Jurgen. A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  "I cultivate a judicious amount of gallantry," says Jurgen: "I do not any longer aspire to be chivalrous. And indeed, Horvendile, it seems to me indisputable that each one of us is the hero in his own romance, and cannot understand any other person's romance, but misinterprets everything therein, very much as we three have fallen out in the simple matter of a woman's face."

  Now young Horvendile meditatively stroked his own curly and reddish hair, brushing it away from his ears with his left hand, as he sat there staring meditatively at nothing in particular.

  "I would put it, Jurgen, that we three have met like characters out of three separate romances which the Author has composed in different styles."

  "That also," Jurgen submitted, "would be nonsense."

  "Ah, but perhaps the Author very often perpetrates nonsense. Come Jurgen, you who are King of Eubonia!" says Horvendile, with his wide-set eyes a-twinkle; "what is there in you or me to attest that our Author has not composed our romances with his tongue in his cheek?"

  "Messire Horvendile, if you are attempting to joke about Koshchei who made all things as they are, I warn you I do not consider that sort of humor very wholesome. Without being prudish, I believe in common-sense: and I would vastly prefer to have you talk about something else."

  Horvendile was still smiling. "You look some day to come to Koshchei, as you call the Author. That is easily said, and sounds excellently. Ah, but how will you recognize Koshchei? and how do you know you have not already passed by Koshchei in some street or meadow? Come now, King Jurgen," said Horvendile, and still his young face wore an impish smile; "come tell me, how do you know that I am not Koshchei who made all things as they are?"

  "Be off with you!" says Jurgen; "you would never have had the wit to invent a Jurgen. Something else is troubling me: I have just recollected that the young Perion who left us only a moment since, grew to be rich and gray-headed and famous, and took Dame Melicent from her pagan husband, and married her himself: and that all this happened long years ago. So our recent talk with young Perion seems very improbable."

  "Why, but do you not remember, too, that I ran away in the night when Maugis d'Aigremont stormed Storisende? and was never heard of any more? and that all this, too, took place a long, long while ago? Yet we have met as three fine young fellows, here on the beach of fabulous Leukê. I put it to you fairly, King Jurgen: now how could this conceivably have come about unless the Author sometimes composes nonsense?"

  "Truly the way that you express it, Horvendile, the thing does seem a little strange; and I can think of no explanation rendering it plausible."

  "Again, see now, King Jurgen of Eubonia, how you underrate the Author's ability. This is one of the romancer's most venerable devices that is being practised. See for yourself!" And suddenly Horvendile pushed Jurgen so that Jurgen tumbled over in the warm sand.

  Then Jurgen arose, gaping and stretching himself. "That was a very foolish dream I had, napping here in the sun. For it was certainly a dream. Otherwise, they would have left footprints, these young fellows who have gone the way of youth so long ago. And it was a dream that had no sense in it. But indeed it would be strange if that were the whole point of it, and if living, too, were such a dream, as that queer Horvendile would have me think."

  Jurgen snapped his fingers.

  "Well, and what in common fairness could he or anyone else expect me to do about it! That is the answer I fling at you, you Horvendile whom I made up in a dream. And I disown you as the most futile of my inventions. So be off with you! and a good riddance, too, for I never held with upsetting people."

  Then Jurgen dusted himself, and trudged home to an early supper with the Hamadryad who contented him.

  30. Economics of King Jurgen

  Now Jurgen's curious dream put notions into the restless head of Jurgen. So mighty became his curiosity that he went shuddering into the abhorred Woods, and passed over Coalisnacoan (which is the Ferry of Dogs), and did all such detestable things as were necessary to placate Phobetor. Then Jurgen tricked Phobetor by an indescribable device, wherein surprising use was made of a cheese and three beetles and a gimlet, and so cheated Phobetor out of a gray magic. And that night while Pseudopolis slept King Jurgen came down into this city of gold and ivory.

  Jurgen went with distaste among the broad-browed and great-limbed monarchs of Pseudopolis, for they reminded him of things that he had long ago put aside, and they made him feel unpleasantly ignoble and insignificant. That was his real reason for avoiding the city.

  Now he passed between unlighted and silent palaces, walking in deserted streets where the moon made ominous shadows. Here was the house of Ajax Telamon who reigned in sea-girt Salamis, here that of god-like Philoctetês: much-counseling Odysseus dwelt just across the way, and the corner residence was fair-haired Agamemnon's: in the moonlight Jurgen easily made out these names engraved upon the bronze shield that hung beside each doorway. To every side of him slept the heroes of old song while Jurgen skulked under their windows.

  He remembered how incuriously—not even scornfully—these people had overlooked him on that disastrous afternoon when he had ventured into Pseudopolis by daylight. And a spiteful little gust of rage possessed him, and Jurgen shook his fist at the big silent palaces.

  "Yah!" he snarled: for he did not know at all what it was that he desired to say to those great stupid heroes who did not care what he said, but he knew that he hated them. Then Jurgen became aware of himself growling there like a kicked cur who is afraid to bite, and he began to laugh at this Jurgen.

  "Your pardon, gentlemen of Greece," says he, with a wide ceremonious bow, "and I think the information I wished to convey was that I am a monstrous clever fellow."

  Jurgen went into the largest palace, and crept stealthily by the bedroom of Achilles, King of Men, treading a-tip-toe; and so came at last into a little room panelled with cedar-wood where slept Queen Helen. She was smiling in her sleep when he had lighted his lamp, with due observance of the gray magic. She was infinitely beautiful, this young Dorothy whom people hereabouts through some odd error called Helen.

  For Jurgen saw very well that this was Count Emmerick's sister Dorothy la Désirée, whom Jurgen had vainly loved in the days when Jurgen was young alike in body and heart. Just once he had won back to her, in the garden between dawn and sunrise: but he was then a time-battered burgher whom Dorothy did not recognise. Now he returned to her a king, less admirable it might be than some of the many other kings without realms who slept now in Pseudopolis, but still very fine in his borrowed youth, and above all, armored by a gray magic: so that improbabilities were possible. And Jurgen's eyes were furtive, and he passed his tongue across his upper lip from one corner to the other, and his hand went out toward the robe of violet-colored wool which covered the sleeping girl, for he stood ready to awaken Dorothy la Désirée in the way he often awoke Chloris.

  But a queer thought held him. Nothing, he recollected, had shown the power to hurt him very deeply since he had lost this young Dorothy. And to affairs which threatened to result unpleasantly, he had always managed to impart an agreeable turn, since then, by virtue of preserving a cool heart. What if by some misfortune he were to get back his real youth? and were to become again the flustered boy who blundered from stammering rapture to wild misery, and back again, at the least word or gesture of a gold-haired girl?

  "Thank you, no!" says Jurgen. "The boy was more admirable than I, who am by way of being not wholly admirable. But then he had a wretched time of it, by and large. Thus it may be that my real youth lies sleeping here: and for no consideration would I re-awaken it."

  And yet tears came into his eyes, for no reason at all. And it seemed to him that the sleeping woman, here at his disposal, was not the young Dorothy whom he had seen in the garden between dawn and sunrise, although the two were curiously alike; and that of the two this woman here was, somehow, infinitely the lovelier.

  "Lady, if you indeed be the Swan's daughter, long and long ago there was a chi
ld that was ill. And his illness turned to a fever, and in his fever he arose from his bed one night, saying that he must set out for Troy, because of his love for Queen Helen. I was once that child. I remember how strange it seemed to me I should be talking such nonsense: I remember how the warm room smelt of drugs: and I remember how I pitied the trouble in my nurse's face, drawn and old in the yellow lamplight. For she loved me, and she did not understand: and she pleaded with me to be a good boy and not to worry my sleeping parents. But I perceive now that I was not talking nonsense."

  He paused, considering the riddle: and his fingers fretted with the robe of violet-colored wool beneath which lay Queen Helen. "Yours is that beauty of which men know by fabulous report alone, and which they may not ever find, nor ever win to, quite. And for that beauty I have hungered always, even in childhood. Toward that beauty I have struggled always, but not quite whole-heartedly. That night forecast my life. I have hungered for you: and"—Jurgen smiled here—"and I have always stayed a passably good boy, lest I should beyond reason disturb my family. For to do that, I thought, would not be fair: and still I believe for me to have done that would have been unfair."

  He grimaced at this point: for Jurgen was finding his scruples inconveniently numerous.

  "And now I think that what I do to-night is not quite fair to Chloris. And I do not know what thing it is that I desire, and the will of Jurgen is a feather in the wind. But I know that I would like to love somebody as Chloris loves me, and as so many women have loved me. And I know that it is you who have prevented this, Queen Helen, at every moment of my life since the disastrous moment when I first seemed to find your loveliness in the face of Madame Dorothy. It is the memory of your beauty, as I then saw it mirrored in the face of a jill-flirt, which has enfeebled me for such honest love as other men give women: and I envy these other men. For Jurgen has loved nothing—not even you, not even Jurgen!—quite whole-heartedly. Well, what if I took vengeance now upon this thieving comeliness, upon this robber that strips life of joy and sorrow?"

  Jurgen stood at Queen Helen's bedside, watching her, for a long while. He had shifted into a less fanciful mood: and the shadow that followed him was ugly and hulking and wavering upon the cedarn wall of Queen Helen's sleeping-chamber.

  "Mine is a magic which does not fail," old Phobetor had said, while his attendants raised his eyelids so that he could see King Jurgen.

  Now Jurgen remembered this. And reflectively he drew back the robe of violet-colored wool, a little way. The breast of Queen Helen lay bare. And she did not move at all, but she smiled in her sleep.

  Never had Jurgen imagined that any woman could be so beautiful nor so desirable as this woman, or that he could ever know such rapture. So Jurgen paused.

  "Because," said Jurgen now, "it may be this woman has some fault: it may be there is some fleck in her beauty somewhere. And sooner than know that, I would prefer to retain my unreasonable dreams, and this longing which is unfed and hopeless, and the memory of to-night. Besides, if she were perfect in everything, how could I live any longer, who would have no more to desire? No, I would be betraying my own interests, either way; and injustice is always despicable."

  So Jurgen sighed and gently replaced the robe of violet-colored wool, and he returned to his Hamadryad.

  "And now that I think of it, too," reflected Jurgen, "I am behaving rather nobly. Yes, it is questionless that I have to-night evinced a certain delicacy of feeling which merits appreciation, at all events by King Achilles."

  31. The Fall of Pseudopolis

  So Jurgen abode in Leukê, and complied with the customs of that country; and what with one thing and another, he and Chloris made the time pass pleasantly enough, until the winter solstice was at hand. Now Pseudopolis, as has been said, was at war with Philistia: so it befell that at this season Leukê was invaded by an army of Philistines, led by their Queen Dolores, a woman who was wise but not entirely reliable. They came from the coast, a terrible army insanely clad in such garments as had been commanded by Ageus, a god of theirs; and chaunting psalms in honor of their god Vel-Tyno, who had inspired this crusade: thus they swept down upon Pseudopolis, and encamped before the city.

  These Philistines fought in this campaign by casting before them a more horrible form of Greek fire, which consumed whatever was not gray-colored. For that color alone was now favored by their god Vel-Tyno. "And all other colors," his oracles had decreed, "are forevermore abominable, until I say otherwise."

  So the forces of Philistia were marshalled in the plain before Pseudopolis, and Queen Dolores spoke to her troops. And smilingly she said:—

  "Whenever you come to blows with the enemy he will be beaten. No mercy will be shown, no prisoners taken. As the Philistines under Libnah and Goliath and Gershon, and a many other tall captains, made for themselves a name which is still mighty in traditions and legend, even thus to-day may the name of Realist be so fixed in Pseudopolis, by your deeds to-day, that no one shall ever dare again even to look askance at a Philistine. Open the door for Realism, once for all!"

  Meanwhile within the city Achilles, King of Men, addressed his army:—

  "The eyes of all the world will be upon you, because you are in some especial sense the soldiers of Romance. Let it be your pride, therefore, to show all men everywhere, not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you are, keeping yourselves fit and straight in everything, and pure and clean through and through. Let us set ourselves a standard so high that it will be a glory to live up to it, and then let us live up to it, and add a new laurel to the crown of Pseudopolis. May the Gods of Old keep you and guide you!"

  Then said Thersitês, in his beard: "Certainly Pelidês has learned from history with what weapon a strong man discomfits the Philistines."

  But the other kings applauded, and the trumpet was sounded, and the battle was joined. And that day the forces of Philistia were everywhere triumphant. But they report a queer thing happened: and it was that when the Philistines shouted in their triumph, Achilles and all they who served him rose from the ground like gleaming clouds and passed above the heads of the Philistines, deriding them.

  Thus was Pseudopolis left empty, so that the Philistines entered thereinto without any opposition. They defiled this city of blasphemous colors, then burned it as a sacrifice to their god Vel-Tyno, because the color of ashes is gray.

  Then the Philistines erected lithoi (which were not unlike may-poles), and began to celebrate their religious rites.

  * * * * *

  So it was reported: but Jurgen witnessed none of these events.

  "Let them fight it out," said Jurgen: "it is not my affair. I agree with Silenus: dullness will conquer dullness, and it will not matter. But do you, woman dear, take shelter with your kindred in the unconquerable Woods, for there is no telling what damage the Philistines may do hereabouts."

  "Will you go with me, Jurgen?"

  "My dear, you know very well that it is impossible for me ever again to go into the Woods, after the trick I played upon Phobetor."

  "And if only you had kept your head about that bean-pole of a Helen, in her yellow wig—for I have not a doubt that every strand of it is false, and at all events this is not a time to be arguing about it, Jurgen,—why, then you would never have meddled with Uncle Phobetor! It simply shows you!"

  "Yes," said Jurgen.

  "Still, I do not know. If you come with me into the Woods, Uncle Phobetor in his impetuous way will quite certainly turn you into a boar-pig, because he has always done that to the people who irritated him—"

  "I seem to recognise that reason."

  "—But give me time, and I can get around Uncle Phobetor, just as I have always done, and he will turn you back."

  "No," says Jurgen, obstinately, "I do not wish to be turned into a boar-pig."

  "Now, Jurgen, let us be sensible about this! Of course, it is a little humiliating. But I will take the very best of care of you, and feed you with my own acorns, and it will be a purely tempor
ary arrangement. And to be a pig for a week or two, or even for a month, is infinitely better for a poet than being captured by the Philistines."

  "How do I know that?" says Jurgen.

  "—For it is not, after all, as if Uncle Phobetor's heart were not in the right place. It is just his way. And besides, you must remember what you did with that gimlet!"

  Said Jurgen: "All this is hardly to the purpose. You forget I have seen the hapless swine of Phobetor, and I know how he ameliorates the natural ferocity of his boar-pigs. No, I am Jurgen. So I remain. I will face the Philistines and whatever they may possibly do to me, rather than suffer that which Phobetor will quite certainly do to me."

  "Then I stay too," said Chloris.

  "No, woman dear—!"

  "But do you not understand?" says Chloris, a little pale, as he saw now. "Since the life of a hamadryad is linked with the life of her tree, nobody can harm me so long as my tree lives: and if they cut down my tree I shall die, wherever I may happen to be."

  "I had forgotten that." He was really troubled now.

  "—And you can see for yourself, Jurgen, it is quite out of the question for me to be carrying that great oak anywhere, and I wonder at your talking such nonsense."

  "Indeed, my dear," says Jurgen, "we are very neatly trapped. Well, nobody can live longer in peace than his neighbor chooses. Nevertheless, it is not fair."

  As he spoke the Philistines came forth from the burning city. Again the trumpet sounded, and the Philistines advanced in their order of battle.

  32. Sundry Devices of the Philistines

  Meanwhile the People of the Field had watched Pseudopolis burn, and had wondered what would befall them. They had not long to wonder, for next day the Fields were occupied, without any resistance by the inhabitants.