen
Sylvia protested, "And to draw your sword against a
woman is cowardly."
"The avenging sword of Jurgen, my charming Sylvia,
is the terror of envious men, but it is the comfort of all
pretty women."
"It is undoubtedly a very large sword," said she:
"oh, a magnificent sword, as I can perceive even in the
dark. But Smoit, I repeat, is not here to measure weapons
with you."
"Now your arguments irritate me, whereas an honest
woman would see to it that all the legacies of her
dead husband were duly satisfied - "
"Oh, oh! and what do you mean - ?"
"Well, but certainly a grandson is - at one remove, I
grant you, - a sort of legacy."
"There is something in what you advance - "
"There is a great deal in what I advance, I can assure
you. It is the most natural and most penetrating kind
of logic; and I wish merely to discharge a duty - "
"But you upset me, with that big sword of yours, you
make me nervous, and I cannot argue so long as you are
flourishing it about. Come now, put up your sword!
Oh, what is anybody to do with you! Here is the sheath
for your sword," says she.
At this point they were interrupted.
"Duke of Logreus," says the voice of Dame Anaïtis,
"do you not think it would be better to retire, before
such antics at the door of my bedroom give rise to a scandal?"
For Anaïtis had half-opened the door of her bedroom,
and with a lamp in her hand, was peering out into the
narrow stairway. Jurgen was a little embarrassed, for
his apparent intimacy with a lady who had been dead
for sixty-three years would be, he felt, a matter difficult
to explain. So Jurgen rose to his feet, and hastily put
up the weapon he had exhibited to Queen Sylvia, and
decided to pass airily over the whole affair. And
outside, a cock crowed, for it was now dawn.
"I bid you a good morning, Dame Anaïtis," said
Jurgen. "But the stairways hereabouts are confusing,
and I must have lost my way. I was going for a
stroll. This is my distant relative Queen Sylvia Tereu,
who kindly offered to accompany me. We were going
out to gather mushrooms and to watch the sunrise, you
conceive."
"Messire de Logreus, I think you had far better go
back to bed."
"To the contrary, madame, it is my manifest duty to
serve as Queen Sylvia's escort - "
"For all that, messire, I do not see any Queen Sylvia."
Jurgen looked about him. And certainly his grandfather's
ninth wife was no longer visible. "Yes, she
has vanished. But that was to be expected at cockcrow.
Still, that cock crew just at the wrong moment," said
Jurgen, ruefully. "It was not fair."
And Dame Anaïtis said: "Gogyrvan's cellar is well
stocked: and you sat late with Urien and Aribert:
and doubtless they also were lucky enough to discover
a queen or two in Gogyrvan's cellar. No less, I think
you are still a little drunk."
"Now answer me this, Dame Anaïtis: were you not
visited by two ghosts to-night?"
"Why, that is as it may be," she replied: "but the
White Turret is notoriously haunted, and it is few quiet
nights I have passed there, for Gogyrvan's people were
a bad lot."
"Upon my word," wonders Jurgen, "what manner
of person is this Dame Anaïtis, who remains unstirred
by such a brutal murder as I have committed, and makes
no more of ghosts than I would of moths? I have
heard she is an enchantress, I am sure she is a fine figure
of a woman: and in short, here is a matter which would
repay looking into, were not young Guenevere the
mistress of my heart."
Aloud he said: "Perhaps then I am drunk, madame.
None the less, I still think the cock crew just at the
wrong moment."
"Some day you must explain the meaning of that,"
says she. "Meanwhile I am going back to bed, and I
again advise you to do the same."
Then the door closed, the bolt fell, and Jurgen
went away, still in considerable excitement.
"This Dame Anaïtis is an interesting personality," he
reflected, "and it would be a pleasure, now, to demonstrate
to her my grievance against the cock, did occasion
serve. Well, things less likely than that have happened.
Then, too, she came upon me when my sword was out,
and in consequence knows I wield a respectable weapon.
She may feel the need of a good swordsman some day,
this handsome Lady of the Lake who has no husband.
So let us cultivate patience. Meanwhile, it appears
that I am of royal blood. Well, I fancy there is something
in the scandal, for I detect in me a deal in common
with this King Smoit. Twelve wives, though! no, that
is too many. I would limit no man's liaisons, but twelve
wives in lawful matrimony bespeaks an optimism
unknown to me. No, I do not think I am drunk: but it
is unquestionable that I am not walking very straight.
Certainly, too, we did drink a great deal. So I had best
go quietly back to bed, and say nothing more about
to-night's doings."
As much he did. And this was the first time that
Jurgen, who had been a pawnbroker, held any discourse
with Dame Anaïtis, whom men called the Lady of the Lake.
"I have been talking to my fellow ambassador, Dame
Anaïtis: and I have been wondering, Messire de Logreus,
if you have ever reared white pigeons."
Jurgen looked at the little mirror. "There was a
woman of the Léshy who not long ago showed me an
employment to which one might put the blood of white
pigeons. She too used such a mirror. I saw what followed,
but I must tell you candidly that I understood
nothing of the ins and outs of the affair."
Merlin nodded. "I suspected something of the sort.
So I elected to talk with you in a room wherein, as you
perceive, there are no shadows."
"Now, upon my word," says Jurgen, "but here at
last is somebody who can see my attendant! Why is it,
pray, that no one else can do so?"
"It was my own shadow which drew my notice to your
follower. For I, too, have had a shadow given me. It
was the gift of my father, of whom you have probably heard."
It was Jurgen's turn to nod. Everybody knew
who had begotten Merlin Ambrosius, and sensible
persons preferred not to talk of the matter. Then Merlin
went on to speak of the traffic between Merlin and
Merlin's shadow.
"Thus and thus," says Merlin, "I humor my shadow.
And thus and thus my shadow serves me. There is
give-and-take, such as is requisite everywhere."
"I understand," says Jurgen: "but has no other person
ever perceived this shadow of yours?"
"Once only, when for a while my shadow deserted
me," Merlin replied. "It was on a Sunday my shadow
left me, so that I walked unattended in naked sunlight:
for my shadow was embracing the church-steeple,
where church-goers knelt beneath him. The church-goers
were obscurely troubled without suspecting
why, for they looked only at each other. The priest
and I alone saw him quite clearly, - the priest because
this thing was evil, and I because this thing was mine."
"Well, now I wonder what did the priest say to your
bold shadow?"
" 'But you must go away!' - and the priest spoke without
any fear. Why is it they seem always without fear,
those dull and calm-eyed priests? 'Such conduct is unseemly.
For this is High God's house, and far-off peoples
are admonished by its steadfast spire, pointing always
heavenward, that the place is holy,' said the priest. And
my shadow answered, 'But I only know that steeples are
of phallic origin.' And my shadow wept, wept ludicrously,
clinging to the steeple where church-goers
knelt beneath him."
"Now, and indeed that must have been disconcerting,
Messire Merlin. Still, as you got your shadow back
again, there was no great harm done. But why is it
that such attendants follow some men while other men
are permitted to live in decent solitude? It does not seem
quite fair."
"Perhaps I could explain it to you, friend, but certainly
I shall not. You know too much as it is. For
you appear in that bright garment of yours to have
come from a land and a time which even I, who am
a skilled magician, can only cloudily foresee, and cannot
understand at all. What puzzles me, however" -
and Merlin's fore-finger shot out. "How many feet
had the first wearer of your shirt? and were you ever an
old man?" says he.
"Well, four, and I was getting on," says Jurgen.
"And I did not guess! But certainly that is it, - an
old poet loaned at once a young man's body and the
Centaur's shirt. Adères has loosed a new jest into the
world, for her own reasons - "
"But you have things backwards. It was Sereda
whom I cajoled so nicely."
"Names that are given by men amount to very little in
a case like this. The shadow which follows you I recognize
- and revere - as the gift of Adères, a dreadful
Mother of small Gods. No doubt she has a host of other
names. And you cajoled her, you consider! I would not
willingly walk in the shirt of any person who considers
that. But she will enlighten you, my friend, at her
appointed time."
"Well, so that she deals justly - " Jurgen said, and
shrugged.
Now Merlin put aside the mirror. "Meanwhile it was
another matter entirely that Dame Anaïtis and I discussed,
and about which I wished to be speaking with
you. Gogyrvan is sending to King Arthur, along with
Gogyrvan's daughter, that Round Table which Uther
Pendragon gave Gogyrvan, and a hundred knights to
fill the sieges of this table. Gogyrvan, who, with due
respect, possesses a deplorable sense of humor, has
numbered you among these knights. Now it is rumored
the Princess is given to conversing a great deal with
you in private, and Arthur has never approved of garrulity.
So I warn you that for you to come with us to
London would not be convenient."
"I hardly think so, either," said Jurgen, with appropriate
melancholy; "for me to pursue the affair any further
would only result in marring what otherwise will
always be a perfect memory of divers very pleasant
conversations."
"Old poet, you are well advised," said Merlin, -
"especially now that the little princess whom we know
is about to enter queenhood and become a symbol. I am
sorry for her, for she will be worshipped as a revelation
of Heaven's splendor, and being flesh and blood, she will
not like it. And it is to no effect I have forewarned
King Arthur, for that must happen which will always
happen so long as wisdom is impotent against human
stupidity. So wisdom can but make the best of it, and
be content to face the facts of a great mystery."
Thereupon, Merlin arose, and lifted the tapestry
behind him, so that Jurgen could see what hitherto this
tapestry had screened.
"You have embarrassed me horribly," said Jurgen,
"and I can feel that I am still blushing, about the ankles.
Well, I was wrong: so let us say no more concerning it."
"I wished to show you," Merlin returned, "that I know
what I am talking about. However, my present purpose
is to put Guenevere out of your head: for in your
heart I think she never was, old poet, who go so modestly
in the Centaur's shirt. Come, tell me now! and does
the thought of her approaching marriage really disturb you?"
"I am the unhappiest man that breathes," said Jurgen,
with unction. "All night I lie awake in my tumbled bed,
and think of the miserable day which is past, and of what
is to happen in that equally miserable day whose
dawn I watch with a sick heart. And I cry aloud, in
the immortal words of Apollonius Myronides - "
"Of whom?" says Merlin.
"I allude to the author of the Myrosis," Jurgen explained,
- "whom so many persons rashly identify with
Apollonius Herophilelus."
"Oh, yes, of course! your quotation is very apt. Why,
then your condition is sad but not incurable. For I am
about to give you this token, with which, if you are bold
enough, you will do thus and thus."
"But indeed this is a somewhat strange token, and the
arms and legs, and even the head, of this little man are
remarkably alike! Well, and you tell me thus and thus.
But how does it happen, Messire Merlin, that you have
never used this token in the fashion you suggest to me?"
"Because I was afraid. You forget I am only a
magician, whose conjuring raises nothing more formidable
than devils. But this is a bit of the Old Magic that
is no longer understood, and I prefer not to meddle with
it. You, to the contrary, are a poet, and the Old Magic
was always favorable to poets."
"Well, I will think about it," says Jurgen, "if this will
really put Dame Guenevere out of my head."
"Be assured it will do that," said Merlin. "For with
reason does the Dirghâgama declare, 'The brightness of
the glowworm cannot be compared to that of a lamp.' "
"A very pleasant little work, the Dirghâgama," said
Jurgen, tolerantly - "though superficial, of course."
Then Merlin Ambrosius gave Jurgen the token, and
some advice.
So that night Jurgen told Guenevere he would not go
in her train to London. He told her candidly that Merlin
was suspicious of their intercourse.
"And therefore, in order to protect you and to protect
your fame, my dearest dear," said Jurgen, "it is necessary
that I sacrifice myself and everything I prize in life. I
shall suffer very much: but my consolation will be that I
have dealt fairly with you whom I love with an entire
heart, and shall have preserved you through my misery."
But Guenevere did not appear to notice how noble this
was of Jurgen. Instead, she wept very softly, in a
heart-broken way that Jurgen found unbearable.
"For no man, whether emperor or peasant," says the
Princess, "has ever been loved more dearly or faithfully
or more wholly without any reserve or forethought than
you, my dearest, have been loved by me. All that I had
I have given you. All that I had you have taken, consuming
it. So now you leave me with not anything more
to give you, not even any anger or contempt, now that you
turn me adrift, for there is nothing in me anywhere save
love of you, who are unworthy."
"But I die many deaths," said Jurgen, "when you
speak thus to me." And in point of fact, he did feel
rather uncomfortable.
"I speak the truth, though. You have had all: and so
you are a little weary, and perhaps a little afraid of what
may happen if you do not break off with me."
"Now you misjudge me, darling - "
"No, I do not misjudge you, Jurgen. Instead, for the
first time I judge both of us. You I forgive, because I
love you, but myself I do not forgive, and I cannot ever
forgive, for having been a spendthrift fool."
And Jurgen found such talking uncomfortable and tedious
and very unfair to him. "For there is nothing I can
do to help matters," says Jurgen. "Why, what could
anybody possibly expect me to do about it? And so why not
be happy while we may? It is not as though we had any
time to waste."
For this was the last night but one before the day that
was set for Guenevere's departure.
"Not that I for a moment believe in such nonsense,"
said Jurgen: "but it will be amusing to see what comes
of this business, and it is unjust to deny even nonsense a
fair trial."
So he presently observed a sun-browned brawny fellow,
who sat upon the bank of a stream, dabbling his feet in
the water, and making music with a pipe constructed of
seven reeds of irregular lengths. To him Jurgen displayed,
in such a manner as Merlin had prescribed, the
token which Merlin had given. The man made a peculiar
sign, and rose. Jurgen saw that this man's feet were unusual.
Jurgen bowed low, and he said, as Merlin had bidden:
"Now praise be to thee, thou lord of the two truths! I
have come to thee, O most wise, that I may learn thy
secret. I would know thee, and would know the forty-two
mighty ones who dwell with thee in the hall of the
two truths, and who are nourished by evil-doers, and who
partake of wicked blood each day of the reckoning before
Wennofree. I would know thee for what thou art."
The brown man answered: "I am everything that was
and that is to be. Never has any mortal been able to
discover what I am."
Then this brown man conducted Jurgen to an open glen,
at the heart of the forest.
"Merlin dared not come himself, because," observed the
brown man, "Merlin is wise. But you are a poet. So
you will presently forget that which you are about to see,
or at worst you will tell pleasant lies about it, particularly
to yourself."
"I do not know about that," says Jurgen, "but I am
willing to taste any drink once. What are you about to
show me?"
The brown man answered: "All."
So it was near evening when they came out of the glen.
It was dark now, for a storm had risen. The brown man
was smiling, and Jurgen was in a flutter.
"It is not true," Jurgen protested. "What you have
shown me is a pack of nonsense. It is the degraded
lunacy of a so-called Realist. It is sorcery and pure
childishness and abominable blasphemy. It is, in a word,
something I do not choose to believe. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself!"
"Even so, you do believe me, Jurgen."
"I believe that you are an honest man and that I am
your cousin: so there are two more lies for you."
The brown man said, still smiling: "Yes, you are
certainly a poet, you who have borrowed the apparel of
my cousin. For you come out of my glen, and from my
candor, as sane as when you entered. That is not saying
much, to be sure, in praise of a poet's sanity at any time.
But Merlin would have died, and Merlin would have died
without regret, if Merlin had seen what you have seen,
because Merlin receives facts reasonably."
"Facts! sanity! and reason!" Jurgen raged: "why, but
what nonsense you are talking! Were there a bit of truth
in your silly puppetry this world of time and space and
consciousness would be a bubble, a bubble which contained
the sun and moon and the high stars, and still was
but a bubble in fermenting swill! I must go cleanse my
mind of all this foulness. You would have me believe
that men, that all men who have ever lived or shall ever
live hereafter, that even I am of no importance! Why,
there would be no justice in any such arrangement, no
justice anywhere!"
"That vexed you, did it not? It vexes me at times,
even me, who under Koshchei's will alone am changeless."
"I do not know about your variability: but I stick to
my opinion about your veracity," says Jurgen, for all that
he was upon the verge of hysteria. "Yes, if lies could
choke people that shaggy throat would certainly be sore."
Then the brown man stamped his foot, and the striking
of his foot upon the moss made a new noise such as
Jurgen had never heard: for the noise seemed to come
multitudinously from every side, at first as though each
leaf in the forest were tinily cachinnating; and then this
noise was swelled by the mirth of larger creatures, and
echoes played with this noise, until there was a reverberation
everywhere like that of thunder. The earth moved
under their feet very much as a beast twitches its skin
under the annoyance of flies. Another queer thing Jurgen
noticed, and it was that the trees about the glen had
writhed and arched their trunks, and so had bended, much
as candles bend in very hot weather, to lay their topmost
foliage at the feet of the brown man. And the brown
man's appearance was changed as he stood there, terrible
in a continuous brown glare from the low-hanging clouds,
and with the forest making obeisance, and with shivering
and laughter everywhere.
"Make answer, you who chatter about justice! how if
I slew you now," says the brown man, - "I being what I
am?"
"Slay me, then!" says Jurgen, with shut eyes, for he
did not at all like the appearance of things. "Yes, you
can kill me if you choose, but it is beyond your power to
make me believe that there is no justice anywhere, and
that I am unimportant. For I would have you know I
am a monstrous clever fellow. As for you, you are either
a delusion or a god or a degraded Realist. But whatever
you are, you have lied to me, and I know that you have
lied, and I will not believe in the insignificance of Jurgen."
Chillingly came the whisper of the brown man: "Poor
fool! O shuddering, stiff-necked fool! and have you not
just seen that which you may not ever quite forget?"
"None the less, I think there is something in me which
will endure. I am fettered by cowardice, I am enfeebled
by disastrous memories; and I am maimed by old follies.
Still, I seem to detect in myself something which is
permanent and rather fine. Underneath everything, and
in spite of everything, I really do seem to detect that
something. What rôle that something is to enact after the
death of my body, and upon what stage, I cannot guess.
When fortune knocks I shall open the door. Meanwhile
I tell you candidly, you brown man, there is something in
Jurgen far too admirable for any intelligent arbiter ever
to fling into the dustheap. I am, if nothing else, a monstrous
clever fellow: and I think I shall endure, somehow.
Yes, cap in hand goes through the land, as the
saying is: and I believe I can contrive some trick to cheat
oblivion when the need arises," says Jurgen, trembling,
and gulping, and with his eyes shut tight, but even so,
with his mind quite made up about it. "Of course you
may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say
you are wrong: but still, at the same time - "
"Now but before a fool's opinion of himself," the
brown man cried, "the Gods are powerless. Oh, yes, and
envious, too!"
And when Jurgen very cautiously opened his eyes the
brown man had left him physically unharmed. But the
state of Jurgen's nervous system was deplorable.
He had forgotten about Guenevere. And nobody
knows what were that night the thoughts of the young
Princess, nor if she offered any prayers, in the deserted
Hall of Judgment.
In the morning a sprinkling of persons came to early
mass. Jurgen attended with fervor, and started doorward
with the others. Just before him a merchant
stopped to get a pebble from his shoe, and the merchant's
wife went forward to the holy-water font.
"Madame, permit me," said a handsome young esquire,
and offered her holy water.
"At eleven," said the merchant's wife, in low tones.
"He will be out all day."
"My dear," says her husband, as he rejoined her, "and
who was the young gentleman?"
"Why, I do not know, darling. I never saw him before."
"He was certainly very civil. I wish there were more
like him. And a fine looking young fellow, too!"
"Was he? I did not notice," said the merchant's wife,
indifferently.
And Jurgen saw and heard and regarded the departing
trio ruefully. It seemed to him incredible the world
should be going on just as it went before he ventured into
the Druid forest.
He paused before a crucifix, and he knelt and looked up
wistfully. "If one could only know," says Jurgen, "what
really happened in Judea! How immensely would matters
be simplified, if anyone but knew the truth about You,
Man upon the Cross!"
Now the Bishop of Merion passed him, coming from
celebration of the early mass. "My Lord Bishop," says
Jurgen, simply, "can you tell me the truth about this Christ?"
"Why, indeed, Messire de Logreus," replied the Bishop,
"one cannot but sympathize with Pilate in thinking that
the truth about Him is very hard to get at, even nowadays.
Was He Melchisedek, or Shem, or Adam? or was
He verily the Logos? and in that event, what sort of a
something was the Logos? Granted He was a god, were
the Arians or the Sabellians in the right? had He existed
always, co-substantial with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, or was He a creation of the Father, a kind of
Israelitic Zagreus? Was He the husband of Acharamoth,
that degraded Sophia, as the Valentinians aver? or the
son of Pantherus, as say the Jews? or Kalakau, as contends
Basilidês? or was it, as the Docetês taught, only a
tinted cloud in the shape of a man that went from Jordan
to Golgotha? Or were the Merinthians right? These are
a few of the questions, Messire de Logreus, which naturally
arise. And not all of them are to be settled out of hand."
Thus speaking, the gallant prelate bowed, then raised
three fingers in benediction, and so quitted Jurgen, who
was still kneeling before the crucifix.
"Ah, ah!" says Jurgen, to himself, "but what a variety
of interesting problems are, in point of fact, suggested by
religion. And what delectable exercise would the settling
of these problems, once for all, afford the mind of
a monstrous clever fellow! Come now, it might be well
for me to enter the priesthood. It may be that I have a call."
But people were shouting in the street. So Jurgen rose
and dusted his knees. And as Jurgen came out of the
Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn the cavalcade was passing
that bore away Dame Guenevere to the arms and throne
of her appointed husband. Jurgen stood upon the Cathedral
porch, his mind in part pre-occupied by theology, but
still not failing to observe how beautiful was this young
princess, as she rode by on her white palfrey, green-garbed
and crowned and a-glitter with jewels. She was
smiling as she passed him, bowing her small tenderly-colored
young countenance this way and that way, to the
shouting people, and not seeing Jurgen at all.
Thus she went to her bridal, that Guenevere who was
the symbol of all beauty and purity to the chivalrous
people of Glathion. The mob worshipped her; and they
spoke as though it were an angel who passed.
"Our beautiful young Princess!"
"Ah, there is none like her anywhere!"
"And never a harsh word for anyone, they say - "
"Oh, but she is the most admirable of ladies - !"
"And so brave too, that lovely smiling child who is
leaving her home forever!"
"And so very, very pretty!"
" - So generous!"
"King Arthur will be hard put to it to deserve her!"
Said Jurgen: "Now it is droll that to these truths I
have but to add another truth in order to have large
paving-stones flung at her! and to have myself tumultuously
torn into fragments, by those unpleasantly sweaty
persons who, thank Heaven, are no longer jostling me!"
For the Cathedral porch had suddenly emptied, because
as the procession passed heralds were scattering silver
among the spectators.
"Arthur will have a very lovely queen," says a soft
lazy voice.
And Jurgen turned and saw that beside him was Dame
Anaïtis, whom people called the Lady of the Lake.
"Yes, he is greatly to be envied," says Jurgen, politely.
"But do you not ride with them to London?"
"Why, no," says the Lady of the Lake, "because my
part in this bridal was done when I mixed the stirrup-cup
of which the Princess and young Lancelot drank this
morning. He is the son of King Ban of Benwick, that
tall young fellow in blue armor. I am partial to Lancelot,
for I reared him, at the bottom of a lake that
belongs to me, and I consider he does me credit. I also
believe that Madame Guenevere by this time agrees with
me. And so, my part being done to serve my creator,
I am off for Cocaigne."
"And what is this Cocaigne?"
"It is an island wherein I rule."
"I did not know you were a queen, madame."
"Why, indeed there are a many things unknown to
you, Messire de Logreus, in a world where nobody gets
any assuredness of knowledge about anything. For
it is a world wherein all men that live have but a little
while to live, and none knows his fate thereafter. So
that a man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan
of his own body: and yet the body of man is capable of
much curious pleasure."
"I believe," said Jurgen, as his thoughts shuddered
away from what he had seen and heard in the Druid
forest, "that you speak wisdom."
"Then in Cocaigne we are all wise: for that is our
religion. But of what are you thinking, Duke of Logreus?"
"I was thinking," says Jurgen, "that your eyes are
unlike the eyes of any other woman that I have ever seen."
Smilingly the dark woman asked him wherein they
differed, and smilingly he said he did not know. They
were looking at each other warily. In each glance an
experienced gamester acknowledged a worthy opponent.
"Why, then you must come with me into Cocaigne,"
says Anaïtis, "and see if you cannot discover wherein
lies that difference. For it is not a matter I would care
to leave unsettled."
"Well, that seems only just to you," says Jurgen. "Yes,
certainly I must deal fairly with you."
Then they left the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn,
walking together. The folk who went toward London
were now well out of sight and hearing, which possibly
accounts for the fact that Jurgen was now in no wise
thinking of Guenevere. So it was that Guenevere rode
out of Jurgen's life for a while: and as she rode she
talked with Lancelot.
"The crew are scrambling, it may be, for the largesse,
and fighting over Gogyrvan's silver pieces," says Anaïtis,
"but I think they will not be long in returning. So we
will sit here upon the prow, and await their leisure."
"But already the vessel moves," says Jurgen, "and I
hear behind us the rattling of silver chains and the
flapping of shifted saffron-colored sails."
"They are roguish fellows," says Anaïtis, smiling.
"Evidently, they hid from us, pretending there was
nobody aboard. Now they think to give us a surprise
when the ship sets out to sea as though it were of itself.
But we will disappoint these merry rascals, by seeming
to notice nothing unusual."
So Jurgen sat with Anaïtis in the two tall chairs that
were in the prow of the vessel, under a canopy of crimson
stuff embroidered with gold dragons, and just back of
the ship's figurehead, which was a dragon painted with
thirty colors: and the ship moved out of the harbor, and
so into the open sea. Thus they passed Enisgarth.
"And it is a queer crew that serve you, Anaïtis, who
are Queen of Cocaigne: for I can hear them talking, far
back of us, and their language is all a cheeping and a
twittering, as though the mice and the bats were holding
conference."
"Why, you must understand that these are outlanders
who speak a dialect of their own, and are not like any
other people you have ever seen."
"Indeed, now, that is very probable, for I have seen
none of your crew. Sometimes it is as though
small flickerings passed over the deck, and that is all."
"It is but the heat waves rising from the deck, for the
day is warmer than you would think, sitting here under
this canopy. And besides, what call have you and I to be
bothering over the pranks of common mariners, so long
as they do their proper duty?"
"I was thinking, O woman with unusual eyes, that
these are hardly common mariners."
"And I was thinking, Duke Jurgen, that I would tell
you a tale of the Old Gods, to make the time speed
more pleasantly as we sit here untroubled as a god and
a goddess."
Now they had passed Camwy: and Anaïtis began to
narrate the history of Anistar and Calmoora and of the
unusual concessions they granted each other, and of how
Calmoora contented her five lovers: and Jurgen found
the tale perturbing.
While Anaïtis talked the sky grew dark, as though the
sun were ashamed and veiled his shame with clouds: and
they went forward in a gray twilight which deepened
steadily over a tranquil sea. So they passed the lights
of Sargyll, most remote of the Red Islands, while Anaïtis
talked of Procris and King Minos and Pasiphaë. As
color went out of the air new colors entered into the sea,
which now assumed the varied gleams of water that has
long been stagnant. And a silence brooded over the sea,
so that there was no noise anywhere except the sound of
the voice of Anaïtis, saying, "All men that live have
but a little while to live, and none knows his fate thereafter.
So that a man possesses nothing certainly save
a brief loan of his own body; and yet the body of man
is capable of much curious pleasure."
They came thus to a low-lying naked beach, where
there was no sign of habitation. Anaïtis said this was
the land they were seeking, and they went ashore.
"Even now," says Jurgen, "I have seen none of the
crew who brought us hither."
And the beautiful dark woman shrugged, and marveled
why he need perpetually be bothering over the doings
of common sailors.
They went forward across the beach, through sand
hills, to a moor, seeing no one, and walking in a gray fog.
They passed many gray fat sluggish worms and some
curious gray reptiles such as Jurgen had never imagined
to exist, but Anaïtis said these need not trouble them.
"So there is no call to be fingering your charmed
sword as we walk here, Duke Jurgen, for these great
worms do not ever harm the living."
"For whom, then, do they lie here in wait, in this gray
fog, wherethrough the green lights flutter, and wherethrough
I hear at times a thin and far-off wailing?"
"What is that to you, Duke Jurgen, since you and I are
still in the warm flesh? Surely there was never a man
who asked more idle questions."
"Yet this is an uncomfortable twilight."
"To the contrary, you should rejoice that it is a fog
too heavy to be penetrated by the Moon."
"But what have I to do with the Moon?"
"Nothing, as yet. And that is as well for you, Duke
Jurgen, since it is authentically reported you have derided
the day which is sacred to the Moon. Now the Moon
does not love derision, as I well know, for in part I
serve the Moon."
"Eh?" says Jurgen: and he began to reflect.
So they came to a wall that was high and gray, and to
the door which was in the wall.
"You must knock two or three times," says Anaïitis,
"to get into Cocaigne."
Jurgen observed the bronze knocker upon the door,
and he grinned in order to hide his embarrassment.
"It is a quaint fancy," said he, "and the two constituents
of it appear to have been modeled from life."
"They were copied very exactly from Adam and Eve,"
says Anaïtis, "who were the first persons to open this
gateway."
"Why, then," says Jurgen, "there is no earthly doubt
that men degenerate, since here under my hand is the
proof of it."
With that he knocked, and the door opened, and the
two of them entered.
And Jurgen's shadow also went in with Jurgen, but
in Cocaigne as in Glathion, nobody save Jurgen seemed
to notice this curious shadow which now followed Jurgen
everywhere.
In Cocaigne Queen Anaïtis had a palace, where domes
and pinnacles beyond numbering glimmered with a soft
whiteness above the top of an old twilit forest, wherein
the vegetation was unlike that which is nourished by
ordinary earth. There was to be seen in these woods, for
instance, a sort of moss which made Jurgen shudder. So
Anaïtis and Jurgen came through narrow paths, like
murmuring green caverns, into a courtyard walled and paved
with yellower marble, wherein was nothing save the dimly
colored statue of a god with ten heads and thirty-four
arms: he was represented as very much engrossed by a
woman, and with his unoccupied hands was holding yet
other women.
"It is Jigsbyed," said Anaïitis.
Said Jurgen: "I do not criticize. Nevertheless, I
think this Jigsbyed is carrying matters to extremes."
Then they passed the statue of Tangaro Loloquong,
and afterward the statue of Legba. Jurgen stroked his
chin, and his color heightened. "Now certainly, Queen
Anaïtis," he said, "you have unusual taste in sculpture."
Thence Jurgen came with Anaïtis into a white room,
with copper plaques upon the walls, and there four girls
were heating water in a brass tripod. They bathed Jurgen,
giving him astonishing caresses meanwhile - with
the tongue, the hair, the finger-nails, and the tips of the
breasts, - and they anointed him with four oils, then
dressed him again in his glittering shirt. Of Caliburn,
said Anaïtis, there was no present need: so Jurgen's
sword was hung upon the wall.
These girls brought silver bowls containing wine
mixed with honey, and they brought pomegranates and
eggs and barleycorn, and triangular red-colored loaves
whereon they sprinkled sweet-smelling little seeds with
formal gestures. Then Anaïtis and Jurgen broke their
fast, eating together while the four girls served them.
"And now," says Jurgen, "and now, my dear, I would
suggest that we enter into the pursuit of those curious
pleasures of which you were telling me."
"I am very willing," responded Anaïtis, "since there is
no one of these pleasures but is purchased by some
diversion of man's nature. Yet first, as I need hardly
inform you, there is a ceremonial to be observed."
"And what, pray, is this ceremonial?"
"Why, we call it the Breaking of the Veil." And
Queen Anaïtis explained what they must do.
"Well," says Jurgen, "I am willing to taste any drink once."
So Anaïtis led Jurgen into a sort of chapel, adorned
with very unchurchlike paintings. There were four
shrines, dedicated severally to St. Cosmo, to St. Damianus,
to St. Guignole of Brest, and to St. Foutin de Varailles.
In this chapel were a hooded man, clothed in long
garments that were striped with white and yellow, and
two naked children, both girls. One of the children carried
a censer: the other held in one hand a vividly blue
pitcher half filled with water, and in her left hand a
cellar of salt.
First of all, the hooded man made Jurgen ready. "Behold
the lance," said the hooded man, "which must serve
you in this adventure."
"I accept the adventure," Jurgen replied, "because I
believe the weapon to be trustworthy."
Said the hooded man: "So be it! but as you are, so once
was I."
Meanwhile Duke Jurgen held the lance erect, shaking
it with his right hand. This lance was large, and the tip
of it was red with blood.
"Behold," said Jurgen, "I am a man born of a woman
incomprehensibly. Now I, who am miraculous, am found
worthy to perform a miracle, and to create that which
I may not comprehend."
Anaïtis took salt and water from the child, and mingled
these. "Let the salt of earth enable the thin fluid
to assume the virtue of the teeming sea!"
Then, kneeling, she touched the lance, and began to
stroke it lovingly. To Jurgen she said: "Now may you
be fervent of soul and body! May the endless Serpent
be your crown, and the fertile flame of the sun your strength!"
Said the hooded man, again: "So be it!" His voice
was high and bleating, because of that which had been
done to him.
"That therefore which we cannot understand we also
invoke," said Jurgen. "By the power of the lifted lance" -
and now with his left hand he took the hand of Anaïtis, -
"I, being a man born of a woman incomprehensibly, now
seize upon that which alone I desire with my whole
being. I lead you toward the east. I upraise you above
the earth and all the things of earth."
Then Jurgen raised Queen Anaïtis so that she sat upon
the altar, and that which was there before tumbled to the
ground. Anaïtis placed together the tips of her thumbs
and of her fingers, so that her hands made an open
triangle; and waited thus. Upon her head was a network
of red coral, with branches radiating downward: her
gauzy tunic had twenty-two openings, so as to admit all
imaginable caresses, and was of two colors, being shot
with black and crimson curiously mingled: her dark eyes
glittered and her breath came fast.
Now the hooded man and the two naked girls performed
their share in the ceremonial, which part it is
not essential to record. But Jurgen was rather shocked
by it.
None the less, Jurgen said: "O cord that binds the
circling of the stars! O cup which holds all time, all color,
and all thought! O soul of space! not unto any image
of thee do we attain unless thy image show in what we
are about to do. Therefore by every plant which scatters
its seed and by the moist warm garden which receives
and nourishes it, by the comminglement of bloodshed
with pleasure, by the joy that mimics anguish with sighs
and shudderings, and by the contentment which mimics
death, - by all these do we invoke thee. O thou, continuous
one, whose will these children attend, and whom
I now adore in this fair-colored and soft woman's body,
it is thou whom I honor, not any woman, in doing what
seems good to me: and it is thou who art about to speak,
and not she."
Then Anaïtis said: "Yea, for I speak with the tongue
of every woman. and I shine in the eyes of every woman,
when the lance is lifted. To serve me is better than all
else. When you invoke me with a heart wherein is
kindled the serpent flame, if but for a moment, you will
understand the delights of my garden, what joy unwordable
pulsates therein, and how potent is the sole desire
which uses all of a man. To serve me you will then be
eager to surrender whatever else is in your life: and
other pleasures you will take with your left hand, not
thinking of them entirely: for I am the desire which uses
all of a man, and so wastes nothing. And I accept you,
I yearn toward you, I who am daughter and somewhat
more than daughter to the Sun. I who am all pleasure,
all ruin, and a drunkenness of the inmost sense, desire you."
Now Jurgen held his lance
erect before Anaïtis. 'O
secret of all things, hidden in the being of all which lives
now that the lance is exalted I do not dread thee: for
thou art in me, and I am thou. I am the flame that
burns in every beating heart and in the core of the
farthest star. I too am life and the giver of life, and in me
too is death. Wherein art thou better than I? I am
alone: my will is justice: and there comes no other god
where I am."
Said the hooded man behind Jurgen: "So be it! but as
you are, so once was I."
The two naked children stood one at each side of Anaïtis,
and waited there trembling. These girls, as Jurgen
afterward learned, were Alecto and Tisiphonê, two of the
Eumenidês. And now Jurgen shifted the red point of
the lance, so that it rested in the open triangle made by
the fingers of Anaïtis.
"I am life and the giver of life," cried Jurgen. "Thou
that art one, that makest use of all! I who am a man born
of woman, I in my station honor thee in honoring this
desire which uses all of a man. Make open therefore
the way of creation, encourage the flaming dust which
is in our hearts, and aid us in that flame's perpetuation!
For is not that thy law?"
Anaïtis answered: "There is no law in Cocaigne save,
Do that which seems good to you."
Then said the naked children: "Perhaps it is the law,
but certainly it is not justice. Yet we are little and quite
helpless. So presently we must be made as you are for
now you two are no longer two, and your flesh is not
shared merely with each other. For your flesh becomes
our flesh, and your sins our sins: and we have no choice."
Jurgen lifted Anaïtis from the altar, and they went
into the chancel and searched for the adytum. There
seemed to be no doors anywhere in the chancel: but
presently Jurgen found an opening screened by a pink veil.
Jurgen thrust with his lance and broke this veil. He
heard the sound of one brief wailing cry: it was followed
by soft laughter. So Jurgen came into the adytum.
Black candles were burning in this place, and sulphur
too was burning there, before a scarlet cross, of which
the top was a circle, and whereon was nailed a living
toad. And other curious matters Jurgen likewise noticed.
He laughed, and turned to Anaïtis: now that the
candles were behind him, she was standing in his shadow.
"Well, well! but you are a little old-fashioned, with all
these equivocal mummeries. And I did not know that
civilized persons any longer retained sufficient credulity
to wring a thrill from god-baiting. Still, women must
be humored, bless them! and at last, I take it, we have
quite fairly fulfilled the ceremonial requisite to the
pursuit of curious pleasures."
Queen Anaïtis was very beautiful, even under his
bedimming shadow. Triumphant too was the proud face
beneath that curious coral network, and yet this woman's
face was sad.
"Dear fool," she said, "it was not wise, when you
sang of the Léshy, to put an affront upon Monday. But
you have forgotten that. And now you laugh because
that which we have done you do not understand: and
equally that which I am you do not understand."
"No matter what you may be, my dear, I am sure that
you will presently tell me all about it. For I assume
that you mean to deal fairly with me."
"I shall do that which becomes me, Duke Jurgen - "
"That is it, my dear, precisely! You intend to be true
to yourself, whatever happens. The aspiration does
you infinite honor, and I shall try to help you. Now I
have noticed that every woman is most truly herself,"
says Jurgen, oracularly, "in the dark."
Then Jurgen looked at her for a moment, with twinkling
eyes: then Anaïtis, standing in his shadow, smiled
with glowing eyes: then Jurgen blew out those black
candles: and then it was quite dark.
In the palace of Queen Anaïtis, all manner of pastimes
were practised without any cessation. Jurgen, who
considered himself to be somewhat of an authority upon
such contrivances, was soon astounded by his own
innocence. For Anaïtis showed him whatever was being done
in Cocaigne, to this side and to that side, under the
direction of Anaïtis, whom Jurgen found to be a nature
myth of doubtful origin connected with the Moon; and
who, in consequence, ruled not merely in Cocaigne but
furtively swayed the tides of life everywhere the Moon
keeps any power over tides. It was the mission of Anaïtis
to divert and turn aside and deflect: in this the jealous
Moon abetted her because sunlight makes for
straightforwardness. So Anaïtis and the Moon were staunch
allies. These mysteries of their private relations, however,
as revealed to Jurgen, are not very nicely repeatable.
"But you dishonored the Moon, Prince Jurgen, denying
praise to the day of the Moon. Or so, at least, I
have heard."
"I remember doing nothing of the sort. But I remember
considering it unjust to devote one paltry day to the
Moon's majesty. For night is sacred to the Moon, each
night that ever was the friend of lovers, - night, the
renewer and begetter of all life."
"Why, indeed, there is something in that argument,"
says Anaïtis, dubiously.
" 'Something', do you say! why, but to my way of
thinking it proves the Moon is precisely seven times
more honorable than any of the Léshy. It is merely, my
dear, a question of arithmetic."
"Was it for that reason you did not praise Pandelis and
her Mondays with the other Léshy?"
"Why, to be sure," said Jurgen, glibly. "I did not
find it at all praiseworthy that such an insignificant Léshy
as Pandelis should name her day after the Moon: to me it
seemed blasphemy." Then Jurgen coughed, and looked
sidewise at his shadow. "Had it been Sereda, now, the
case would have been different, and the Moon might
well have appreciated the delicate compliment."
Anaïtis appeared relieved. "I shall report your explanation.
Candidly, there were ill things in store for
you, Prince Jurgen, because your language was misunderstood.
But that which you now say puts quite a different
complexion upon matters."
Jurgen laughed, not understanding the mystery, but
confident he could always say whatever was required of
him.
"Now let us see a little more of Cocaigne!" cries Jurgen.
For Jurgen was greatly interested by the pursuits of
Cocaigne, and for a week or ten days participated therein
industriously. Anaïtis, who reported the Moon's honor
to be satisfied, now spared no effort to divert him, and
they investigated innumerable pastimes together.
"For all men that live have but a little while to live,"
said Anaïtis, "and none knows his fate thereafter. So
that a man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan
of his body: and yet the body of man is capable of much
curious pleasure. As thus and thus," says Anaïtis. And
she revealed devices to her Prince Consort.
For Jurgen found that unknowingly he had in due
and proper form espoused Queen Anaïtis, by participating
in the Breaking of the Veil, which is the marriage ceremony
of Cocaigne. His earlier relations with Dame Lisa
had, of course, no legal standing in Cocaigne, where the
Church is not Christian and the Law is, Do that which
seems good to you.
"Well, when in Rome," said Jurgen, "one must be
romantic. But certainly this proves that nobody ever
knows when he is being entrapped into respectability:
and never did a fine young fellow marry a high queen
with less premeditation."
"Ah, my dear," says Anaïtis, "you were controlled by
the finger of Fate."
"I do not altogether like that figure of speech. It
makes one seem too trivial, to be controlled by a mere
finger. No, it is not quite complimentary to call what
prompted me a finger."
"By the long arm of coincidence, then."
"Much more appropriate, my love," says Jurgen, complacently:
"it sounds more dignified, and does not wound
my self esteem."
Now this Anaïtis who was Queen of Cocaigne was a
delicious tall dark woman, thinnish, and lovely, and very
restless. From the first her new Prince Consort was
puzzled by her fervors, and presently was fretted by
them. He humbly failed to understand how anyone
could be so frantic over Jurgen. It seemed unreasonable.
And in her more affectionate moments this nature myth
positively frightened him: for transports such as these
could not but rouse discomfortable reminiscences of the
female spider, who ends such recreations by devouring
her partner.
"Thus to be loved is very flattering," he would reflect,
"and I again am Jurgen, asking odds of none. But
even so, I am mortal. She ought to remember that, in
common fairness."
Then the jealousy of Anaïtis, while equally flattering,
was equally out of reason. She suspected everybody,
seemed assured that every bosom cherished a mad passion
for Jurgen, and that not for a moment could he be
trusted. Well, as Jurgen frankly conceded, his conduct
toward Stella, that ill-starred yogini of Indawadi,
had in point of fact displayed, when viewed from an
especial and quite unconscionable point of view, an
aspect which, when isolated by persons judging hastily,
might, just possibly, appear to approach remotely, in one
or two respects, to temporary forgetfulness of Anaïtis, if
indeed there were people anywhere so mentally deficient
as to find such forgetfulness conceivable.
But the main thing, the really important feature, which
Anaïtis could not be made to understand, was that she
had interrupted her consort in what was, in effect, a
philosophical experiment, necessarily attempted in the
dark. The muntrus requisite to the sacti sodhana were
always performed in darkness: everybody knew that.
For the rest, this Stella had asserted so-and-so; in
simple equity she was entitled to a chance to prove her
allegations if she could: so Jurgen had proceeded to deal
fairly with her. Besides, why keep talking about this
Stella, after a vengeance so spectacular and thorough as
that to which Anaïtis had out of hand resorted? why keep
reverting to a topic which was repugnant to Jurgen and
visibly upset the dearest nature myth in all legend? Was
it quite fair to anyone concerned? That was the sensible
way in which Jurgen put it.
Still, he became honestly fond of Anaïtis. Barring her
eccentricities when roused to passion, she was a generous
and kindly creature, although in Jurgen's opinion somewhat
narrow-minded.
"My love," he would say to her, "you appear positively
unable to keep away from virtuous persons! You are
always seeking out the people who endeavor to be upright
and straightforward, and you are perpetually laying
plans to divert these people. Ah, but why bother about
them? What need have you to wear yourself out, and
to devote your entire time to such proselitizing, when
you might be so much more agreeably employed? You
should learn, in justice to yourself as well as to others,
to be tolerant of all things; and to acknowledge that in a
being of man's mingled nature a strain of respectability
is apt to develop every now and then, whatever you might
prefer."
But Anaïtis had high notions as to her mission, and
merely told him that he ought not to speak with levity of
such matters. "I would be much happier staying at home
with you and the children," she would say, "but I feel
that it is my duty - "
"And your duty to whom, in heaven's name?"
"Please do not employ such distasteful expressions,
Jurgen. It is my duty to the power I serve, my very
manifest duty to my creator. But you have no sense of
religion, I am afraid; and the reflection is often a
considerable grief to me."
"Ah, but, my dear, you are quite certain as to who
made you, and for what purpose you were made. You
nature myths were created in the Mythopoeic age by the
perversity of old heathen nations: and you serve your
creator religiously. That is quite as it should be. But
I have no such authentic information as to my origin and
mission in life, I appear at all events to have no natural
talent for being diverted, I do not take to it whole-heartedly,
and these are facts we have to face." Now
Jurgen put his arm around her. "My dear Anaïtis, you
must not think it mere selfishness on my part. I was born
with a something lacking that is requisite for anyone who
aspires to be as thoroughly misled as most people: and
you will have to love me in spite of it."
"I almost wish I had never seen you as I saw you in
that corridor, Jurgen. For I felt drawn toward you then
and there. I almost wish I had never seen you at all.
I cannot help being fond of you: and yet you laugh at the
things I know to be required of me, and sometimes you
make me laugh, too."
"But, darling, are you not just the least, littlest, tiniest,
very weest trifle bigoted? For instance, I can see that
you think I ought to evince more interest in your striking
dances, and your strange pleasures, and your surprising
caresses, and all your other elaborate diversions. And I
do think they do you credit, great credit, and I admire
your inventiveness no less than your industry - "
"You have no sense of reverence, Jurgen, you seem to
have no sense at all of what is due to one's creator. I
suppose you cannot help that: but you might at least
remember it troubles me to hear you talk so flippantly of
my religion."
"But I do not talk flippantly - "
"Indeed you do, though. And it does not sound at all
well, let me tell you."
" - Instead, I but point out that your creed necessitates,
upon the whole, an ardor I lack. You, my pet, were
created by perversity: and everyone knows it is the part
of piety to worship one's creator in fashions acceptable
to that creator. So, I do not criticize your religious
connections, dear, and nobody admires these ceremonials of
your faith more heartily than I do. I merely confess that
to celebrate these rites so frequently requires a sustention
of enthusiasm which is beyond me. In fine, I have not
your fervent temperament, I am more sceptical. You
may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say
you are wrong: but still, at the same time - ! That is how
I feel about it, my precious, and that is why I find, with
constant repetition of these ceremonials, a certain lack of
firmness developing in my responses: and finally, darling,
that is all there is to it."
"I never in my whole incarnation had such a Prince
Consort! Sometimes I think you do not care a bit about
me one way or the other, Jurgen."
"Ah, but I do care for you very much. And to prove
it, come now let us try some brand-new diversion, at sight
of which the skies will be blackened and the earth will
shudder or something of that sort, and then I will take
the children fishing, as I promised."
"No, Jurgen, I do not feel like diverting you just now.
You take all the solemnity out of it with your jeering.
Besides, you are always with the children. Jurgen, I
believe you are fonder of the children than you are of
me. And when you are not with them you are locked
up in the Library."
"Well, and was there ever such a treasury as the
Library of Cocaigne? All the diversions that you nature
myths have practiced I find recorded there: and to read
of your ingenious devices delights and maddens me. For
it is eminently interesting to meditate upon strange
pleasures, and to make verses about them is the most
amiable of avocations: it is merely the pursuit of them
that I would discourage, as disappointing and mussy.
Besides, the Library is the only spot I have to myself in
the palace, what with your fellow nature myths making
the most of life all over the place."
"It is necessary, Jurgen, for one in my position to
entertain more or less. And certainly I cannot close the
doors against my own relatives."
"Such riffraff, though, my darling! Such odds and
ends! I cannot congratulate you upon your kindred, for
I do not get on at all with these patchwork combinations,
that are one-third man and the other two-thirds a vulgar
fraction of bull or hawk or goat or serpent or ape or
jackal or what not. Priapos is the only male myth who
comes here in anything like the semblance of a complete
human being: and I had infinitely rather he stayed away,
because even I who am Jurgen cannot but be envious of
him."
"And why, pray?"
"Well, where I go reasonably equipped with Caliburn,
Priapos carries a lance I envy - "
"Like all the Bacchic myths he usually carries a thyrsos,
and it is a showy weapon, certainly; but it is not of much
use in actual conflict."
"My darling! and how do you know?"
"Why, Jurgen, how do women always know these
things? - by intuition, I suppose."
"You mean that you judge all affairs by feeling rather
than reason? Indeed, I dare say that is true of most
women, and men are daily chafed and delighted, about
equally, by your illogical method of putting things
together. But to get back to the congenial task of criticizing
your kindred, your cousin Apis, for example, may
be a very good sort of fellow: but, say what you will, it
is ill-advised of him to be going about in public with a
bull's head. It makes him needlessly conspicuous, if not
actually ridiculous: and it puts me out when I try to talk
to him."
"Now, Jurgen, pray remember that you speak of a very
generally respected myth, and that you are being irreverent - "
" - And moreover, I take the liberty of repeating, my
darling, that even though this Ba of Mendes is your
cousin, it honestly does embarrass me to have to meet
three-quarters of a goat socially - "
"But, Jurgen, I must as a matter of course invite prolific
Ba to my feasts of the Sacæ - "
"Even so, my dear, in issuing invitations a hostess may
fairly presuppose that her guests will not make beasts of
themselves. I often wish that this mere bit of ordinary
civility were more rigorously observed by Ba and Hortanes
and Fricco and Vul and Baal-Peor, and by all your
other cousins who come to visit you in such a zoologically
muddled condition. It shows a certain lack of respect for
you, my darling."
"Oh, but it is all in the family, Jurgen - "
"Besides, they have no conversation. They merely bellow
- or twitter or bleat or low or gibber or purr, according
to their respective incarnations, - about unspeakable
mysteries and monstrous pleasures until I am driven to
the verge of virtue by their imbecility."
"If you were more practical, Jurgen, you would realize
that it speaks splendidly for anyone to be really interested
in his vocation - "
"And your female relatives are just as annoying, with
their eternal whispered enigmas, and their crescent moons,
and their mystic roses that change color and require
continual gardening, and their pathetic belief that I have time
to fool with them. And the entire pack practises symbolism
until the house is positively littered with asherahs
and combs and phalloses and linghams and yonis and
arghas and pulleiars and talys, and I do not know what
other idiotic toys that I am continually stepping on!"
"Which of those minxes has been making up to you?"
says Anaïtis, her eyes snapping.
"Ah, ah! now many of your female cousins are enticing
enough - "
"I knew it! Oh, but you need not think you deluded me!"
"My darling, pray consider! be reasonable about it!
Your feminine guests at present are Sekhmet in the form
of a lioness, Io incarnated as a cow, Hekt as a frog, Derceto
as a sturgeon, and - ah, yes! - Thoueris as a hippopotamus.
I leave it to your sense of justice, dear Anaïtis,
if of ladies with such tastes in dress a lovely myth like
you can reasonably be jealous."
"And I know perfectly well who it is! It is that
Ephesian hussy, and I had several times noticed her
behavior. Very well, oh, very well, indeed! nevertheless, I
shall have a plain word or two with her at once, and the
sooner she gets out of my house the better, as I shall tell
her quite frankly. And as for you, Jurgen - !"
"But, my dear Lisa - !"
"What do you call me? Lisa was never an epithet of
mine. Why do you call me Lisa?"
"It was a slip of the tongue, my pet, an involuntary but
not unnatural association of ideas. As for the Ephesian
Diana, she reminds me of an animated pine-cone, with
that eruption of breasts all over her, and I can assure you
of your having no particular reason to be jealous of her.
It was merely of the female myths in general I spoke. Of
course they all make eyes at me: I cannot well help that,
and you should have anticipated as much when you
selected such an attractive Prince Consort. What do
these poor enamored creatures matter when to you my
heart is ever faithful?"
"It is not your heart I am worrying over, Jurgen, for
I believe you have none. Yes, you have quite succeeded
in worrying me to distraction, if that is any comfort to
you. However, let us not talk about it. For it is now
necessary, absolutely imperative, that I go into Armenia
to take part in the mourning for Tammouz: people would
not understand it at all if I stayed away from such
important orgies. And I shall get no benefit whatever from
the trip, much as I need the change, because, without
speaking of that famous heart of yours, you are always
up to some double-dealing, and I shall not know into what
mischief you may be thrusting yourself."
Jurgen laughed, and kissed her. "Be off, and attend to
your religious duties, dear, by all means. And I promise
you I will stay safe locked in the Library till you come back."
Thus Jurgen abode among the offspring of heathen
perversity, and conformed to their customs. Death ends
all things for all, they contended, and life is brief: for
how few years do men endure, and how quickly is the
most subtle and appalling nature myth explained away by
the Philologists! So the wise person, and equally the
foreseeing nature myth, will take his glut of pleasure
while there is yet time to take anything, and will waste
none of his short lien upon desire and vigor by asking
questions.
"Oh, but by all means!" said Jurgen, and he docilely
crowned himself with a rose garland, and drank his wine
and kissed his Anaïtis. Then, when the feast of the
Sacæ was at full-tide, he would whisper to Anaïtis, "I
will be back in a moment, darling," and she would frown
fondly at him as he very quietly slipped from his ivory
dining couch, and went, with the merest suspicion of a
reel, into the Library. She knew that Jurgen had no
intention of coming back: and she despaired of his ever
taking the position in the social life of Cocaigne to which
he was entitled no less by his rank as Prince Consort
than by his personal abilities. For Anaïtis did not really
think that, as went natural endowments, her Jurgen had
much reason to envy even such a general favorite as
Priapos, say, from what she knew of both.
So it was that Jurgen honored custom. "Because
these beastly nature myths may be right," said Jurgen;
"and certainly I cannot go so far as to say they are
wrong: but still, at the same time!"
For Jurgen was content to dismiss no riddle with a
mere "I do not know." Jurgen was no more able to give
up questioning the meaning of life than could a trout
relinquish swimming: indeed, he lived submerged in a flood
of curiosity and doubt, as his native element. That death
ended all things might very well be the case: yet if the
outcome proved otherwise, how much more pleasant it
would be, for everyone concerned, to have aforetime
established amicable relations with the overlords of his
second life, by having done whatever it was they
expected of him here.
"Yes, I feel that something is expected of me," says
Jurgen: "and without knowing what it is, I am tolerably
sure, somehow, that it is not an indulgence in endless
pleasure. Besides, I do not think death is going to end
all for me. If only I could be quite certain my encounter
with King Smoit, and with that charming little Sylvia
Tereu, was not a dream! As it is, plain reasoning assures
me I am not indispensable to the universe: but with this
reasoning, somehow, does not travel my belief. No, it
is only fair to my own interests to go graveward a little
more openmindedly than do these nature myths, since I
lack the requisite credulity to become a free-thinking
materialist. To believe that we know nothing assuredly,
and cannot ever know anything assuredly, is to take too
much on faith."
And Jurgen paused to shake his sleek black head two
or three times, very sagely.
"No, I cannot believe in nothingness being the destined
end of all: that would be too futile a climax to content a
dramatist clever enough to have invented Jurgen. No, it
is just as I said to the brown man: I cannot believe in the
annihilation of Jurgen by any really thrifty overlords, so
I shall see to it that Jurgen does nothing which he cannot
more or less plausibly excuse, in case of supernal inquiries.
That is far safer."
Now Jurgen was shaking his head again: and he sighed.
"For the pleasures of Cocaigne do not satisfy me. They
are all well enough in their way; and I admit the truism
that in seeking bed and board two heads are better than
one. Yes, Anaïtis makes me an excellent wife. Nevertheless,
her diversions do not satisfy me, and gallantly to
make the most of life is not enough. No, it is something
else that I desire: and Anaïtis does not quite understand me."
"Why is it, then, that I am not content?" said Jurgen.
"And what thing is this which I desire? It seems to me
there is some injustice being perpetrated upon Jurgen,
somewhere."
Meanwhile he lived with Anaïtis the Sun's daughter
very much as he had lived with Lisa, who was daughter
to a pawnbroker. Anaïtis displayed upon the whole a
milder temper: in part because she could confidently look
forward to several centuries more of life before being
explained away by the Philologists, and so had less need
than Dame Lisa to worry over temporal matters; and in
part because there was less to ruin one's disposition in
two months than in ten years of Jurgen's company.
Anaïtis nagged and sulked for a while when her Prince
Consort slackened in the pursuit of strange delights, as
he did very soon, with frank confession that his tastes
were simple and that these outlandish refinements bored
him. Later Anaïtis seemed to despair of his ever becoming
proficient in curious pleasures, and she permitted
Jurgen to lead a comparatively normal life, with only an
occasional and half-hearted remonstrance.
What puzzled Jurgen was that she did not seem to tire
of him: and he would often wonder what this lovely myth
so skilled and potent in arts wherein he was the merest
bungler, could find to care for in Jurgen. For now they
lived together like any other humdrum married couple,
and their occasional exchange of endearments was as
much a matter of course as their meals, and hardly more
exciting.
"Poor dear, I believe it is simply because I am a monstrous
clever fellow. She distrusts my cleverness, she
very often disapproves of it, and yet she values it as
queer, as a sort of curiosity. Well, but who can deny that
cleverness is truly a curiosity in Cocaigne?"
So Anaïtis petted and pampered her Prince Consort,
and took such open pride in his queerness as very nearly
embarrassed him sometimes. She could not understand
his attitude of polite amusement toward his associates
and the events which befell him, and even toward his own
doings and traits. Whatever happened, Jurgen shrugged,
and, delicately avoiding actual laughter, evinced amusement.
Anaïtis could not understand this at all, of course,
since Asian myths are remarkably destitute of humor. To
Jurgen in private she protested that he ought to be
ashamed of his levity: but none the less, she would draw
him out, when among the bestial and grim nature myths,
and she would glow visibly with fond pride in Jurgen's
queerness.
"She mothers me," reflected Jurgen. "Upon my word,
I believe that in the end this is the only way in which
females are capable of loving. And she is a dear and
lovely creature, of whom I am sincerely fond. What is
this thing, then, that I desire? Why do I feel life is not
treating me quite justly?"
So the summer had passed; and Anaïtis travelled a
great deal, being a popular myth in every land. Her sense
of duty was so strong that she endeavored to grace in
person all the peculiar festivals held in her honor, and
this, now the harvest season was at hand, left her with
hardly a moment disengaged. Then, too, the mission of
Anaïtis was to divert; and there were so many people
whom she had personally to visit - so many notable
ascetics who were advancing straight toward canonization,
and whom her underlings were unable to divert, - that
Anaïtis was compelled to pass night after night in
unwholesomely comfortless surroundings, in monasteries
and in the cells and caves of hermits.
"You are wearing yourself out, my darling," Jurgen
would say: "and does it not seem, after all, a game that
is hardly worth the candle? I know that, for my part,
before I would travel so many miles into a desert, and
then climb a hundred foot pillar, just to whisper diverting
notions into an anchorite's very dirty ear, I would let the
gaunt rascal go to Heaven. But you associate so much
with saintly persons that you have contracted their
incapacity for seeing the humorous side of things. Well,
you are a dear, even so. Here is a kiss for you: and do
you come back to your adoring husband as soon as you
conveniently can without neglecting your duty."
"They report that this Stylites is very far gone in rectitude,"
said Anaïtis, absent-mindedly, as she prepared for
the journey, "but I have hopes for him."
Then Anaïtis put purple powder on her hair, and hastily
got together a few beguiling devices, and went into
the Thebaid. Jurgen went back to the Library, and the
System of Worshipping a Girl, and the unique manuscripts
of Astyanassa and Elephantis and Sotadês, and
the Dionysiac Formulæ, and the Chart of Postures, and
the Litany of the Centre of Delight, and the Spintrian
Treatises, and the Thirty-two Gratifications, and
innumerable other volumes which he found instructive.
The Library was a vaulted chamber, having its walls
painted with the twelve Asan of Cyrenê; the ceiling was
frescoed with the arched body of a woman, whose toes
rested upon the cornice of the east wall, and whose
outstretched finger-tips touched the cornice of the western
droll. The clothing of this painted woman was remarkable:
and to Jurgen her face was not unfamiliar.
"Who is that?" he inquired, of Anaïtis.
Looking a little troubled, Anaïtis told him this was Æsred.
"Well, I have heard her called otherwise: and I have
seen her in quite other clothing."
"You have seen Æsred!"
"Yes, with a kitchen towel about hey head, and otherwise
unostentatiously appareled - but very becomingly, I
can assure you!" Here Jurgen glanced sidewise at his
shadow, and he cleared his throat. "Oh, and a most
charming and a most estimable old lady I found this
Æsred to be, I can assure you also."
"I would prefer to know nothing about it," said Anaïtis,
hastily, "I would prefer, for both our sakes, that you say
no more of Æsred."
Jurgen shrugged.
Now in the Library of Cocaigne was garnered a record
of all that the nature myths had invented in the way of
pleasure. And here, with no companion save his queer
shadow, and with Æsred arched above and bleakly
regarding him, Jurgen spent most of his time, rather
agreeably, in investigating and meditating upon the more
curious of these recreations. The painted Asan were, in
all conscience, food for wonder: but over and above these
dozen surprising pastimes, the books of Anaïtis revealed
to Jurgen, without disguise or reticence, every other
far-fetched frolic of heathenry. Hitherto unheard-of forms
of diversion were unveiled to him, and every recreation
which ingenuity had been able to contrive, for the gratifying
of the most subtle and the most strong-stomached
tastes. No possible sort of amusement would seem to
have been omitted, in running the quaint gamut of refinements
upon nature which Anaïtis and her cousins had at
odd moments invented, to satiate their desire for some
more suave or more strange or more sanguinary pleasure.
Yet the deeper Jurgen investigated, and the longer he
meditated, the more certain it seemed to him that all such
employment was a peculiarly unimaginative pursuit of
happiness.
"I am willing to taste any drink once. So I must give
diversion a fair trial. But I am afraid these are the
games of mental childhood. Well, that reminds me I
promised the children to play with them for a while
before supper."
So he came out, and presently, brave in the shirt of
Nessus, and mimicked in every action by that incongruous
shadow, Prince Jurgen was playing tag with the three
little Eumenidês, the daughters of Anaïtis by her former
marriage with Acheron, the King of Midnight.
Anaïtis and the dark potentate had parted by mutual
consent. "Acheron meant well," she would say, with a
forgiving sigh, "and that in the Moon's absence he
occasionally diverted travellers, I do not deny. But he did
not understand me."
And Jurgen agreed that this tragedy sometimes befell
even the irreproachably diverting.
The three Eumenidês at this period were half-grown
girls, whom their mother was carefully tutoring to drive
guilty persons mad by the stings of conscience: and very
quaint it was to see the young Furies at practice in the
schoolroom, black-robed, and waving lighted torches, and
crowned each with her garland of pet serpents. They
became attached to Jurgen, who was always fond of children,
and who had frequently regretted that Dame Lisa
had borne him none.
"It is enough to get the poor dear a name for
eccentricity,"
he had been used to say.
So Jurgen now made much of his step-children: and
indeed he found their innocent prattle quite as intelligent,
in essentials, as the talk of the full-grown nature myths
who infested the palace of Anaïtis. And the four of
them - Jurgen, and critical Alecto, and grave Tisiphonê,
and fairy-like little Megæra, - would take long walks,
and play with their dolls (though Alecto was a trifle
condescending toward dolls), and romp together in the
eternal evening of Cocaigne; and discuss what sort of
dresses and trinkets Mother would probably bring them
when she came back from Ecbatana or Lesbos, and would
generally enjoy themselves.
Rather pathetically earnest and unimaginative little
lasses, Jurgen found the young Eumenidês: they inherited
much of their mother's narrow-mindedness, if not their
father's brooding and gloomy tendencies; but in them
narrow-mindedness showed merely as amusing. And
Jurgen loved them, and would often reflect what a pity
it was that these dear little girls were destined when they
reached maturity, to spend the rest of their lives in haunting
criminals and adulterers and parricides and, generally,
such persons as must inevitably tarnish the girls' outlook
upon life, and lead them to see too much of the worst
side of human nature.
So Jurgen was content enough. But still he was not
actually happy, not even among the endless pleasures of
Cocaigne.
"And what is this thing that I desire?" he would ask
himself, again and again.
And still he did not know: he merely felt he was not
getting justice: and a dim sense of this would trouble him
even while he was playing with the Eumenidês.
"For I have never had such a Prince Consort in
Cocaigne, so maddening, and so helpless, and so clever;
and the girls are so fond of you, although they have not
been able to get on at all with so many of their stepfathers!
And I know that you are flippant and heartless,
but you have quite spoiled me for other men. No,
Jurgen, there is no need to argue, for I have experimented
with at least a dozen lovers lately, when I was traveling,
and they bored me insufferably. They had, as you put it,
dear, no conversation: and you are the only young man
I have found in all these ages who could talk interestingly."
"There is a reason for that, since like you, Anaïtis, I
am not so youthful as I appear."
"I do not care a straw about appearances," wept
Anaïtis, "but I know that I love you, and that you must
be leaving me with the Equinox unless you can settle
matters with the Master Philologist."
"Well, my pet," says Jurgen, "the Jews got into Jericho
by trying."
He armed, and girded himself with Caliburn, drank a
couple of bottles of wine, put on the shirt of Nessus over
all, and then went to seek this thaumaturgist.
Anaïtis showed him the way to an unpretentious
residence, where a week's washing was drying and flapping
in the side yard. Jurgen knocked boldly, and after an
interval the door was opened by the Master Philologist himself.
"You must pardon this informality," he said, blinking
through his great spectacles, which had dust on them:
"but time was by ill luck arrested hereabouts on a Thursday
evening, and so the maid is out indefinitely. I would
suggest, therefore, that the lady wait outside upon the
porch. For the neighbors to see her go in would not be
respectable."
"Do you know what I have come for?" says Jurgen,
blustering, and splendid in his glittering shirt and his
gleaming armor. "For I warn you I am justice."
"I think you are lying, and I am sure you are making
an unnecessary noise. In any event, justice is a word,
and I control all words."
"You will discover very soon, sir, that actions speak
louder than words."
"I believe that is so," said the Master Philologist, still
blinking, "just as the Jewish mob spoke louder than He
Whom they crucified. But the Word endures."
"You are a quibbler!"
"You are my guest. So I advise you, in pure friendliness,
not to impugn the power of my words."
Said Jurgen, scornfully: "But is justice, then, a word?"
"Oh, yes, it is one of the most useful. It is the
Spanish justicia, the Portuguese
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Jurgen
A Comedy of
JusticeJAMES BRANCH CABELL
That
of an old wyf gat his youthe agoon,
And
gat himselfe a shirte as bright as fyre
Wherein
to jape, yet gat not his desire
In
any countrie ne condicioun."
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1922
JAMES BRANCH CABELL.
Printed in
The United States of America
Second Edition, November, 1919
Third Edition, December, 1919
Fourth Edition, October, 1922
Fifth Edition, November, 1922
Sixth Edition, November, 1922
Seventh Edition, November, 1922
Eighth Printing November, 1922
Published, September 1919
TO
BURTON RASCOE
Uncowed by sciolists,
Robuster persons twiddle
Tremendously big fists.
"Nor will our gods defer
Remission of rude fellows'
Ability to err."
Content to compromise
Ordainments none unravels
Explicitly . . . and sighs.
Contents
Page 1
A FOREWORD
"Nescio
quid certè est: et Hylax in limine latrat."
A Foreword: Which Asserts Nothing
IN Continental periodicals not more than a dozen
articles in all would seem to have given accounts
or partial translations of the Jurgen legends. No
thorough investigation of this epos can be said to have
appeared in print, anywhere, prior to the publication, in
1913, of the monumental Synopses
of Aryan Mythology
by Angelo de Ruiz. It is unnecessary to observe that
in this exhaustive digest Professor de Ruiz has given
(VII, p. 415 et sequentia) a summary of the greater
part of these legends as contained in the collections of
Verville and Bülg; and has discussed at length and with
much learning the esoteric meaning of these folk-stories
and their bearing upon questions to which the "solar
theory" of myth explanation has given rise. To his
volumes, and to the pages of Mr. Lewistam's Key to the
Popular Tales of Poictesme, must be referred all those
who may elect to think of Jurgen as the resplendent,
journeying and procreative sun.
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
JURGEN
. . . . amara lento temperet risu
Page 91.
Why Jurgen Did the Manly Thing
IT is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, saying:
In the old days lived a pawnbroker named Jurgen;
but what his wife called him was very often much
worse than that. She was a high-spirited woman, with
no especial gift for silence. Her name, they say, was
Adelais, but people by ordinary called her Dame Lisa.
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 142.
Assumption of a Noted Garment
THE tale tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen
could see no one. But the cave stretched straight
forward, and downward, and at the far end was a
glow of light. Jurgen went on and on, and so came
presently to a centaur: and this surprised him not a little,
because Jurgen knew that centaurs were imaginary
creatures.
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 183.
The Garden between Dawn and Sunrise
THUS it was that Jurgen and the Centaur came to
the garden between dawn and sunrise, entering this
place in a fashion which it is not convenient to
record. But as they passed over the bridge three fled
before them, screaming. And when the life had been
trampled out of the small furry bodies which these three
had misused, there was none to oppose the Centaur’s
entry into the garden between dawn and sunrise.
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 224.
The Dorothy Who Did Not Understand
FOR now had come to Jurgen and the Centaur a
gold-haired woman, clothed all in white, and walking
alone. She was tall, and lovely and tender to regard:
and hers was not the red and white comeliness of many
ladies that were famed for beauty, but rather it had the
even glow of ivory. Her nose was large and high in the
bridge, her flexible mouth was not of the smallest: and yet
whatever other persons might have said, to Jurgen this
woman's countenance was in all things perfect. Perhaps
this was because he never saw her as she was. For certainly
the color of her eyes stayed a matter never revealed
to him: gray, blue or green, there was no saying: they
varied as does the sea; but always these eyes were lovely
and friendly and perturbing.
Page 23
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Page 33
Page 345.
Requirements of Bread and Butter
"NESSUS," says Jurgen, "and am I so changed?
For that Dorothy whom I loved in youth did
not know me."
Page 35
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Page 37
Page 38
Page 396.
Showing that Sereda Is Feminine
THEN, having snapped his fingers at that foolish
signboard, Jurgen would have turned easterly,
toward Bellegarde: but his horse resisted. The
pawnbroker decided to accept this as an omen.
Page 40
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Page 45
Page 46
Page 477.
Of Compromises on a Wednesday
SO it was that, riding upon a horse whose bridle was
marked with a coronet, the pawnbroker returned to
a place, and to a moment, which he remembered.
It was rather queer to be a fine young fellow again, and
to foresee all that was to happen for the next twenty years.
Page 48
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Page 58
Page 59
Page 608.
Old Toys and a New Shadow
JURGEN had behaved with conspicuous nobility,
Jurgen reflected: but he had committed himself. "I
go in search of my dear wife," he had stated, in the
exaltation of virtuous sentiments. And now Jurgen found
himself alone in a world of moonlight just where he had
last seen his wife.
Page 61
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Page 669.
The Orthodox Rescue of Guenevere
NOW the tale tells how the cave narrowed and
again turned sharply, so that Jurgen came as
through a corridor into quite another sort of
underground chamber. Yet this also was a
discomfortable place.
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Page 7210.
Pitiful Disguises of Thragnar
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Page 7811.
Appearance of the Duke of Logreus
SO Jurgen brushed from the table the chessmen that
were set there in readiness for a game, and he
emptied the silver flagons upon the ground. His
reasons for not meddling with the horn he explained to
the Princess: she shivered, and said that, such being the
case, he was certainly very sensible. Then they mounted,
and departed from the black and silver pavilion. They
came thus without further adventure to Gogyrvan Gawr's
city of Cameliard.
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Page 8212.
Excursus of Yolande's Undoing
NOW Jurgen, self-appointed Duke of Logreus,
abode at the court of King Gogyrvan. The month
of May passed quickly and pleasantly: but the
monstrous shadow which followed Jurgen did not pass.
Still, no one noticed it: that was the main thing. For
himself, he was not afraid of shadows, and the queerness
of this one was not enough to distract his thoughts from
Guenevere, nor from his love-making with Guenevere.
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Page 8713.
Philosophy of Gogyrvan Gawr
AT Cameliard the young Duke of Logreus spent
most of his time in the company of Guenevere,
whose father made no objection overtly. Gogyrvan
had his promised talk with Jurgen.
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Page 9414.
Preliminary Tactics of Duke Jurgen
SO Jurgen abode at court, and was tolerably content
for a little while. He loved a princess, the fairest
and most perfect of mortal women; and loved her
(a circumstance to which he frequently recurred) as
never any other man had loved in the world's history:
and very shortly he was to stand by and see her married
to another. Here was a situation to delight the chivalrous
court of Glathion, for every requirement of romance was
exactly fulfilled.
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Page 10415.
Of Compromises in Glathion
THE tale records that it was not a great while
before, in simple justice to Guenevere, Duke Jurgen
had afforded her the advantage of frank conversation
in actual privacy. For conventions have to be
regarded, of course. Thus the time of a princess is not
her own, and at any hour of day all sorts of people are
apt to request an audience just when some most improving
conversation is progressing famously: but the Hall of
Judgment stood vacant and unguarded at night.
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Page 11116.
Divers Imbroglios of King Smoit
NOW it befell that for three nights in succession
the Princess Guenevere was unable to converse
with Jurgen in the Hall of Judgment. So upon
one of these disengaged evenings Duke Jurgen held a
carouse with Aribert and Urien, two of Gogyrvan's
barons, who had just returned from Pengwaed-Gir, and
had queer tales to narrate of the Trooping Fairies who
garrison that place.
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Page 12217.
About a Cock That Crowed Too Soon
NEXT the tale tells of how Jurgen and the ghost of
Queen Sylvia Tereu came into the White Turret.
The Lady of the Lake was in bed: she slept
unaccompanied, as Jurgen noted with approval, for he
wished to intrude upon no more tête-à-têtes. And Dame
Anaïtis did not at first awake.
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Page 12918.
Why Merlin Talked in Twilight
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Page 13619.
The Brown Man with Queer Feet
EARLY in the following morning Jurgen left Cameliard,
traveling toward Carohaise, and went into
the Druid forest there, and followed Merlin's instructions.
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Page 14120.
Efficacy of Prayer
JURGEN went in a tremble to the Cathedral of the
Sacred Thorn in Cameliard. All night Jurgen
prayed there, not in repentance, but in terror. For
his dead he prayed, that they should not have been blotted
out in nothingness, for the dead among his kindred whom
he had loved in boyhood, and for these only. About the
men and women whom he had known since then he did
not seem to care, or not at least so vitally. But he put
up a sort of prayer for Dame Lisa - "wherever my dear
wife may be, and, O God, grant that I may come to her at
last, and be forgiven!" he wailed, and wondered if he
really meant it.
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Page 14721.
How Anaïitis Voyaged
NOW the tale tells that Jurgen and this Lady of
the Lake came presently to the wharves of
Cameliard, and went aboard the ship which
had brought Anaïtis and Merlin into Glathion. This
ship was now to every appearance deserted: yet all its
saffron colored sails were spread, as though in readiness
for the ship's departure.
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Page 15122.
As to a Veil They Broke
SO it was that Jurgen came into Cocaigne, wherein
is the bedchamber of Time. And Time, they report,
came in with Jurgen, since Jurgen was mortal:
and Time, they say, rejoiced in this respite from the
slow toil of dilapidating cities stone by stone, and with
his eyes tired by the finicky work of etching in wrinkles,
went happily into his bedchamber, and fell asleep just
after sunset on this fine evening in late June: so that the
weather remained fair and changeless, with no glaring
sun rays anywhere, and with one large star shining alone
in clear daylight. This was the star of Venus Mechanitis,
and Jurgen later derived considerable amusement from
noting how this star was trundled about the dome of
heaven by a largish beetle, named Khepre. And the trees
everywhere kept their first fresh foliage, and the birds
were about their indolent evening songs, all during Jurgen's
stay in Cocaigne, for Time had gone to sleep at the
pleasantest hour of the year's most pleasant season. So
tells the tale.
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Page 15923.
Shortcomings of Prince Jurgen
NOW the happenings just recorded befell on the
eve of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist: and
thereafter Jurgen abode in Cocaigne, and complied
with the customs of that country.
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Page 17334.
Of Compromises in Cocaigne
THUS Jurgen abode for a little over two months in
Cocaigne, and complied with the customs of that
country. Nothing altered in Cocaigne: but in the
world wherein Jurgen was reared, he knew, it would by
this time be September, with the leaves flaring gloriously,
and the birds flocking southward, and the hearts of
Jurgen's fellows turning to not unpleasant regrets. But
in Cocaigne there was no regret and no variability, but
only an interminable flow of curious pleasures, illumined
by the wandering star of Venus Mechanitis.
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Page 18025.
Cantraps of the Master Philologist
BUT now, as has been recorded, it was September,
and Jurgen could see that Anaïtis too was worrying
over something. She kept it from him as
long as possible: first said it was nothing at all, then said
he would know it soon enough, then wept a little over
the possibility that he would probably be very glad to
hear it, and eventually told him. For in becoming the
consort of a nature myth connected with the Moon
Jurgen had of course exposed himself to the danger of being
converted into a solar legend by the Philologists, and in
that event would be compelled to leave Cocaigne with
the Equinox, to enter into autumnal exploits elsewhere.
And Anaïtis was quite heart-broken over the prospect of
losing Jurgen.
Page 181
Page 182justiça, the Italian
giustizia,
all from the Latin justus. Oh, yes indeed, but justice
is one of my best connected words, and one of the
best trained also, I can assure you."
"Aha, and to what degraded uses do you put this poor
enslaved intimidated justice!"
"There is but one intelligent use," said the Master
Philologist, unruffled, "for anybody to make of words.
I will explain it to you, if you will come in out of this
treacherous draught. One never knows what a cold may
lead to."
Then the door closed upon them, and Anaïtis waited
outside, in some trepidation.
Presently Jurgen came out of that unpretentious residence,
and so back to Anaïtis, discomfited. Jurgen flung
down his magic sword, charmed Caliburn.
"This, Anaïitis, I perceive to be an outmoded weapon.
There is no weapon like words, no armor against words
and with words the Master Philologist has conquered me.
It is not at all equitable: but the man showed me a huge
book wherein were the names of everything in the world,
Page 183
and justice was not among them. It develops that, instead,
justice is merely a common noun, vaguely denoting
an ethical idea of conduct proper to the circumstances,
whether of individuals or communities. It is, you observe,
just a grammarian's notion."
"But what has he decided about you, Jurgen?"
"Alas, dear Anaïtis, he has decided, in spite of all that
I could do, to derive Jurgen from jargon, indicating a
confused chattering such as birds give forth at sunrise:
thus ruthlessly does the Master Philologist convert me
into a solar legend. So the affair is settled, and we must
part, my darling."
Anaïtis took up the sword. "But this is valuable, since
the man who wields it is the mightiest of warriors."
"It is a rush, a rotten twig, a broomstraw, against the
insidious weapons of the Master Philologist. But keep
it if you like, my dear, and give it to your next Prince
Consort. I am ashamed to have trifled with such toys,"
says Jurgen, in fretted disgust. "And besides, the Master
Philologist assures me I shall mount far higher through
the aid of this."
"But what is on that bit of parchment?"
"Thirty-two of the Master Philologist's own words
that I begged of him. See, my dear, he made this
cantrap for me with his own hand and ink." And Jurgen
read from the parchment, impressively: " 'At the death
of Adrian the Fifth, Pedro Juliani, who should be named
John the Twentieth, was through an error in the reckoning
elevated to the papal chair as John the Twenty-first.' "
Said Anaïtis, blankly: "And is that all?"
"Why, yes: and surely thirty-two whole words should
be enough for the most exacting."
Page 184
"But is it magic? are you certain it is authentic magic?"
"I have learned that there is always magic in words."
"Now, if you ask my opinion, Jurgen, your cantrap is
nonsense, and can never be of any earthly use to anybody.
Without boasting, dear, I have handled a great deal of
black magic in my day, but I never encountered a spell
at all like this."
"None the less, my darling, it is evidently a cantrap,
for else the Master Philologist would never have given it
to me."
"But how are you to use it, pray?"
"Why, as need directs," said Jurgen, and he put the
parchment into the pocket of his glittering shirt. "Yes,
I repeat, there is always something to be done with words,
and here are thirty-two authentic words from the Master
Philologist himself, not to speak of three commas and a
full-stop. Oh, I shall certainly go far with this."
"We women have firmer faith in the sword," replied
Anaïtis. "At all events, you and I cannot remain upon
this thaumaturgist's porch indefinitely."
So Anaïtis put up Caliburn, and carried it from the
thaumaturgist's unpretentious residence to her fine palace
in the old twilit wood: and afterward, as everybody
knows, she gave this sword to King Arthur, who with
its aid rose to be hailed as one of the Nine Worthies of
the World. So did the husband of Guenevere win for
himself eternal fame with that which Jurgen flung away.
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26.
In Time's Hour-Glass
"WELL, well!" said Jurgen, when he had taken
off all that foolish ironmongery, and had
made himself comfortable in his shirt;
"well, beyond doubt, the situation is awkward. I was
content enough in Cocaigne, and it is unfair that I should
be thus ousted. Still, a sensible person will manage to be
content anywhere. But whither, pray, am I expected to go?"
"Into whatever land you may elect, my dear," said
Anaïtis, fondly. "That much at least I can manage for
you: and the interpretation of your legend can be
arranged afterward."
"But I grow tired of all the countries I have ever seen,
dear Anaïtis, and in my time I have visited nearly all
the lands that are known to men."
"That too can be arranged: and you can go instead
into one of the countries which are desired by men.
Indeed there are a number of such realms which no man
has ever visited except in dreams, so that your choice
is wide."
"But how am I to make a choice without having seen
any of these countries? It is not fair to be expecting me
to do anything of the sort."
"Why, I will show them to you," Anaïtis replied.
Page 186
The two of them then went together into a small blue
chamber, the walls of which were ornamented with gold
stars placed helter-skelter. The room was entirely empty
save for an hour-glass near twice the height of a man.
"It is Time's own glass," said Anaïtis, "which was
left in my keeping when Time went to sleep."
Anaïtis opened a little door of carved crystal that was
in the lower half of the hour-glass, just above the fallen
sands. With her finger-tips she touched the sand that was
in Time's hour-glass, and in the sand she drew a triangle
with equal sides, she who was strangely gifted and
perverse. Then she drew just such another figure so that
the tip of it penetrated the first triangle. The sand began
to smoulder there, and vapors rose into the upper part of
the hour-glass, and Jurgen saw that all the sand in Time's
hour-glass was kindled by a magic generated by the
contact of these two triangles. And in the vapors a picture
formed.
"I see a land of woods and rivers, Anaïtis. A very old
fellow, regally crowned, lies asleep under an ash-tree,
guarded by a watchman who has more arms and hands
than Jigsbyed."
"It is Atlantis you behold, and the sleeping of ancient
Time - Time, to whom this glass belongs, - while Briareus
watches."
"Time sleeps quite naked, Anaïtis, and, though it is a
delicate matter to talk about, I notice he has met with a
deplorable accident."
"So that Time begets nothing any more, Jurgen, the
while he brings about old happenings over and over, and
changes the name of what is ancient, in order to persuade
himself he has a new plaything. There is really no more
Page 187
tedious and wearing old dotard anywhere, I can assure
you. But Atlantis is only the western province of Cocaigne.
Now do you look again, Jurgen!"
"Now I behold a flowering plain and three steep hills,
with a castle upon each hill. There are woods wherein the
foliage is crimson: shining birds with white bodies and
purple heads feed upon the clusters of golden berries that
grow everywhere: and people go about in green clothes,
with gold chains about their necks, and with broad bands
of gold upon their arms, and all these people have
untroubled faces."
"That is Inislocha: and to the south is Inis Daleb, and
to the north Inis Ercandra. And there is sweet music to
be listening to eternally, could we but hear the birds of
Rhiannon, and there is the best of wine to drink, and
there delight is common. For thither comes nothing hard
nor rough, and no grief, nor any regret, nor sickness, nor
age, nor death, for this is the Land of Women, a land of
many-colored hospitality."
"Why, then, it is no different from Cocaigne. And into
no realm where pleasure is endless will I ever venture
again of my own free will, for I find that I do not enjoy
pleasure."
Then Anaïtis showed him Ogygia, and Tryphême, and
Sudarsana, and the Fortunate Islands, and Æaea, and
Caer-Is, and Invallis, and the Hesperides, and Meropis,
and Planasia, and Uttarra, and Avalon, and Tir-nam-Beo,
and Thelême, and a number of other lands to enter which
men have desired: and Jurgen groaned.
"I am ashamed of my fellows," says he: "for it
appears their notion of felicity is to dwell eternally in a
glorified brothel. I do not think that as a self-respecting
Page 188
young Prince I would care to inhabit any of these earthly
paradises, for were there nothing else, I would always be
looking for an invasion by the police."
"There remains, then, but one other realm, which I
have not shown you, in part because it is an obscure little
place, and in part because, for a reason that I have, I
shall not assist you to go thither. Still, there is Leukê,
where Queen Helen rules: and Leukê it is that you behold."
"But Leukê seems like any other country in autumn,
and appears to be reasonably free from the fantastic
animals and overgrown flowers which made the other
paradises look childish. Come now, there is an attractive
simplicity about Leukê. I might put up with Leukê if
the local by-laws allowed me a rational amount of discomfort."
"Discomfort you would have full measure. For the
heart of no man remains untroubled after he has once
viewed Queen Helen and the beauty that is hers. It is
for that reason, Jurgen, I shall not help you to go into
Leukê: for in Leukê you would forget me, having seen
Queen Helen."
"Why, what nonsense you are talking, my darling! I
will wager she cannot hold a candle to you."
"See for yourself!" said Anaïtis, sadly.
Now through the rolling vapors came confusedly a
gleaming and a surging glitter of all the loveliest colors
of heaven and earth: and these took order presently, and
Jurgen saw before him in the hour-glass that young
Dorothy who was not Heitman Michael's wife. And long
and wistfully he looked at her, and the blinding tears
Page 189
came to his eyes for no reason at all, and for the while
he could not speak.
Then Jurgen yawned, and said, "But certainly this is
not the Helen who was famed for beauty."
"I can assure you that it is," said Anaïtis: "and that
it is she who rules in Leukê, whither I do not intend you
shall go."
"Why, but, my darling! this is preposterous. The girl
is nothing to look at twice, one way or the other. She is
not actually ugly, I suppose, if one happens to admire
that washed-out blonde type, as of course some people do.
But to call her beautiful is out of reason; and that
must protest in simple justice."
"Do you really think so?" says Anaïtis, brightening.
"I most assuredly do. Why, you remember what Calpurnius
Bassus says about all blondes?"
"No, I believe not. What did he say, dear?"
"I would only spoil the splendid passage by quoting it
inaccurately from memory. But he was quite right, and
his opinion is mine in every particular. So if that is the
best Leukê can offer, I heartily agree with you I had best
go into some other country."
"I suppose you already have your eyes upon some minx
or other?"
"Well, my love, those girls in the Hesperides were
strikingly like you, with even more wonderful hair than
yours: and the girl Aillê whom we saw in Tir-nam-Eeo
likewise resembled you remarkably, except that I thought
she had the better figure. So I believe in either of those
countries I could be content enough, after a while. Since
part from you I must," said Jurgen, tenderly, "I intend, in
common fairness to myself, to find a companion as like
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you as possible. You conceive I can pretend it is you
at first: and then as I grow fonder of her for her own
sake, you will gradually be put out of my mind without
my incurring any intolerable anguish."
Anaïtis was not pleased. "So you are already hankering
after those huzzies! And you think them better
looking than I am! And you tell me so to my face!"
"My darling, you cannot deny we have been married
all of three whole months: and nobody can maintain an
infatuation for any woman that long, in the teeth of
having nothing refused him. Infatuation is largely a
matter of curiosity, and both of these emotions die when
they are fed."
"Jurgen," said Anaïtis, with conviction, "you are lying
to me about something. I can see it in your eyes."
"There is no deceiving a woman's intuition. Yes, I was
not speaking quite honestly when I pretended I had as
lief go into the Hesperides as to Tir-nam-Beo: it was
wrong of me, and I ask your pardon. I thought that by
affecting indifference I could manage you better. But
you saw through me at once, and very rightly became
angry. So I fling my cards upon the table, I no longer
beat about the bushes of equivocation. It is Aillê, the
daughter of Cormac, whom I love, and who can blame
me? Did you ever in your life behold a more enticing
figure, Anaïtis? - certainly I never did. Besides, I noticed
- but never mind about that! Still I could not help
seeing them. And then such eyes! twin beacons that
light my way to comfort for my not inconsiderable regret
at losing you, my darling. Oh, yes, assuredly it is to
Tir-nam-Beo I elect to go."
"Whither you go, my fine fellow, is a matter in which
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I have the choice, not you. And you are going to Leukê."
"My love, now do be reasonable! We both agreed that
Leukê was not a bit suitable. Why, were there nothing
else, in Leukê there are no attractive women."
"Have you no sense except book-sense! It is for that
reason I am sending you to Leukê."
And thus speaking, Anaïtis set about a strong magic
that hastened the coming of the Equinox. In the midst
of her charming she wept a little, for she was fond of Jurgen.
And Jurgen preserved a hurt and angry face as well as
he could: for at the sight of Queen Helen, who was so
like young Dorothy la Desirée, he had ceased to care for
Queen Anaïtis and her diverting ways, or to care for
aught else in the world save only Queen Helen, the
delight of gods and men. But Jurgen had learned that
Anaïtis required management.
"For her own good," as he put it, "and in simple
justice to the many admirable qualities which she possesses."
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27.
Vexatious Estate of Queen Helen