Jurgen. A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  "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.

  21. How Anaïtis 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.

  "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 Anaïtis, "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.

  22. 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.

  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 yellow 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 Anaïtis.

  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 circ
ling 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.