Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  27.

  Vexatious Estate of Queen Helen

  "But how can I travel with the Equinox, with a fictitious thing,with a mere convention?" Jurgen had said. "To demand any suchproceeding of me is preposterous."

  "Is it any more preposterous than to travel with an imaginarycreature like a centaur?" they had retorted. "Why, Prince Jurgen, wewonder how you, who have done that perfectly unheard-of thing, canhave the effrontery to call anything else preposterous! Is there noreason at all in you? Why, conventions are respectable, and that isa deal more than can be said for a great many centaurs. Would you bethrowing stones at respectability, Prince Jurgen? Why, we areunutterably astounded at your objection to any such well-knownphenomenon as the Equinox!" And so on, and so on, and so on, saidthey.

  And in fine, they kept at him until Jurgen was too confused toargue, and his head was in a whirl, and one thing seemed aspreposterous as another: and he ceased to notice any especialimprobability in his traveling with the Equinox, and so passedwithout any further protest or argument about it, from Cocaigne toLeuke. But he would not have been thus readily flustered had Jurgennot been thinking all the while of Queen Helen and of the beautythat was hers.

  So he inquired forthwith the way that one might quickliest come intothe presence of Queen Helen.

  "Why, you will find Queen Helen," he was told, "in her palace atPseudopolis." His informant was a hamadryad, whom Jurgen encounteredupon the outskirts of a forest overlooking the city from the west.Beyond broad sloping stretches of ripe corn, you saw Pseudopolis asa city builded of gold and ivory, now all a dazzling glitter under ahard-seeming sky that appeared unusually remote from earth.

  "And is the Queen as fair as people report?" asks Jurgen.

  "Men say that she excels all other women," replied the Hamadryad,"as immeasurably as all we women perceive her husband to surpass allother men--"

  "But, oh, dear me!" says Jurgen.

  "--Although, for one, I see nothing remarkable in Queen Helen'slooks. And I cannot but think that a woman who has been so muchtalked about ought to be more careful in the way she dresses."

  "So this Queen Helen is already provided with a husband!" Jurgen wasdispleased, but saw no reason for despair. Then Jurgen inquired asto the Queen's husband, and learned that Achilles, the son ofPeleus, was now wedded to Helen, the Swan's daughter, and that thesetwo ruled in Pseudopolis.

  "For they report," said the Hamadryad, "that in Ades' dreary kingdomAchilles remembered her beauty, and by this memory was heartened tobreak the bonds of Ades: so did Achilles, King of Men, and all hisancient comrades come forth resistlessly upon a second quest of thisHelen, whom people call--and as I think, with considerableexaggeration--the wonder of this world. Then the Gods fulfilled thedesire of Achilles, because, they said, the man who has once beheldQueen Helen will never any more regain contentment so long as hislife lacks this wonder of the world. Personally, I would dislike tothink that all men are so foolish."

  "Men are not always rational, I grant you: but then," says Jurgen,slyly, "so many of their ancestresses are feminine."

  "But an ancestress is always feminine. Nobody ever heard of a manbeing an ancestress. Men are ancestors. Why, whatever are youtalking about?"

  "Well, we were speaking, I believe, of Queen Helen's marriage."

  "To be sure we were! And I was telling you about the Gods, when youmade that droll mistake about ancestors. Everybody makes mistakessometimes, however, and foreigners are always apt to get wordsconfused. I could see at once you were a foreigner--"

  "Yes," said Jurgen, "but you were not telling me about myself butabout the Gods."

  "Why, you must know the aging Gods desired tranquillity. So we willgive her to Achilles, they said; and then, it may be, this King ofMen will retain her so safely that his littler fellows will despair,and will cease to war for Helen: and so we shall not be bothered anylonger by their wars and other foolishnesses. For this reason it wasthat the Gods gave Helen to Achilles, and sent the pair to reign inLeuke: though, for my part," concluded the Hamadryad, "I shall nevercease to wonder what he saw in her--no, not if I live to be athousand."

  "I must," says Jurgen, "observe this monarch Achilles before the worldis a day older. A king is all very well, of course, but no husbandwears a crown so as to prevent the affixion of other head-gear."

  And Jurgen went down into Pseudopolis, swaggering.

  * * * * *

  So in the evening, just after sunset, Jurgen returned to theHamadryad: he walked now with the aid of the ashen staff whichThersites had given Jurgen, and Jurgen was mirthless and ratherhumble.

  "I have observed your King Achilles," Jurgen says, "and he is abetter man than I. Queen Helen, as I confess with regret, isworthily mated."

  "And what have you to say about her?" inquires the Hamadryad.

  "Why, there is nothing more to say than that she is worthily mated,and fit to be the wife of Achilles." For once, poor Jurgen wasreally miserable. "For I admire this man Achilles, I envy him, and Ifear him," says Jurgen: "and it is not fair that he should have beencreated my superior."

  "But is not Queen Helen the loveliest of ladies that you have everseen?"

  "As to that--!" says Jurgen. He led the Hamadryad to a forest poolhard-by the oak-tree in which she resided. The dusky water layunruffled, a natural mirror. "Look!" said Jurgen, and he spoke witha downward waving of his staff.

  The silence gathering in the woods was wonderful. Here the air wassweet and pure: and the little wind which went about the ilex boughsin search of night was a tender and peaceful wind, because it knewthat the all-healing night was close at hand.

  The Hamadryad replied, "But I see only my own face."

  "It is the answer to your question, none the less. Now do you tellme your name, my dear, so that I may know who in reality is theloveliest of all the ladies I have ever seen."

  The Hamadryad told him that her name was Chloris, and that shealways looked a fright with her hair arranged as it was to-day, andthat he was a strangely impudent fellow. So he in turn confessed toher he was King Jurgen of Eubonia, drawn from his remote kingdom byexaggerated reports as to the beauty of Queen Helen. Chloris agreedwith him that rumor was in such matters invariably untrustworthy.

  This led to further talk as twilight deepened: and the while that alittle by a little this pretty girl was converted into a warmbreathing shadow, hardly visible to the eye, the shadow of Jurgendeparted from him, and he began to talk better and better. He hadseen Queen Helen face to face, and other women now seemedunimportant. Whether or not he got into the graces of this Hamadryaddid not greatly matter, one way or the other: and in consequenceJurgen talked with such fluency, such apposite remarks and suchtenderness as astounded him.

  So he sat listening with delight to the seductive tongue of thatmonstrous clever fellow, Jurgen. For this plump brown-hairedbright-eyed little creature, this Chloris, he was honestly sorry.Into the uneventful life of a hamadryad, here in this unculturedforest, could not possibly have entered much pleasurable excitement,and it seemed only right to inject a little. "Why, simply in justiceto her!" Jurgen reflected. "I must deal fairly."

  Now it grew darker and darker under the trees, and in the darknobody can see what happens. There were only two voices that talked,with lengthy pauses: and they spoke gravely of unimportant trifles,like children at play together.

  "And how does a king come thus to be traveling without any retinueor even a sword about him?"

  "Why, I travel with a staff, my dear, as you perceive: and itsuffices me."

  "Certainly it is large enough, in all conscience. Alas, youngoutlander, who call yourself a king! you carry the bludgeon of ahighwayman, and I am afraid of it."

  "My staff is a twig from Yggdrasill, the tree of universal life:Thersites gave it me, and the sap that throbs therein arises fromthe Undar fountain, where the grave Norns make laws for men and fixtheir destinies."

  "Thersites is a scoffer, and his gifts are mockery. I would havenon
e of them."

  The two began to wrangle, not at all angrily, as to what Jurgen hadbest do with his prized staff. "Do you take it away from me, at anyrate!" says Chloris. So Jurgen hid his staff where Chloris could notpossibly see it; and he drew the Hamadryad close to him, and helaughed contentedly.

  "Oh, oh! O wretched King," cried Chloris, "I fear that you will bethe death of me! And you have no right to oppress me in this way,for I am not your subject."

  "Rather shall you be my queen, dear Chloris, receiving all that Imost prize."

  "But you are too domineering: and I am afraid to be alone with youand your big staff! Ah! not without knowing what she talked aboutdid my mother use to quote her AEolic saying, The king is cruel andtakes joy in bloodshed!"

  "Presently you will not be afraid of me, nor will you be afraid ofmy staff. Custom is all. For this likewise is an AEolic saying, Thetaste of the first olive is unpleasant, but the second is good."

  Now for a while was silence save for the small secretive rumors ofthe forest. One of the large green locusts which frequent the Islandof Leuke began shrilling tentatively.

  "Wait now, King Jurgen, for surely I hear footsteps, and one comesto trouble us."

  "It is a wind in the tree-tops: or perhaps it is a god who enviesme. I pause for neither."

  "Ah, but speak reverently of the Gods! For is not Love a god, and ajealous god that has wings with which to leave us?"

  "Then am I a god, for in my heart is love, and in every fibre of meis love, and from me now love emanates."

  "But certainly I heard somebody approaching through the forest--"

  "Well, and do you not perceive I have withdrawn my staff from itshiding-place?"

  "Ah, you have great faith in that staff of yours!"

  "I fear nobody when I brandish it."

  Another locust had answered the first one. Now the two insects werein full dispute, suffusing the warm darkness with their pertinaciouswhirrings.

  "King of Eubonia, it is certainly true, that which you told me aboutolives."

  "Yes, for always love begets truthfulness."

  "I pray it may beget between us utter truthfulness, and nothingelse, King Jurgen."

  "Not 'Jurgen' now, but 'love'."

  "Indeed, they tell that even so, in such deep darkness, Love came tohis sweetheart Psyche."

  "Then why do you complain because I piously emulate the Gods, andoffer unto Love the sincerest form of flattery?" And Jurgen shookhis staff at her.

  "Ah, but you are strangely ready with your flattery! and Lovethreatened Psyche with no such enormous staff."

  "That is possible: for I am Jurgen. And I deal fairly with allwomen, and raise my staff against none save in the way of kindness."

  So they talked nonsense, in utter darkness, while the locusts, andpresently a score of locusts, disputed obstinately. Now Chloris andJurgen were invisible, even to each other, as they talked under heroak-tree: but before them the fields shone mistily under a gold-dusteddome, for this night seemed builded of stars. And the white towers ofPseudopolis also could Jurgen see, as he laughed there and took hispleasure with Chloris. He reflected that very probably Achilles andHelen were laughing thus, and were not dissimilarly occupied, outyonder, in this night of wonder.

  He sighed. But in a while Jurgen and the Hamadryad were speakingagain, just as inconsequently, and the locusts were whirring just asobstinately. Later the moon rose, and they all slept.

  With the dawn Jurgen arose, and left this Hamadryad Chloris stillasleep. He stood where he overlooked the city and the shirt ofNessus glittered in the level sun rays: and Jurgen thought of QueenHelen. Then he sighed, and went back to Chloris and wakened her withthe sort of salutation that appeared her just due.