Jurgen. A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  "And must you be trying, while I die, to get your grieving for me into the right words?" she asks him, smiling very sadly. "No matter: you are Jurgen, and I have loved you. And I am glad that I shall know nothing about it when in the long time, to come you will be telling so many other women about what was said by Zorobasius and Ptolemopiter, and when you will be posturing and romancing for their delight. For presently I shall have tasted Lethê: and presently I shall have forgotten you, King Jurgen, and all the joy I had in you, and all the pride, and all the love I had for you, King Jurgen, who loved me as much as you were able."

  "Why, and will there be any love-making, do you think, in Hell?" he asks her, with a doleful smile.

  "There will be love-making," she replied, "wherever you go, King Jurgen. And there will be women to listen. And at the last there will be a bean-pole of a woman, in a wig."

  "I am sorry—" he said. "And yet I have loved you, Chloris."

  "That is my comfort now. And presently there will be Lethê. I put the greater faith in Lethê. And still, I cannot help but love you, Jurgen, in whom I have no faith at all."

  He said, again: "I am not worthy."

  They kissed. Then each of them was conveyed to an appropriate doom.

  And tears were in the eyes of Jurgen, who was not used to weep: and he thought not at all of what was to befall him, but only of this and that small trivial thing which would have pleased his Chloris had Jurgen done it, and which for one reason or another Jurgen had left undone.

  "I was not ever unkind to her, says she! ah, but I might have been so much kinder. And now I shall not ever see her any more, nor ever any more may I awaken delight and admiration in those bright tender eyes which saw no fault in me! Well, but it is a comfort surely that she does not know how I devoted the last night she was to live to teaching mathematics."

  And then Jurgen wondered how he would be despatched into the Hell of his fathers? And when the Philistines showed him in what manner they proposed to inflict their sentence he wondered at his own obtuseness.

  "For I might have surmised this would be the way of it," said Jurgen. "And yet as always there is a simplicity in the methods of the Philistines which is unimaginable by really clever fellows. And as always, too, these methods are unfair to us clever fellows. Well, I am willing to taste any drink once: but this is a very horrible device, none the less; and I wonder if I have the pluck to endure it?"

  Then as he stood considering this matter, a man-at-arms came hurrying. He brought with him three great rolled parchments, with seals and ribbons and everything in order: and these were Jurgen's pardon and Jurgen's nomination as Poet Laureate of Philistia and Jurgen's appointment as Mathematician Royal.

  The man-at-arms brought also a letter from Queen Dolores, and this Jurgen read with a frown.

  "Do you consider now what fun it would be to hood-wink everybody by pretending to conform to our laws!" said this letter, and it said nothing more: Dolores was really a wise woman. Yet there was a postscript. "For we could be so happy!" said the postscript.

  And Jurgen looked toward the Woods, where men were sawing up a great oak-tree. And Jurgen gave a fine laugh, and with fine deliberateness he tore up the Queen's letter into little strips. Then statelily he took the parchments, and found they were so tough he could not tear them. This was uncommonly awkward, for Jurgen's ill-advised attempt to tear the parchments impaired the dignity of his magnanimous self-sacrifice: he even suspected one of the guards of smiling. So there was nothing for it but presently to give up that futile tugging and jerking, and to compromise by crumpling these parchments.

  "This is my answer," said Jurgen heroically, and with some admiration of himself, but still a little dashed by the uncalled-for toughness of the parchments.

  Then Jurgen cried farewell to fallen Leukê; and scornfully he cried farewell to the Philistines and to their devices. Then he submitted to their devices. Thus, it was without making any special protest about it that Jurgen was relegated to limbo, and was despatched to the Hell of his fathers, two days before Christmas.

  34. How Emperor Jurgen Fared Infernally

  Now the tale tells how the devils of Hell were in one of their churches celebrating Christmas in such manner as the devils observe that day; and how Jurgen came through the trapdoor in the vestry-room; and how he saw and wondered over the creatures which inhabited this place. For to him after the Christmas services came all such devils as his fathers had foretold, and in not a hair or scale or talon did they differ from the worst that anybody had been able to imagine.

  "Anatomy is hereabouts even more inconsequent than in Cocaigne," was Jurgen's first reflection. But the first thing the devils did was to search Jurgen very carefully, in order to make sure he was not bringing any water into Hell.

  "Now, who may you be, that come to us alive, in a fine shirt of which we never saw the like before?" asked Dithican. He had the head of a tiger, but otherwise the appearance of a large bird, with shining feathers and four feet: his neck was yellow, his body green, and his feet black.

  "It would not be treating honestly with you to deny that I am the Emperor of Noumaria," said Jurgen, somewhat advancing his estate.

  Now spoke Amaimon, in the form of a thick suet-colored worm going upright upon his tail, which shone like the tail of a glowworm. He had no feet, but under his chops were two short hands, and upon his back were bristles such as grow upon hedgehogs.

  "But we are rather overrun with emperors," said Amaimon, doubtfully, "and their crimes are a great trouble to us. Were you a very wicked ruler?"

  "Never since I became an emperor," replied Jurgen, "has any of my subjects uttered one word of complaint against me. So it stands to reason I have nothing very serious with which to reproach myself."

  "Your conscience, then, does not demand that you be punished?"

  "My conscience, gentlemen, is too well-bred to insist on anything."

  "You do not even wish to be tortured?"

  "Well, I admit I had expected something of the sort. But none the less, I will not make a point of it," said Jurgen, handsomely. "No, I shall be quite satisfied even though you do not torture me at all."

  And then the mob of devils made a great to-do over Jurgen.

  "For it is exceedingly good to have at least one unpretentious and undictatorial human being in Hell. Nobody as a rule drops in on us save inordinately proud and conscientious ghosts, whose self-conceit is intolerable, and whose demands are outrageous."

  "How can that be?"

  "Why, we have to punish them. Of course they are not properly punished until they are convinced that what is happening to them is just and adequate. And you have no notion what elaborate tortures they insist their exceeding wickedness has merited, as though that which they did or left undone could possibly matter to anybody. And to contrive these torments quite tires us out."

  "But wherefore is this place called the Hell of my fathers?"

  "Because your forefathers builded it in dreams," they told him, "out of the pride which led them to believe that what they did was of sufficient importance to merit punishment. Or so at least we have heard: but if you want the truth of the matter you must go to our Grandfather at Barathum."

  "I shall go to him, then. And do my own grandfathers, and all the forefathers that I had in the old time, inhabit this gray place?"

  "All such as are born with what they call a conscience come hither," the devils said. "Do you think you could persuade them to go elsewhere? For in that event, we would be deeply obliged to you. Their self-conceit is pitiful: but it is also a nuisance, because it prevents our getting any rest."

  "Perhaps I can help you to obtain justice, and certainly to attempt to secure justice for you is my imperial duty. But who governs this country?"

  They told him how Hell was divided into principalities that had for governors Lucifer and Beelzebub and Belial and Ascheroth and Phlegeton: but that over all these was Grandfather Satan, who lived in the Black House at Barathum.

 
"Well, I prefer," says Jurgen, "to deal directly with your principal, especially if he can explain the polity of this insane and murky country. Do some of you conduct me to him in such state as becomes an emperor!"

  So Cannagosta fetched a wheelbarrow, and Jurgen got into it, and Cannagosta trundled him away. Cannagosta was something like an ox, but rather more like a cat, and his hair was curly.

  And as they came through Chorasma, a very uncomfortable place where the damned abide in torment, whom should Jurgen see but his own father, Coth, the son of Smoit and Steinvor, standing there chewing his long moustaches in the midst of an especially tall flame.

  "Do you stop now for a moment!" says Jurgen, to his escort.

  "Oh, but this is the most vexatious person in all Hell!" cried Cannagosta; "and a person whom there is absolutely no pleasing!"

  "Nobody knows that better than I," says Jurgen.

  And Jurgen civilly bade his father good-day, but Coth did not recognize this spruce young Emperor of Noumaria, who went about Hell in a wheelbarrow.

  "You do not know me, then?" says Jurgen.

  "How should I know you when I never saw you before?" replied Coth, irritably.

  And Jurgen did not argue the point: for he knew that he and his father could never agree about anything. So Jurgen kept silent for that time, and Cannagosta wheeled him through the gray twilight, descending always deeper and yet deeper into the lowlands of Hell, until they had come to Barathum.

  35. What Grandfather Satan Reported

  Next the tale tells how three inferior devils made a loud music with bagpipes as Jurgen went into the Black House of Barathum, to talk with Grandfather Satan.

  Satan was like a man of sixty, or it might be sixty-two, in all things save that he was covered with gray fur, and had horns like those of a stag. He wore a breech-clout of very dark gray, and he sat in a chair of black marble, on a daïs: his bushy tail, which was like that of a squirrel, waved restlessly over his head as he looked at Jurgen, without speaking, and without turning his mind from an ancient thought. And his eyes were like light shining upon little pools of ink, for they had no whites to them.

  "What is the meaning of this insane country?" says Jurgen, plunging at the heart of things. "There is no sense in it, and no fairness at all."

  "Ah," replied Satan, in his curious hoarse voice, "you may well say that: and it is what I was telling my wife only last night."

  "You have a wife, then!" says Jurgen, who was always interested in such matters. "Why, but to be sure! either as a Christian or as a married man, I should have comprehended this was Satan's due. And how do you get on with her?"

  "Pretty well," says Grandfather Satan: "but she does not understand me."

  "Et tu, Brute!" says Jurgen.

  "And what does that mean?"

  "It is an expression connotating astonishment over an event without parallel. But everything in Hell seems rather strange, and the place is not at all as it was rumored to be by the priests and the bishops and the cardinals that used to be exhorting me in my fine palace at Breschau."

  "And where, did you say, is this palace?"

  "In Noumaria, where I am the Emperor Jurgen. And I need not insult you by explaining Breschau is my capital city, and is noted for its manufacture of linen and woolen cloth and gloves and cameos and brandy, though the majority of my subjects are engaged in cattle-breeding and agricultural pursuits."

  "Of course not: for I have studied geography. And, Jurgen, it is often I have heard of you, though never of your being an emperor."

  "Did I not say this place was not in touch with new ideas?"

  "Ah, but you must remember that thoughtful persons keep out of Hell. Besides, the war with Heaven prevents us from thinking of other matters. In any event, you Emperor Jurgen, by what authority do you question Satan, in Satan's home?"

  "I have heard that word which the ass spoke with the cat," replied Jurgen; for he recollected upon a sudden what Merlin had shown him.

  Grandfather Satan nodded comprehendingly. "All honor be to Set and Bast! and may their power increase. This, Emperor, is how my kingdom came about."

  Then Satan, sitting erect and bleak in his tall marble chair, explained how he, and all the domain and all the infernal hierarchies he ruled, had been created extempore by Koshchei, to humor the pride of Jurgen's forefathers. "For they were exceedingly proud of their sins. And Koshchei happened to notice Earth once upon a time, with your forefathers walking about it exultant in the enormity of their sins and in the terrible punishments they expected in requital. Now Koshchei will do almost anything to humor pride, because to be proud is one of the two things that are impossible to Koshchei. So he was pleased, oh, very much pleased: and after he had had his laugh out, he created Hell extempore, and made it just such a place as your forefathers imagined it ought to be, in order to humor the pride of your forefathers."

  "And why is pride impossible to Koshchei?"

  "Because he made things as they are; and day and night he contemplates things as they are, having nothing else to look at. How, then, can Koshchei be proud?"

  "I see. It is as if I were imprisoned in a cell wherein there was nothing, absolutely nothing, except my verses. I shudder to think of it! But what is this other thing which is impossible to Koshchei?"

  "I do not know. It is something that does not enter into Hell."

  "Well, I wish I too had never entered here, and now you must assist me to get out of this murky place."

  "And why must I assist you?"

  "Because," said Jurgen, and he drew out the cantrap of the Master Philologist, "because 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. Do you not find my reason sufficient?"

  "No," said Grandfather Satan, after thinking it over, "I cannot say that I do. But, then, popes go to Heaven. It is considered to look better, all around, and particularly by my countrymen, inasmuch as many popes have been suspected of pro-Celestialism. So we admit none of them into Hell, in order to be on the safe side, now that we are at war. In consequence, I am no judge of popes and their affairs, nor do I pretend to be."

  And Jurgen perceived that again he had employed his cantrap incorrectly or else that it was impotent to rescue people from Satan. "But who would have thought," he reflected, "that Grandfather Satan was such a simple old creature!"

  "How long, then, must I remain here?" asks Jurgen, after a dejected pause.

  "I do not know," replies Satan. "It must depend entirely upon what your father thinks about it—"

  "But what has he to do with it?"

  "—Since I and all else that is here are your father's absurd notions, as you have so frequently proved by logic. And it is hardly possible that such a clever fellow as you can be mistaken."

  "Why, of course, that is not possible," says Jurgen. "Well, the matter is rather complicated. But I am willing to taste any drink once: and I shall manage to get justice somehow, even in this unreasonable place where my father's absurd notions are the truth."

  So Jurgen left the Black House of Barathum: and Jurgen also left Grandfather Satan, erect and bleak in his tall marble chair, and with his eyes gleaming in the dim light, as he sat there restively swishing his soft bushy tail, and not ever turning his mind from an ancient thought.

  36. Why Coth was Contradicted

  Then Jurgen went back to Chorasma, where Coth, the son of Smoit and Steinvor, stood conscientiously in the midst of the largest and hottest flame he had been able to imagine, and rebuked the outworn devils who were tormenting him, because the tortures they inflicted were not adequate to the wickedness of Coth.

  And Jurgen cried to his father: "The lewd fiend Cannagosta told you I was the Emperor of Noumaria, and I do not deny it even now. But do you not perceive I am likewise your son Jurgen?"

  "Why, so it is," said Coth, "now that I look at the rascal. And how, Jurgen, did you become an emperor?"

 
; "Oh, sir, and is this a place wherein to talk about mere earthly dignities? I am surprised your mind should still run upon these empty vanities even here in torment."

  "But it is inadequate torment, Jurgen, such as does not salve my conscience. There is no justice in this place, and no way of getting justice. For these shiftless devils do not take seriously that which I did, and they merely pretend to punish me, and so my conscience stays unsatisfied."

  "Well, but, father, I have talked with them, and they seem to think your crimes do not amount to much, after all."

  Coth flew into one of his familiar rages. "I would have you know that I killed eight men in cold blood, and held five other men while they were being killed. I estimate the sum of such iniquity as ten and a half murders, and for these my conscience demands that I be punished."

  "Ah, but, sir, that was fifty years or more ago, and these men would now be dead in any event, so you see it does not matter now."

  "I went astray with women, with I do not know how many women."

  Jurgen shook his head. "This is very shocking news for a son to receive, and you can imagine my feelings. None the less, sir, that also was fifty years ago, and nobody is bothering over it now."

  "You jackanapes, I tell you that I swore and stole and forged and burned four houses and broke the Sabbath and was guilty of mayhem and spoke disrespectfully to my mother and worshipped a stone image in Porutsa. I tell you I shattered the whole Decalogue, time and again. I committed all the crimes that were ever heard of, and invented six new ones."

  "Yes, sir," said Jurgen: "but, still, what does it matter if you did?"

  "Oh, take away this son of mine!" cried Coth: "for he is his mother all over again; and though I was the vilest sinner that ever lived, I have not deserved to be plagued twice with such silly questions. And I demand that you loitering devils bring more fuel."