Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice

Cabell, James Branch

Published: 1919
Categorie(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Humorous
Source: Feedbooks

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About Cabell:
James Branch Cabell (April 14, 1879 - May 5, 1958) was an American
author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was born and lived
most of his life in Richmond, Virginia; though he wintered in Florida un-
til the death of his first wife in 1949, and eventually retired there. Cabell
was born into an affluent and well-connected Virginian family. While
Cabell's surname is often mispronounced "Ka-BELL", he himself pro-
nounced it "CAB-ble". To remind an editor of the correct pronunciation,
Cabell composed this rhyme: "Tell the rabble my name is Cabell." His
father, Robert Gamble Cabell II (1847–1922), was a physician, and his
mother, Anne Harris (1859–1915), was the daughter of Col. and Mrs
James R. Branch. Cabell's paternal great-grandfather, William H. Cabell,
was governor of Virginia from 1805 to 1808. Cabell was the oldest of
three boys — his brothers were Robert Gamble Cabell III (1881–1968)
and John Lottier Cabell (1883–1946). His parents separated and were
later divorced in 1907. He matriculated to the College of William and
Mary in 1894 at the age of fifteen and graduated in 1898. While an under-
graduate, Cabell taught French and Greek at the College. According to
his close friend and fellow author Ellen Glasgow, Cabell developed a
friendship with a professor at the college which was considered by some
to be "too intimate" and as a result Cabell was dismissed, although he
was subsequently readmitted and finished his degree.[2] He worked
from 1898 to 1900 as a newspaper reporter in New York City, but re-
turned to Richmond in 1901, where he worked several months on the
staff of the Richmond News. 1901 was an eventful year for Cabell: his
first stories were accepted for publication, and he was suspected of the
murder of John Scott, a wealthy Richmonder. It was rumored that Scott
was "involved" with Cabell's mother. Cabell's supposed involvement in
the Scott murder and his college "scandal" were both mentioned in Ellen
Glasgow's posthumously published (1954) autobiography The Woman
Within. In 1902, seven of his first stories appeared in national magazines
and over the next decade he wrote many short stories and articles, con-
tributing to nationally published magazines including Harper's Monthly
Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as carrying out extens-
ive research on his family's genealogy. Between 1911 and 1913, he was
employed by his uncle in the office of the Branch coalmines in West Vir-
ginia. On November 8, 1913, he married Priscilla Bradley Shepherd, a
widow with five children by her previous marriage. In 1915 a son, Bal-
lard Hartwell Cabell, was born. Priscilla died in March 1949; Cabell re-
married in June 1950 to Margaret Waller Freeman. During his life, Cabell

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published fifty-two books, including novels, genealogy, collections of
short stories, poetry, and miscellanea. He was elected to the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1937. Today, the modern languages
house and an endowed law professorship at the College of William and
Mary are named in his honor. Cabell died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He
is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. In 1970, Virginia Com-
monwealth University, also located in Richmond, named its main cam-
pus library "James Branch Cabell Library" in his honor. In the 1970s
Cabell's library and personal papers were moved from his home on
Monument Avenue to the James Branch Cabell Library. Consisting of
some 3,000 volumes, the collection includes manuscripts, notebooks and
scrapbooks, periodicals in which Cabell's essays, reviews and fiction
were published, his correspondence with noted writers including H.L.
Mencken, Ellen Glasgow, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser, corres-
pondence with family, friends, editors and publishers, newspaper clip-
pings, photographs, periodicals, criticisms, printed material, publishers'
agreements and statements of sales. The VCU undergraduate literary
journal at the university is named Poictesme after the fictional province
in his novel Jurgen.

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"Of JURGEN eke they maken mencioun,
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."

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TO
BURTON RASCOE

Before each tarradiddle,

Uncowed by sciolists,
Robuster persons twiddle
Tremendously big fists.

"Our gods are good," they tell us;

"Nor will our gods defer
Remission of rude fellows'
Ability to err."

So this, your JURGEN, travels

Content to compromise
Ordainments none unravels
Explicitly … and sighs.

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"Others, with better moderation, do either entertain the vulgar
history of Jurgen as a fabulous addition unto the true and authen-
tic story of St. Iurgenius of Poictesme, or else we conceive the lit-
eral acception to be a misconstruction of the symbolical expres-
sion: 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.

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A Foreword: Which Asserts Nothing.

"Nescio quid certè est: et Hylax in limine latrat."

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 ob-
serve 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 con-
tained 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 explan-
ation 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.
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 rep-
resent 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 be-
ing se dare."
Thus do interpretations throng and clash, and neatly equal the com-
mentators in number. Yet possibly each one of these unriddlings, with

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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 giv-
en 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
mediæval 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 guess-
work: 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 pre-
pared 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

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forthwith be relegated to limbo, for he is offensive and lewd and lascivi-
ous 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 objection-
able 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 gentle-
men 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."

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 "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 in-
dignant 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 do-
ings, 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… .

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 JURGEN
… amara lento temperet risu

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Chapter 1
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 of-
ten much worse than that. She was a high-spirited woman, with no espe-
cial gift for silence. Her name, they say, was Adelais, but people by or-
dinary called her Dame Lisa.
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 hob-
nobbing 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 com-
posed, in the shop when business was slack.
"I consider that to be stuff and nonsense," was the monk's glose.

12
 "No doubt your notion is sensible," observed the pawnbroker: "but
mine is the prettier."
Then Jurgen passed the Cistercian Abbey, and was approaching Bel-
legarde, 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 ex-
actly 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 re-
grettable 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 pleas-
antly of everybody, in this world of tale-bearers."
Then Jurgen prepared his own supper, went to bed, and slept soundly.

13
 "I have implicit confidence," says he, "in Lisa. I have particular confid-
ence 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 turned
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 Jur-
gen; 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 sun-
set upon Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather more than
likely to happen.

14
 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, be-
cause 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 fol-
lowed Dame Lisa into the cave.

15
Chapter 2
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.
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 Cen-
taur, and heaved to his feet. Then said the Centaur, when the pawn-
broker hesitated: "Because, as you must understand, there is no other
way. For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in what men hu-
morously 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.

16
 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 go-
ing 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 kind-
ness, 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

17
undergrowth. And then they came to a white roadway that extended
due west, and so were done with the woods. Now happened an incred-
ible 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.

18
Chapter 3
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 con-
venient 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.
This was a wonderful garden: yet nothing therein was strange. In-
stead, it seemed that everything hereabouts was heart-breakingly famili-
ar 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."

19
 "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 mon-
strous 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

20
the garden ever any more. But now and then come timid persons, Jur-
gen, 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 by-paths, 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."

21
Chapter 4
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.
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."

22
 "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 any-
body. 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 pawn-
broker, 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, Ma-
dame 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 fel-
low, 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

23
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 per-
sons. 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 any-
thing 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

24
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 Vi-
dame de Soyecourt. And presently—oh, a good while before Christ-
mas!—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 Mi-
chael 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 se-
quel, 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 every-
body, 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 ap-
petites; and he married the handsome daughter of an estimable pawn-
broker 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 impa-
tient sigh; and you saw that she was vaguely puzzled. "Oh, but somehow

25
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 busi-
ness, 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 lack-
eys, 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 an-
other. 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 stu-
pid stranger held his eyes, and muddled his thoughts, and put errors in-
to 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 re-
spectable 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.

26
 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 wan-
ton and be-fooled 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 un-
predictable 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

27
proper ending comes first. Thereafter time runs forward, not as school-
men 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 un-
derstand 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.

28
 "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 pro-
longed and unforgotten kisses. We used to laugh at Heitman Michael
then; we used to laugh at everything. Thus for a while, for a whole sum-
mer, 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 medit-
ated, 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 think-
ing 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.

29
Chapter 5
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."
"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 nev-
er any other save Dorothy la Désirée."
The Centaur shrugged. "It may be you forget; it is certain that you un-
derestimate the local population. Some of the transient visitors you have
seen, and in addition hereabouts dwell the year round all manner of ima-
ginary creatures. The fairies live just southward, and the gnomes too. To
your right is the realm of the Valkyries: the Amazons and the Cynoceph-
ali are their allies: all three of these nations are continually at logger-
heads 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 Chimæra is old and
generally derided, they say that Cerberus visits the Sphinx at twilight, al-
though 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

30
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 master-
piece. 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 re-
gret 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 shad-
ow; 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 vexa-
tions.' Yes, it was Cæsar Pharamond himself said this to me: and I de-
duce 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
Cæsar 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 re-
modeled. Yonder you may observe the two whose requirements are to
rid the place of all fantastic unremunerative notions; and who will

31
develop the natural resources of this garden according to generally ap-
proved 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 gi-
ant, "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 cor-
onet. 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.

32
 "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."

33
Chapter 6
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.
"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 per-
turbed, 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

34
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 re-
port 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."

35
 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 pre-
sumed 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 in-
to 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 un-
derstand me, Mother Sereda."
"I understand: oho, I understand that which pertains to gods, for a suf-
ficient 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

36
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, be-
cause 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. Sabel-
lius 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 irrefut-
able. What can anyone say against Sævius Nicanor?—ah, what indeed?"
demanded Jurgen.

37
 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 per-
centage, and so on; the future does not interest me now. So I shall mod-
estly 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 ob-
served," 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 in-
to a courtyard, where, sure enough, they found a tethered he-goat. Of a

38
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.

39
Chapter 7
Of Compromises on a Wednesday
So it was that, riding upon a horse whose bridle was marked with a cor-
onet, the pawnbroker returned to a place, and to a moment, which he re-
membered. It was rather queer to be a fine young fellow again, and to
foresee all that was to happen for the next twenty years.
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 wear-
ing, 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 ad-
mitted 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 re-
corded, 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 Jur-
gen a wasteful and inequitable process.

40
 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 no-
tion 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 re-
membered 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 here-
abouts 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 sor-
row prepared so soon to smite a many of these revellers in ways

41
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 man-
ner 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 inev-
itable; 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 unfor-
gotten 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.

42
 "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 Jur-
gen 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 Heit-
man Michael.

43
 "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 gar-
ment 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 unac-
companied. 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 com-
plication 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 Jur-
gen, 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.

44
 "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 in-
finitely 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 dis-
taste. It was unfair.
So Jurgen snatched out his dagger, and drove it deep into the undefen-
ded 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 up-
ward, 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.

45
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 coron-
et,—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 endur-
ing 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 expect-
ancy 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 shock-
ing his Dorothy's notions of decorum, that she did not repulse him very
vigorously.

46
 "Here, over a dead body! Oh, Jurgen, this is horrible! Now, Jurgen, re-
member 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 sub-
missive girl. And in his heart was an unnamable depression and a loneli-
ness, 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 comprom-
ise; and a pretty girl is something tangible, at any rate. So he laughed, tri-
umphantly, 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 mid-
night. 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 Count-
ess 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 occa-
sionally, 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 ad-
vise 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.

47
Chapter 8
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.
"Well, well," he said, "now that my Wednesday is done with, and I am
again a reputable pawnbroker, let us remember the advisability of some-
times 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, star-
ing 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 wa-
ter 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

48
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 unwhole-
some. 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.

49
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 re-
call 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 al-
most 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 intim-
ately—. 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 oth-
ers. 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!"

50
 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 con-
cedes 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 excite-
ment 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, con-
fronting 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 re-
peated, 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."

51
Chapter 9
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 under-
ground chamber. Yet this also was a discomfortable place.
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 Jur-
gen 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 re-
flected in all these eyes, and to observe this was not pleasant.
Jurgen waited non-committally. 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 for-
ward 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 cer-
tainly 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 en-
chanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may be, poor dear! is nowhere
in this neighborhood, because I hear nobody talking. So I may consider

52
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 ec-
static 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 sur-
mise, 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 re-
garded 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.

53
 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 day-
light. 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 trap-
door, and thus dislodge the sticks. "They will tumble apart without any-
one 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 an-
other 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 Go-
gyrvan, 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 pawn-
broker to be rescuing princesses: and he swore, too, that he would re-
store 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."

54
 "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 intelli-
gence 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 detec-
tion and a hindrance."
"By that unhuman trait," says Jurgen, "Thragnar ought to be very easy
to distinguish."

55
Chapter 10
Pitiful Disguises of Thragnar
Next, the tale tells that as Jurgen and the Princess were nearing Gihon, a
man came riding toward them, full armed in black, and having a red ser-
pent with an apple in its mouth painted upon his shield.
"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, Jur-
gen 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 contra-
dicted 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 mis-
chiefs 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 immor-
al 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.

56
 "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 en-
countered 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 appre-
ciate 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

57
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 al-
ways in the right."
Guenevere nudged Jurgen. "Did you note that? This is certainly Thrag-
nar 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 im-
personation, 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 undy-
ing 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."

58
 Jurgen shook his head. "It is astounding that a demon so much talked
about should be so poor an impersonator. It raises the staggering sup-
position 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 ac-
count 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 enchant-
ment 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 van-
ished with a peal of thunder and an earthquake and such other phenom-
ena 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 un-
tidy condition. You conceive, madame, I used to tease her about that
twisted little-finger, in the days before we began to squabble: and it an-
noys 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."

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Chapter 11
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 pa-
vilion. They came thus without further adventure to Gogyrvan Gawr's
city of Cameliard.
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

60
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 bey-
ond 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 mir-
ror shows things as they are, I have come out of my borrowed Wednes-
day 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 noth-
ing 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 daugh-
ter or a handsome wife. For now I have the aid of a lad that was very re-
cently 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 bedcham-
bers 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 speak-
ing, 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

61
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 ban-
quet 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."

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Chapter 12
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 no-
ticed it: that was the main thing. For himself, he was not afraid of shad-
ows, and the queerness of this one was not enough to distract his
thoughts from Guenevere, nor from his love-making with Guenevere.
For these were quiet times in Glathion, now that the war with Rience
of Northgalis was satisfactorily ended: and love-making was now every-
where in vogue. By way of diversion, gentlemen hunted and fished and
rode a-hawking and amicably slashed and battered one another in tour-
naments: but their really serious pursuit was lovemaking, after the man-
ner 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 op-
pression that was on her.
Gogyrvan blinked at her, and nodded. "You are the handsomest wo-
man 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."

63
 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 maid-
ens 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

64
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 floor. Thus she was
when Jurgen came to her.
"Now," says Yolande, frowning, "you may as well come out straight-
forwardly 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 sev-
en 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 incompre-
hensible 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 unmistak-
ably 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 stu-
pid 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 break-
fast, 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.

65
 "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.

66
Chapter 13
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. Gogyr-
van had his promised talk with Jurgen.
"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 non-
sense 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. Tonight 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.

67
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 em-
ploy 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 par-
ticularly 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. Mean-
while, 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 re-
member 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 an-
swer 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."

68
 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 aph-
orisms, 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 mat-
ters 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 per-
son 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 com-
bination, 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 contem-
plated 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 some-
where 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.
Tonight, 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 sug-
gestions 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

69
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 mag-
nanimity, 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 hap-
pening. 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 remem-
ber 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."

70
Chapter 14
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.
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 delic-
ate 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 shopwin-
dow," said Jurgen. "Analogues are all very well, and they have the un-
answerable sanction of custom: none the less, when I proclaim that my

71
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 eye-sockets! 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 pleas-
ant 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," they 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 Giar-
muid proper interment. Oh, yes, a very pretty fighter, and I had heard
much talk of him in Logreus. He was Lord of Ore and Persaunt, you re-
member, 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

72
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 phe-
nomena to be mentioned with disparagement, in comparison with one or
another feature of Duke Jurgen's Phyllida. Zoology and history, and gen-
erally 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 insult-
ing, 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 young 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, con-
siderable pleasure: vulgar prejudices apart, I shall leave her no whit the

73
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 view-
point, 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 dis-
coursed plain idiocy, as one purveys sweetmeats to a child in fond aston-
ishment 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 axio-
matically 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 mod-
esty, 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 con-
noisseur will naturally kiss each fingertip: this is merely a tribute to per-
fection, and has no personal application. Besides, a kiss, wherever depos-
ited, 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 pleas-
ant 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 reas-
onably deny to a sincere friend what is accorded to a cousin or an old

74
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 gestic-
ulates: 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 axiomat-
ically 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 unac-
countable 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 de-
lectable 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 ser-
vice 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 gal-
lant Bishop of Merion, for example, was always to be depended upon?

75
 "I would like the opinion of Prince Evrawc's wife as to that," said Jur-
gen, 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 in-
terest 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 pop-
ularity 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 con-
form 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 pun-
ish at need, but eager to forgive, after the manner of all fathers: that one

76
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.

77
Chapter 15
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 con-
versation 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.
"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 repent-
ance, 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.

78
 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 waver-
ing 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 be-
fore 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 in-
terruptions. The throne of Gogyrvan was perfectly dark, under its can-
opy, 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 mo-
ment 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 be-
neath 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. Jur-
gen came to these encounters well primed with wine, and in con-
sequence, as he quite comprehended, talked like an angel, without con-
fining 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 sup-
posed to know more than agrees with a man's notion of maidenly ignor-
ance, she contended.

79
 "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 noth-
ing 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 ob-
tuseness, 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

80
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 day-
light. 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 figure-head 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 ad-
vance upon pawnbroking: after nightfall he discounted the peculiar priv-
ileges 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.

81
 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 ab-
ominably unjust dealings.
"To take no better care of his own daughter," Jurgen considered, "is in-
famous. The man is neglecting his duties as a father, and to do that is not
fair."

82
Chapter 16
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 Fair-
ies who garrison that place.
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 sus-
pected. 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-fash-
ioned armor, and the other a beautiful pale lady, in the customary flow-
ing white draperies.
"Good-morning to you both," says Jurgen, "and sorry am I that I can-
not 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 un-
til 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 compatri-
ots, 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."

83
 "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 confu-
sion," 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 re-
gret, 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 exper-
ience; 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?"

84
 "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 re-
member 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 upset-
ting, 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 ven-
tured to dispel your slumbers. For to me you bear a striking resemb-
lance. 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 im-
plied 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 de-
tect 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 bru-
tality, as you with rather questionable taste have mentioned."

85
 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 trav-
eling 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 yes-
terday 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 broadminded, 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 un-
pleasant details. It suffices to say that I was dissatisfied with my quar-
ters. Yet fain to leave them as I became, there was but one way. It in-
volved the slaying of my gaoler, a step which was, I confess, to me dis-
tasteful. 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 gen-
tleness 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 inter-
ested 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 dis-
guise 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

86
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 awk-
ward 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 figged out as a lady ab-
bess, on an anniversary you ought to have kept on your knees in un-
availing repentance! But you were a hard man, Smoit, and it was little
loving courtesy you showed your wife at a time when she might reason-
ably 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 heedless-
ness 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 imper-
sonated me to everyone's entire satisfaction; and with my wife's
assistance re-enacted my disastrous crime upon the scene of its occur-
rence, 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 Penpin-
gon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief, and I shall always regret him."
"For you must understand, grandson, that the term of King Penpingon
Vreichvras ap Mylwald 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."

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 "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 no-
tion 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 grand-
son, 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 posit-
ively 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 Jur-
gen 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 down-
ward, 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 him-
self 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

88
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 Jur-
gen 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 immedi-
ately over the Bishop of Merion. His eminence was not alone, but as both
occupants of the apartment were asleep, Jurgen witnessed nothing un-
episcopal. 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 appoint-
ment in Cornwall, and he melted into air, with an easy confidence that
bespoke long practise: and Jurgen followed Queen Sylvia Tereu.

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Chapter 17
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.
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 tempor-
ary 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 impreca-
tions 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."

90
 "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 jeal-
ousy 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 un-
derstand me."
"Now, by Heaven," says Jurgen, "when a woman tells me that, even
though the woman be 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 for 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 ef-
fect 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

91
nominal grandfather, Ludwig, and Jurgen drew his sword, charmed
Caliburn.
"For, as you perceive," said Jurgen, "I carry such weapons as are suffi-
cient 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 dis-
charge 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 stair-
ways hereabouts are confusing, and I must have lost my way. I was go-
ing for a stroll. This is my distant relative Queen Sylvia Tereu, who

92
kindly offered to accompany me. We were going out to gather mush-
rooms 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 expec-
ted at cockcrow. Still, that cock crew just at the wrong moment," said Jur-
gen, 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 notori-
ously 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 con-
siderable 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

93
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.

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Chapter 18
Why Merlin Talked in Twilight
It was two days later that Jurgen was sent for by Merlin Ambrosius. The
Duke of Logreus came to the magician in twilight, for the windows of
this room were covered with sheets which shut out the full radiance of
day. Everything in the room was thus visible in a diffused and tempered
light that cast no shadows. In his hand Merlin held a small mirror, about
three inches square, from which he raised his dark eyes puzzlingly.
"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 fol-
lowed, 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?"

95
 "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 unat-
tended 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 heaven-
ward, 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 magi-
cian, 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.

96
 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. Gogyr-
van, 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 nev-
er 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 be-
come a symbol. I am sorry for her, for she will be worshipped as a revel-
ation 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 talk-
ing 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 mod-
estly 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.

97
 "I allude to the author of the Myrosis," Jurgen explained,—"whom so
many persons rashly identify with Apollonius Herophileius."
"Oh, yes, of course! your quotation is very apt. Why, then your condi-
tion 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 conjur-
ing 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 favor-
able 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 com-
pared to that of a lamp.'"
"A very pleasant little work, the Dirghâgama," said Jurgen, toler-
antly—"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 heartbroken 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 an-
ger or contempt, now that you turn me adrift, for there is nothing in me
anywhere save love of you, who are unworthy."

98
 "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.

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Chapter 19
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.
"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 Jur-
gen 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."

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 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 say-
ing 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 foul-
ness. 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 hys-
teria. "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,

101
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 mon-
strous 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.

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Chapter 20
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 ter-
ror. 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.
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 at-
tended 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.

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 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 delect-
able 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.

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 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 wor-
shipped 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 an-
other 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 proces-
sion 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 Lo-
greus, 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 pos-
sesses nothing certainly save a brief loan of his own body: and yet the
body of man is capable of much curious pleasure."

105
 "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 smil-
ingly 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 mat-
ter 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 hear-
ing, 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.

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Chapter 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 Co-
caigne: 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."

107
 "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 un-
troubled as a god and a goddess."
Now they had passed Camwy: and Anaïtis began to narrate the his-
tory of Anistar and Calmoora and of the unusual concessions they gran-
ted each other, and of how Calmoora contented her five lovers: and Jur-
gen 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 Anaït-
is 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 cer-
tainly save a brief loan of his own body; and yet the body of man is cap-
able 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."

108
 "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 pen-
etrated 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 degener-
ate, since here under my hand is the proof of it."
With that he knocked, and the door opened, and the two of them
entered.

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Chapter 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 any-
where, 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 nour-
ished by ordinary earth. There was to be seen in these woods, for in-
stance, a sort of moss which made Jurgen shudder. So Anaïtis and Jurgen
came through narrow paths, like murmuring green caverns, into a court-
yard 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 un-
occupied hands was holding yet other women.
"It is Jigsbyed," said Anaïtis.

110
 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 mean-
while—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 to-
gether 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 ex-
plained 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 un-
churchlike paintings. There were four shrines, dedicated severally to St.
Cosmo, to St. Damianus, to St. Guignole of Brest, and to St. Foutin de Va-
railles. 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."

111
 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 incomprehens-
ibly. 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 bleat-
ing, because of that which had been done to him.
"That therefore which we cannot understand we also invoke," said Jur-
gen. "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 incompre-
hensibly, 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 to-
gether 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 col-
ors, 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 com-
minglement 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

112
and soft woman's body, it is thou whom I honor, not any woman, in do-
ing 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 pleas-
ures 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 ac-
cept 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 drunken-
ness 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 fin-
gers 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 there-
fore 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

113
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 pur-
suit 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.

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Chapter 23
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.
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 Co-
caigne, 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 furt-
ively 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 de-
flect: 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 sac-
red 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?"

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 "Why, to be sure," said Jurgen, glibly. "I did not find it at all praise-
worthy 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 del-
icate compliment."
Anaïtis appeared relieved. "I shall report your explanation. Candidly,
there were ill things in store for you, Prince Jurgen, because your lan-
guage was misunderstood. But that which you now say puts quite a dif-
ferent 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 re-
ported 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 es-
poused 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 cer-
tainly 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 compliment-
ary 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."

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 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 mo-
ments 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 re-
member 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 as-
pect which, when isolated by persons judging hastily, might, just pos-
sibly, appear to approach remotely, in one or two respects, to temporary
forgetfulness of Anaïtis, if indeed there were people anywhere so men-
tally 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 per-
formed 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 resor-
ted? 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, al-
though 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?

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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 em-
ployed? 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 consid-
erable 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
wholeheartedly, 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 any-
one 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, Jur-
gen. For I felt drawn toward you then and there. I almost wish I had nev-
er 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 in-
terest in your striking dances, and your strange pleasures, and your sur-
prising 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

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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 connec-
tions, dear, and nobody admires these ceremonials of your faith more
heartily than I do. I merely confess that to celebrate these rites so fre-
quently 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! Some-
times 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 practised 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."

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 "Such riffraff, though, my darling! Such odds and ends! I cannot con-
gratulate 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 intu-
ition, 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 re-
spected 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 master of course invite prolific Ba to my feasts
of the Sacæ—"
"Even so, my dear, in issuing invitations a hostess may fairly presup-
pose 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

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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 be-
lief that I have time to fool with them. And the entire pack practises sym-
bolism 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 anticip-
ated 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?"

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 "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 conten-
ded, 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 Jur-
gen had no intention of coming back: and she despaired of his ever tak-
ing 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 An-
aïtis 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

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all things might very well be the case: yet if the outcome proved other-
wise, 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 ex-
cuse, 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."

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Chapter 24
Of Compromises in Cocaigne
Thus Jurgen abode for a little over two months in Cocaigne, and com-
plied 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.
"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 perpet-
rated 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 dis-
played upon the whole a milder temper: in part because she could con-
fidently look forward to several centuries more of life before being ex-
plained 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 re-
finements bored him. Later Anaïtis seemed to despair of his ever becom-
ing 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

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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 fel-
low. 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 do-
ings and traits. Whatever happened, Jurgen shrugged, and, delicately
avoiding actual laughter, evinced amusement. Anaïtis could not under-
stand 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 en-
deavored 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 mo-
ment 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 com-
pelled to pass night after night in unwholesomely comfortless surround-
ings, 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

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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 Dionysi-
ac Formulae, and the Chart of Postures, and the Litany of the Centre of De-
light, and the Spintrian Treatises, and the Thirty-two Gratifications, and in-
numerable 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
out-stretched finger-tips touched the cornice of the western wall. 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 her head, and otherwise unostenta-
tiously 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 recre-
ations. The painted Asan were, in all conscience, food for wonder: but
over and above these dozen surprising pastimes, the books of Anaïtis re-
vealed to Jurgen, without disguise or reticence, every other far-fetched
frolic of heathenry. Hitherto unheard-of forms of diversion were

126
unveiled to him, and every recreation which ingenuity had been able to
contrive, for the gratifying of the most subtle and the most strong-stom-
ached 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 pleas-
ure. 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 tri-
al. But I am afraid these are the games of mental childhood. Well, that re-
minds 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 mim-
icked 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 irre-
proachably 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 practise
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 re-
gretted 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

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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 tenden-
cies; 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.

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Chapter 25
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 prob-
ably 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.
"For I have never had such a Prince Consort in Cocaigne, so madden-
ing, and so helpless, and so clever; and the girls are so fond of you, al-
though they have not been able to get on at all with so many of their
step-fathers! 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 ar-
gue, 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

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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 Por-
tuguese justiça, the Italian giustizia, all from the Latin justus. Oh, yes in-
deed, 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 intim-
idated justice!"
"There is but one intelligent use," said the Master Philologist, un-
ruffled, "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, Anaïtis, 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

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world, 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 de-
rive 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 Twen-
tieth, 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."
"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 en-
countered 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

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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 un-
pretentious residence to her fine palace in the old twilit wood: and after-
ward, 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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Chapter 26
In Time's Hour-Glass
"Well, well!" said Jurgen, when he had taken off all that foolish ironmon-
gery, 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 man-
age 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.
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

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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 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 Hes-
perides, 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 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."

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 "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 al-
lowed me a rational amount of discomfort."
"Discomfort you would have full measure. For the heart of no man re-
mains 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 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 I 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?"

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 "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-Beo 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 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 gradu-
ally 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 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 attract-
ive women."
"Have you no sense except book-sense! It is for that reason I am send-
ing you to Leukê."

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 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 Désirée, 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 ad-
mirable qualities which she possesses."

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Chapter 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 such proceeding of
me is preposterous."
"Is it any more preposterous than to travel with an imaginary creature
like a centaur?" they had retorted. "Why, Prince Jurgen, we wonder how
you, who have done that perfectly unheard-of thing, can have the ef-
frontery to call anything else preposterous! Is there no reason at all in
you? Why, conventions are respectable, and that is a deal more than can
be said for a great many centaurs. Would you be throwing stones at re-
spectability, Prince Jurgen? Why, we are unutterably astounded at your
objection to any such well-known phenomenon as the Equinox!" And so
on, and so on, and so on, said they.
And in fine, they kept at him until Jurgen was too confused to argue,
and his head was in a whirl, and one thing seemed as preposterous as
another: and he ceased to notice any especial improbability in his travel-
ing with the Equinox, and so passed without any further protest or argu-
ment about it, from Cocaigne to Leukê. But he would not have been thus
readily flustered had Jurgen not been thinking all the while of Queen
Helen and of the beauty that was hers.
So he inquired forthwith the way that one might quickliest come into
the presence of Queen Helen.
"Why, you will find Queen Helen," he was told, "in her palace at
Pseudopolis." His informant was a hamadryad, whom Jurgen en-
countered upon the outskirts of a forest overlooking the city from the
west. Beyond broad sloping stretches of ripe corn, you saw Pseudopolis
as a city builded of gold and ivory, now all a dazzling glitter under a
hard-seeming sky that appeared unusually remote from earth.
"And is the Queen as fair as people report?" asks Jurgen.

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 "Men say that she excels all other women," replied the Hamadryad, "as
immeasurably as all we women perceive her husband to surpass all oth-
er men—"
"But, oh, dear me!" says Jurgen.
"—Although, for one, I see nothing remarkable in Queen Helen's
looks. And I cannot but think that a woman who has been so much
talked about ought to be more careful in the way she dresses."
"So this Queen Helen is already provided with a husband!" Jurgen was
displeased, but saw no reason for despair. Then Jurgen inquired as to the
Queen's husband, and learned that Achilles, the son of Peleus, was now
wedded to Helen, the Swan's daughter, and that these two ruled in
Pseudopolis.
"For they report," said the Hamadryad, "that in Adês' dreary kingdom
Achilles remembered her beauty, and by this memory was heartened to
break the bonds of Adês: so did Achilles, King of Men, and all his ancient
comrades come forth resistlessly upon a second quest of this Helen,
whom people call—and as I think, with considerable exaggeration—the
wonder of this world. Then the Gods fulfilled the desire of Achilles, be-
cause, they said, the man who has once beheld Queen Helen will never
any more regain contentment so long as his life lacks this wonder of the
world. Personally, I would dislike to think 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 man be-
ing an ancestress. Men are ancestors. Why, whatever are you talking
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 you
made that droll mistake about ancestors. Everybody makes mistakes
sometimes, however, and foreigners are always apt to get words con-
fused. I could see at once you were a foreigner—"
"Yes," said Jurgen, "but you were not telling me about myself but
about the Gods."
"Why, you must know the aging Gods desired tranquillity. So we will
give her to Achilles, they said; and then, it may be, this King of Men 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 any longer by their wars
and other foolishnesses. For this reason it was that the Gods gave Helen
to Achilles, and sent the pair to reign in Leukê: though, for my part,"

139
concluded the Hamadryad, "I shall never cease to wonder what he saw
in her—no, not if I live to be a thousand."
"I must," says Jurgen, "observe this monarch Achilles before the world
is a day older. A king is all very well, of course, but no husband wears 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 the Hamadryad:
he walked now with the aid of the ashen staff which Thersitês had given
Jurgen, and Jurgen was mirthless and rather humble.
"I have observed your King Achilles," Jurgen says, "and he is a better
man than I. Queen Helen, as I confess with regret, is worthily 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 was really miser-
able. "For I admire this man Achilles, I envy him, and I fear him," says
Jurgen: "and it is not fair that he should have been created my superior."
"But is not Queen Helen the loveliest of ladies that you have ever
seen?"
"As to that—!" says Jurgen. He led the Hamadryad to a forest pool
hard-by the oak-tree in which she resided. The dusky water lay un-
ruffled, a natural mirror. "Look!" said Jurgen, and he spoke with a down-
ward waving of his staff.
The silence gathering in the woods was wonderful. Here the air was
sweet and pure: and the little wind which went about the ilex boughs in
search of night was a tender and peaceful wind, because it knew that 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 tell me
your name, my dear, so that I may know who in reality is the loveliest of
all the ladies I have ever seen."
The Hamadryad told him that her name was Chloris, and that she al-
ways looked a fright with her hair arranged as it was to-day, and that he
was a strangely impudent fellow. So he in turn confessed to her he was
King Jurgen of Eubonia, drawn from his remote kingdom by exagger-
ated reports as to the beauty of Queen Helen. Chloris agreed with him
that rumor was in such matters invariably untrustworthy.
This led to further talk as twilight deepened: and the while that a little
by a little this pretty girl was convered into a warm breathing shadow,
hardly visible to the eye, the shadow of Jurgen departed from him, and

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he began to talk better and better. He had seen Queen Helen face to face,
and other women now seemed unimportant. Whether or not he got into
the graces of this Hamadryad did not greatly matter, one way or the oth-
er: and in consequence Jurgen talked with such fluency, such apposite
remarks and such tenderness as astounded him.
So he sat listening with delight to the seductive tongue of that mon-
strous clever fellow, Jurgen. For this plump brown-haired bright-eyed
little creature, this Chloris, he was honestly sorry. Into the uneventful life
of a hamadryad, here in this uncultured forest, could not possibly have
entered much pleasurable excitement, and it seemed only right to inject a
little. "Why, simply in justice to her!" Jurgen reflected. "I must deal
fairly."
Now it grew darker and darker under the trees, and in the dark
nobody 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 retinue
or even a sword about him?"
"Why, I travel with a staff, my dear, as you perceive: and it suffices
me."
"Certainly it is large enough, in all conscience. Alas, young outlander,
who call yourself a king! you carry the bludgeon of a highwayman, and I
am afraid of it."
"My staff is a twig from Yggdrasill, the tree of universal life: Thersitês
gave it me, and the sap that throbs therein arises from the Undar foun-
tain, where the grave Norns make laws for men and fix their destinies."
"Thersitês is a scoffer, and his gifts are mockery. I would have none of
them."
The two began to wrangle, not at all angrily, as to what Jurgen had
best do with his prized staff. "Do you take it away from me, at any rate!"
says Chloris. So Jurgen hid his staff where Chloris could not possibly see
it; and he drew the Hamadryad close to him, and he laughed
contentedly.
"Oh, oh! O wretched King," cried Chloris, "I fear that you will be the
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 I most
prize."
"But you are too domineering: and I am afraid to be alone with you
and your big staff! Ah! not without knowing what she talked about did

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my mother use to quote her Æolic saying, The king is cruel and takes joy
in bloodshed!"
"Presently you will not be afraid of me, nor will you be afraid of my
staff. Custom is all. For this likewise is an Æolic saying, The taste of the
first olive is unpleasant, but the second is good."
Now for a while was silence save for the small secretive rumors of the
forest. One of the large green locusts which frequent the Island of Leukê
began shrilling tentatively.
"Wait now, King Jurgen, for surely I hear footsteps, and one comes to
trouble us."
"It is a wind in the tree-tops: or perhaps it is a god who envies me. I
pause for neither."
"Ah, but speak reverently of the Gods! For is not Love a god, and a
jealous 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 me is
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 its
hiding-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 were
in full dispute, suffusing the warm darkness with their pertinacious
whirrings.
"King of Eubonia, it is certainly true, that which you told me about
olives."
"Yes, for always love begets truthfulness."
"I pray it may beget between us utter truthfulness, and nothing else,
King Jurgen."
"Not 'Jurgen' now, but 'love'."
"Indeed, they tell that even so, in such deep darkness, Love came to his
sweetheart Psychê."
"Then why do you complain because I piously emulate the Gods, and
offer unto Love the sincerest form of flattery?" And Jurgen shook his
staff at her.
"Ah, but you are strangely ready with your flattery! and Love
threatened Psychê with no such enormous staff."
"That is possible: for I am Jurgen. And I deal fairly with all women,
and raise my staff against none save in the way of kindness."

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 So they talked nonsense, in utter darkness, while the locusts, and
presently a score of locusts, disputed obstinately. Now Chloris and Jur-
gen were invisible, even to each other, as they talked under her oak-tree:
but before them the fields shone mistily under a gold-dusted dome, for
this night seemed builded of stars. And the white towers of Pseudopolis
also could Jurgen see, as he laughed there and took his pleasure with
Chloris. He reflected that very probably Achilles and Helen were laugh-
ing thus, and were not dissimilarly occupied, out yonder, in this night of
wonder.
He sighed. But in a while Jurgen and the Hamadryad were speaking
again, just as inconsequently, and the locusts were whirring just as ob-
stinately. Later the moon rose, and they all slept.
With the dawn Jurgen arose, and left this Hamadryad Chloris still
asleep. He stood where he overlooked the city and the shirt of Nessus
glittered in the level sun rays: and Jurgen thought of Queen Helen. Then
he sighed, and went back to Chloris and wakened her with the sort of sa-
lutation that appeared her just due.

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Chapter 28
Of Compromises in Leukê
Now the tale tells that ten days later Jurgen and his Hamadryad were
duly married, in consonance with the law of the Wood: not for a moment
did Chloris consider any violation of the proprieties, so they were mar-
ried the first evening she could assemble her kindred.
"Still, Chloris, I already have two wives," says Jurgen, "and it is but fair
to confess it."
"I thought it was only yesterday you arrived in Leukê."
"That is true: for I came with the Equinox, over the long sea."
"Then Jugatinus has not had time to marry you to anybody, and cer-
tainly he would never think of marrying you to two wives. Why do you
talk such nonsense?"
"No, it is true, I was not married by Jugatinus."
"So there!" says Chloris, as if that settled matters. "Now you see for
yourself."
"Why, yes, to be sure," says Jurgen, "that does put rather a different
light upon it, now I think of it."
"It makes all the difference in the world."
"I would hardly go that far. Still, I perceive it makes a difference."
"Why, you talk as if everybody did not know that Jugatinus marries
people!"
"No, dear, let us be fair! I did not say precisely that."
"—And as if everybody was not always married by Jugatinus!"
"Yes, here in Leukê, perhaps. But outside of Leukê, you understand,
my darling!"
"But nobody goes outside of Leukê. Nobody ever thinks of leaving
Leukê. I never heard such nonsense."
"You mean, nobody ever leaves this island?"
"Nobody that you ever hear of. Of course, there are Lares and Penates,
with no social position, that the kings of Pseudopolis sometimes take a-
voyaging—"

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 "Still, the people of other countries do get married."
"No, Jurgen," said Chloris, sadly, "it is a rule with Jugatinus never to
leave the island; and indeed I am sure he has never even considered such
unheard-of conduct: so, of course, the people of other countries are not
able to get married."
"Well, but, Chloris, in Eubonia—"
"Now if you do not mind, dear, I think we had better talk about
something more pleasant. I do not blame you men of Eubonia, because
all men are in such matters perfectly irresponsible. And perhaps it is not
altogether the fault of the women, either, though I do think any really
self-respecting woman would have the strength of character to keep out
of such irregular relations, and that much I am compelled to say. So do
not let us talk any more about these persons whom you describe as your
wives. It is very nice of you, dear, to call them that, and I appreciate your
delicacy. Still, I really do believe we had better talk about something
else."
Jurgen deliberated. "Yet do you not think, Chloris, that in the absence
of Jugatinus—and in, as I understand it, the unavoidable absence of Jug-
atinus,—somebody else might perform the ceremony?"
"Oh, yes, if they wanted to. But it would not count. Nobody but Jugat-
inus can really marry people. And so of course nobody else does."
"What makes you sure of that?"
"Why, because," said Chloris, triumphantly, "nobody ever heard of
such a thing."
"You have voiced," said Jurgen, "an entire code of philosophy. Let us
by all means go to Jugatinus and be married."
So they were married by Jugatinus, according to the ceremony with
which the People of the Wood were always married by Jugatinus. First
Virgo loosed the girdle of Chloris in such fashion as was customary; and
Chloris, after sitting much longer than Jurgen liked in the lap of Mutinus
(who was in the state that custom required of him) was led back to Jur-
gen by Domiducus in accordance with immemorial custom; Subigo did
her customary part; then Praema grasped the bride's plump arms: and
everything was perfectly regular.
Thereafter Jurgen disposed of his staff in the way Thersitês had direc-
ted: and thereafter Jurgen abode with Chloris upon the outskirts of the
forest, and complied with the customs of Leukê. Her tree was a rather
large oak, for Chloris was now in her two hundred and sixty-sixth year;
and at first its commodious trunk sheltered them. But later Jurgen

145
builded himself a little cabin thatched with birds' wings, and made him-
self more comfortable.
"It is well enough for you, my dear, in fact it is expected of you, to live
in a tree-bole. But it makes me feel uncomfortably like a worm, and it
needlessly emphasizes the restrictions of married life. Besides, you do
not want me under your feet all the time, nor I you. No, let us cultivate a
judicious abstention from familiarity: such is one secret of an enduring,
because endurable, marriage. But why is it, pray, that you have never
married before, in all these years?"
She told him. At first Jurgen could not believe her, but presently Jur-
gen was convinced, through at least two of his senses, that what Chloris
told him was true about hamadryads.
"Otherwise, you are not markedly unlike the women of Eubonia," said
Jurgen.
And now Jurgen met many of the People of the Wood; but since the
tree of Chloris stood upon the verge of the forest, he saw far more of the
People of the Field, who dwelt between the forest and the city of Pseudo-
polis. These were the neighbors and the ordinary associates of Chloris
and Jurgen; though once in a while, of course, there would be family
gatherings in the forest. But Jurgen presently had found good reason to
distrust the People of the Wood, and went to none of these gatherings.
"For in Eubonia," he said, "we are taught that your wife's relatives will
never find fault with you to your face so long as you keep away from
them. And more than that, no sensible man expects."
Meanwhile, King Jurgen was perplexed by the People of the Field,
who were his neighbors. They one and all did what they had always
done. Thus Runcina saw to it that the Fields were weeded: Seia took care
of the seed while it was buried in the earth: Nodosa arranged the knots
and joints of the stalk: Volusia folded the blade around the corn: each
had an immemorial duty. And there was hardly a day that somebody
was not busied in the Fields, whether it was Occator harrowing, or Sator
and Sarritor about their sowing and raking, or Stercutius manuring the
ground: and Hippona was always bustling about in one place or another
looking after the horses, or else Bubona would be there attending to the
cattle. There was never any restfulness in the Fields.
"And why do you do these things year in and year out?" asked Jurgen.
"Why, King of Eubonia, we have always done these things," they said,
in high astonishment.
"Yes, but why not stop occasionally?"

146
 "Because in that event the work would stop. The corn would die, the
cattle would perish, and the Fields would become jungles."
"But, as I understand it, this is not your corn, nor your cattle, nor your
Fields. You derive no good from them. And there is nothing to prevent
your ceasing this interminable labor, and living as do the People of the
Wood, who perform no heavy work whatever."
"I should think not!" said Aristæus, and his teeth flashed in a smile
that was very pleasant to see, as he strained at the olive-press. "Whoever
heard of the People of the Wood doing anything useful!"
"Yes, but," says Jurgen, patiently, "do you think it is quite fair to
yourselves to be always about some tedious and difficult labor when
nobody compels you to do it? Why do you not sometimes take holiday?"
"King Jurgen," replied Fornax, looking up from the little furnace
wherein she was parching corn, "you are talking nonsense. The People of
the Field have never taken holiday. Nobody ever heard of such a thing."
"We should think not indeed!" said all the others, sagely.
"Ah, ah!" said Jurgen, "so that is your demolishing reason. Well, I shall
inquire about this matter among the People of the Wood, for they may be
more sensible."
Then as Jurgen was about to enter the forest, he encountered Ter-
minus, perfumed with ointment, and crowned with a garland of roses,
and standing stock still.
"Aha," said Jurgen, "so here is one of the People of the Wood about to
go down into the Fields. But if I were you, my friend, I would keep away
from any such foolish place."
"I never go down into the Fields," said Terminus.
"Oh, then, you are returning into the forest."
"But certainly not. Whoever heard of my going into the forest!"
"Indeed, now I look at you, you are merely standing here."
"I have always stood here," said Terminus.
"And do you never move?"
"No," said Terminus.
"And for what reason?"
"Because I have always stood here without moving," replied Terminus.
"Why, for me to move would be a quite unheard-of thing."
So Jurgen left him, and went into the forest. And there Jurgen en-
countered a smiling young fellow, who rode upon the back of a large
ram. This young man had his left fore-finger laid to his lips, and his right
hand held an astonishing object to be thus publicly displayed.
"But, oh, dear me! now, really, sir—!" says Jurgen.

147
 "Bah!" says the ram.
But the smiling young fellow said nothing at all as he passed Jurgen,
because it is not the custom of Harpocrates to speak.
"Which would be well enough," reflected Jurgen, "if only his custom
did not make for stiffness and the embarrassment of others."
Thereafter Jurgen came upon a considerable commotion in the bushes,
where a satyr was at play with an oread.
"Oh, but this forest is not respectable!" said Jurgen. "Have you no eth-
ics and morals, you People of the Wood! Have you no sense of respons-
ibility whatever, thus to be frolicking on a working-day?"
"Why, no," responded the Satyr, "of course not. None of my people
have such things: and so the natural vocation of all satyrs is that which
you are now interrupting."
"Perhaps you speak the truth," said Jurgen. "Still, you ought to be
ashamed of the fact that you are not lying."
"For a satyr to be ashamed of himself would be indeed an unheard-of
thing! Now go away, you in the glittering shirt! for we are studying eu-
dæmonism, and you are talking nonsense, and I am busy, and you an-
noy me," said the Satyr.
"Well, but in Cocaigne," said Jurgen, "this eudæmonism was con-
sidered an indoor diversion."
"And did you ever hear of a satyr going indoors?"
"Why, save us from all hurt and harm! but what has that to do with
it?"
"Do not try to equivocate, you shining idiot! For now you see for your-
self you are talking nonsense. And I repeat that such unheard-of non-
sense irritates me," said the Satyr.
The Oread said nothing at all. But she too looked annoyed, and Jurgen
reflected that it was probably not the custom of oreads to be rescued
from the eudæmonism of satyrs.
So Jurgen left them; and yet deeper in the forest he found a bald-
headed squat old man, with a big paunch and a flat red nose and very
small bleared eyes. Now the old fellow was so helplessly drunk that he
could not walk: instead, he sat upon the ground, and leaned against a
tree-bole.
"This is a very disgusting state for you to be in so early in the morn-
ing," observed Jurgen.
"But Silenus is always drunk," the bald-headed man responded, with a
dignified hiccough.

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 "So here is another one of you! Well, and why are you always drunk,
Silenus?"
"Because Silenus is the wisest of the People of the Wood."
"Ah, ah! but I apologize. For here at last is somebody with a plausible
excuse for his daily employment. Now, then, Silenus, since you are so
wise, come tell me, is it really the best fate for a man to be drunk
always?"
"Not at all. Drunkenness is a joy reserved for the Gods: so do men par-
take of it impiously, and so are they very properly punished for their au-
dacity. For men, it is best of all never to be born; but, being born, to die
very quickly."
"Ah, yes! but failing either?"
"The third best thing for a man is to do that which seems expected of
him," replied Silenus.
"But that is the Law of Philistia: and with Philistia, they inform me,
Pseudopolis is at war."
Silenus meditated. Jurgen had discovered an uncomfortable thing
about this old fellow, and it was that his small bleared eyes did not blink
nor the lids twitch at all. His eyes moved, as through magic the eyes of a
painted statue might move horribly, under quite motionless red lids.
Therefore it was uncomfortable when these eyes moved toward you.
"Young fellow in the glittering shirt, I will tell you a secret: and it is
that the Philistines were created after the image of Koshchei who made
some things as they are. Do you think upon that! So the Philistines do
that which seems expected. And the people of Leukê were created after
the image of Koshchei who made yet other things as they are: therefore
do the people of Leukê do that which is customary, adhering to classical
tradition. Do you think upon that also! Then do you pick your side in
this war, remembering that you side with stupidity either way. And
when that happens which will happen, do you remember how Silenus
foretold to you precisely what would happen, a long while before it
happened, because Silenus was so old and so wise and so very disreput-
ably drunk, and so very, very sleepy."
"Yes, certainly, Silenus: but how will this war end?"
"Dullness will conquer dullness: and it will not matter."
"Ah, yes! but what will become, in all this fighting, of Jurgen?"
"That will not matter either," said Silenus, comfortably. "Nobody will
bother about you." And with that he closed his horrible bleared eyes and
went to sleep.

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 So Jurgen left the old tippler, and started to leave the forest also. "For
undoubtedly all the people in Leukê are resolute to do that which is cus-
tomary," reflected Jurgen, "for the unarguable reason it is their custom,
and has always been their custom. And they will desist from these prac-
tises when the cat eats acorns, but not before. So it is the part of wisdom
to inquire no further into the matter. For after all, these people may be
right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say they are wrong." Jurgen
shrugged. "But still, at the same time—!"
Now in returning to his cabin Jurgen heard a frightful sort of yowling
and screeching as of mad people.
"Hail, daughter of various-formed Protogonus, thou that takest joy in
mountains and battles and in the beating of the drum! Hail, thou deceit-
ful saviour, mother of all gods, that comest now, pleased with long wan-
derings, to be propitious to us!"
But the uproar was becoming so increasingly unpleasant that Jurgen at
this point withdrew into a thicket: and thence he witnessed the passing
through the Woods of a notable procession. There were features connec-
ted with this procession sufficiently unusual to cause Jurgen to vow that
the desiderated moment wherein he walked unhurt from the forest
would mark the termination of his last visit thereto. Then amazement
tripped up the heels of terror: for now passed Mother Sereda, or, as An-
aïtis had called her, Æsred. To-day, in place of a towel about her head,
she wore a species of crown, shaped like a circlet of crumbling towers:
she carried a large key, and her chariot was drawn by two lions. She was
attended by howling persons, with shaved heads: and it was apparent
that these persons had parted with possessions which Jurgen valued.
"This is undoubtedly," said he, "a most unwholesome forest."
Jurgen inquired about this procession, later, and from Chloris he got
information which surprised him.
"And these are the beings who I had thought were poetic ornaments of
speech! But what is the old lady doing in such high company?"
He described Mother Sereda, and Chloris told him who this was. Now
Jurgen shook his sleek black head.
"Behold another mystery! Yet after all, it is no concern of mine if the
old lady elects for an additional anagram. I should be the last person to
criticize her, inasmuch as to me she has been more than generous. Well, I
shall preserve her friendship by the infallible recipe of keeping out of her
way. Oh, but I shall certainly keep out of her way now that I have per-
ceived what is done to the men who serve her."

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 And after that Jurgen and Chloris lived very pleasantly together,
though Jurgen began to find his Hamadryad a trifle unperceptive, if not
actually obtuse.
"She does not understand me, and she does not always treat my super-
ior wisdom quite respectfully. That is unfair, but it seems to be an un-
avoidable feature of married life. Besides, if any woman had ever under-
stood me she would, in self-protection, have refused to marry me. In any
case, Chloris is a dear brown plump delicious partridge of a darling: and
cleverness in women is, after all, a virtue misplaced."
And Jurgen did not return into the Woods, nor did he go down into
the city. Neither the People of the Field nor of the Wood, of course, ever
went within city gates. "But I would think that you would like to see the
fine sights of Pseudopolis," says Chloris,—"and that fine Queen of
theirs," she added, almost as though she spoke without premeditation.
"Woman dear," says Jurgen, "I do not wish to appear boastful. But in
Eubonia, now! well, really some day we must return to my kingdom,
and you shall inspect for yourself a dozen or two of my cities—Ziph and
Eglington and Poissieux and Gazden and Bäremburg, at all events. And
then you will concede with me that this little village of Pseudopolis,
while well enough in its way—!" And Jurgen shrugged. "But as for say-
ing more!"
"Sometimes," said Chloris, "I wonder if there is any such place as your
fine kingdom of Eubonia: for certainly it grows larger and more splendid
every time you talk of it."
"Now can it be," asks Jurgen, more hurt than angry, "that you suspect
me of uncandid dealing and, in short, of being an impostor!"
"Why, what does it matter? You are Jurgen," she answered, happily.
And the man was moved as she smiled at him across the glowing
queer embroidery-work at which Chloris seemed to labor interminably:
he was conscious of a tenderness for her which was oddly remorseful:
and it appeared to him that if he had known lovelier women he had cer-
tainly found nowhere anyone more lovable than was this plump and
busy and sunny-tempered little wife of his.
"My dear, I do not care to see Queen Helen again, and that is a fact. I
am contented here, with a wife befitting my station, suited to my endow-
ments, and infinitely excelling my deserts."
"And do you think of that tow-headed bean-pole very often, King
Jurgen?"
"That is unfair, and you wrong me, Chloris, with these unmerited sus-
picions. It pains me to reflect, my dear, that you esteem the tie between

151
us so lightly you can consider me capable of breaking it even in
thought."
"To talk of fairness is all very well, but it is no answer to a plain
question."
Jurgen looked full at her; and he laughed. "You women are so unscru-
pulously practical. My dear, I have seen Queen Helen face to face. But it
is you whom I love as a man customarily loves a woman."
"That is not saying much."
"No: for I endeavor to speak in consonance with my importance. You
forget that I have also seen Achilles."
"But you admired Achilles! You told me so yourself."
"I admired the perfections of Achilles, but I cordially dislike the man
who possesses them. Therefore I shall keep away from both the King and
Queen of Pseudopolis."
"Yet you will not go into the Woods, either, Jurgen—"
"Not after what I have witnessed there," said Jurgen, with an exagger-
ated shudder that was not very much exaggerated.
Now Chloris laughed, and quitted her queer embroidery in order to
rumple up his hair. "And you find the People of the Field so insufferably
stupid, and so uninterested by your Zorobasiuses and Ptolemopiters and
so on, that you keep away from them also. O foolish man of mine, you
are determined to be neither fish nor beast nor poultry and nowhere will
you ever consent to be happy.
"It was not I who determined my nature, Chloris: and as for being
happy, I make no complaint. Indeed, I have nothing to complain of,
nowadays. So I am very well contented by my dear wife and by my man-
ner of living in Leukê," said Jurgen, with a sigh.

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Chapter 29
Concerning Horvendile's Nonsense
It was on a bright and tranquil day in November, at the period which the
People of the Field called the summer of Alcyonê, that Jurgen went
down from the forest; and after skirting the moats of Pseudopolis, and
avoiding a meeting with any of the town's dispiritingly glorious inhabit-
ants, Jurgen came to the seashore.
Chloris had suggested his doing this, in order that she could have a
chance to straighten things in his cabin while she was tidying her tree for
the winter, and could so make one day's work serve for two. For the dry-
ad of an oak-tree has large responsibilities, what with the care of so
many dead leaves all winter, and the acorns being blown from their
places and littering up the ground everywhere, and the bark cracking
until it looks positively disreputable: and Jurgen was at any such work
less a help than a hindrance. So Chloris gave him a parcel of lunch and a
perfunctory kiss, and told him to go down to the seashore and get in-
spired and make up a pretty poem about her. "And do you be back in
time for an early supper, Jurgen," says she, "but not a minute before."
Thus it befell that Jurgen reflectively ate his lunch in solitude, and re-
garded the Euxine. The sun was high, and the queer shadow that fol-
lowed Jurgen was huddled into shapelessness.
"This is indeed an inspiring spectacle," Jurgen reflected. "How puny
seems the race of man, in contrast with this mighty sea, which now
spreads before me like, as So-and-so has very strikingly observed, a
something or other under such and such conditions!" Then Jurgen
shrugged. "Really, now I think of it, though, there is no call for me to be
suffused with the traditional emotions. It looks like a great deal of water,
and like nothing else in particular. And I cannot but consider the water is
behaving rather futilely."
So he sat in drowsy contemplation of the sea. Far out a shadow would
form on the water, like the shadow of a broadish plank, scudding shore-
ward, and lengthening and darkening as it approached. Presently it

153
would be some hundred feet in length, and would assume a hard
smooth darkness, like that of green stone: this was the under side of the
wave. Then the top of it would curdle, the southern end of the wave
would collapse, and with exceeding swiftness this white feathery falling
would plunge and scamper and bluster northward, the full length of the
wave. It would be neater and more workmanlike to have each wave
tumble down as a whole. From the smacking and the splashing, what
looked like boiling milk would thrust out over the brown sleek sands:
and as the mess spread it would thin to a reticulated whiteness, like lace,
and then to the appearance of smoke sprays clinging to the sands.
Plainly the tide was coming in.
Or perhaps it was going out. Jurgen's notions as to such phenomena
were vague. But, either way, the sea was stirring up a large commotion
and a rather pleasant and invigorating odor.
And then all this would happen once more: and then it would happen
yet again. It had happened a number of hundred of times since Jurgen
first sat down to eat his lunch: and what was gained by it? The sea was
behaving stupidly. There was no sense in this continual sloshing and
spanking and scrabbling and spluttering.
Thus Jurgen, as he nodded over the remnants of his lunch.
"Sheer waste of energy, I am compelled to call it," said Jurgen, aloud,
just as he noticed there were two other men on this long beach.
One came from the north, one from the south, so that they met not far
from where Jurgen was sitting: and by an incredible coincidence Jurgen
had known both of these men in his first youth. So he hailed them, and
they recognized him at once. One of these travellers was the Horvendile
who had been secretary to Count Emmerick when Jurgen was a lad: and
the other was Perion de la Forêt, that outlaw who had come to Belleg-
arde very long ago disguised as the Vicomte de Puysange. And all three
of these old acquaintances had kept their youth surprisingly.
Now Horvendile and Perion marveled at the fine shirt which Jurgen
was wearing.
"Why, you must know," he said, modestly, "that I have lately become
King of Eubonia, and must dress according to my station."
So they said they had always expected some such high honor to befall
him, and then the three of them fell to talking. And Perion told how he
had come through Pseudopolis, on his way to King Theodoret at Lacre
Kai, and how in the market-place at Pseudopolis he had seen Queen
Helen. "She is a very lovely lady," said Perion, "and I marvelled over her
resemblance to Count Emmerick's fair sister, whom we all remember."

154
 "I noticed that at once," said Horvendile, and he smiled strangely,
"when I, too, passed through the city."
"Why, but nobody could fail to notice it," said Jurgen.
"It is not, of course, that I consider her to be as lovely as Dame Meli-
cent," continued Perion, "since, as I have contended in all quarters of the
world, there has never lived, and will never live, any woman so beautiful
as Melicent. But you gentlemen appear surprised by what seems to me a
very simple statement. Your air, in fine, is one that forces me to point out
it is a statement I can permit nobody to deny." And Perion's honest eyes
had narrowed unpleasantly, and his sun-browned countenance was un-
comfortably stern.
"Dear sir," said Jurgen, hastily, "it was merely that it appeared to me
the lady whom they call Queen Helen hereabouts is quite evidently
Count Emmerick's sister Dorothy la Désirée."
"Whereas I recognized her at once," says Horvendile, "as Count
Emmerick's third sister, La Beale Ettarre."
And now they stared at one another, for it was certain that these three
sisters were not particularly alike.
"Putting aside any question of eyesight," observes Perion, "it is indis-
putable that the language of both of you is distorted. For one of you says
this is Madame Dorothy, and the other says this is Madame Ettarre:
whereas everybody knows that this Queen Helen, whomever she may
resemble, cannot possibly be anybody else save Queen Helen."
"To you, who are always the same person," replied Jurgen, "that may
sound reasonable. For my part, I am several people: and I detect no in-
congruity in other persons' resembling me."
"There would be no incongruity anywhere," suggested Horvendile, "if
Queen Helen were the woman whom we had loved in vain. For the wo-
man whom when we were young we loved in vain is the one woman
that we can never see quite clearly, whatever happens. So we might eas-
ily, I suppose, confuse her with some other woman."
"But Melicent is the lady whom I have loved in vain," said Perion, "and
I care nothing whatever about Queen Helen. Why should I? What do you
mean now, Horvendile, by your hints that I have faltered in my con-
stancy to Dame Melicent since I saw Queen Helen? I do not like such
hints."
"No less, it is Ettarre whom I love, and have loved not quite in vain,
and have loved unfalteringly," says Horvendile, with his quiet smile:
"and I am certain that it was Ettarre whom I beheld when I looked upon
Queen Helen."

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 "I may confess," says Jurgen, clearing his throat, "that I have always re-
garded Madame Dorothy with peculiar respect and admiration. For the
rest, I am married. Even so, I think that Madame Dorothy is Queen
Helen."
Then they fell to debating this mystery. And presently Perion said the
one way out was to leave the matter to Queen Helen. "She at all events
must know who she is. So do one of you go back into the city, and em-
brace her knees as is the custom of this country when one implores a fa-
vor of the King or the Queen: and do you then ask her fairly."
"Not I," says Jurgen. "I am upon terms of some intimacy with a hama-
dryad just at present. I am content with my Hamadryad. And I intend
never to venture into the presence of Queen Helen any more, in order to
preserve my contentment."
"Why, but I cannot go," says Perion, "because Dame Melicent has a
little mole upon her left cheek. And Queen Helen's cheek is flawless. You
understand, of course, that I am certain this mole immeasurably en-
hances the beauty of Dame Melicent," he added, loyally. "None the less, I
mean to hold no further traffic with Queen Helen."
"Now my reason for not going is this," said Horvendile:—"that if I at-
tempted to embrace the knees of Ettarre, whom people hereabouts call
Helen, she would instantly vanish. Other matters apart, I do not wish to
bring any such misfortune upon the Island of Leukê."
"But that," said Perion, "is nonsense."
"Of course it is," said Horvendile. "That is probably why it happens."
So none of them would go. And each of them clung, none the less, to
his own opinion about Queen Helen. And presently Perion said they
were wasting both time and words. Then Perion bade the two farewell,
and Perion continued southward, toward Lacre Kai. And as he went he
sang a song in honor of Dame Melicent, whom he celebrated as Heart o'
My Heart: and the two who heard him agreed that Perion de la Forêt
was probably the worst poet in the world.
"Nevertheless, there goes a very chivalrous and worthy gentleman,"
said Horvendile, "intent to play out the remainder of his romance. I won-
der if the Author gets much pleasure from these simple characters? At
least they must be easy to handle."
"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 can-
not understand any other person's romance, but misinterprets

156
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 red-
dish 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 conceiv-
ably 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."

157
 "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 Hor-
vendile 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.

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Chapter 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 ab-
horred 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 in-
significant. 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 de-
sired 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.

159
 "Your pardon, gentlemen of Greece," says he, with a wide ceremoni-
ous 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 bed-
room of Achilles, King of Men, treading a-tip-toe; and so came at last in-
to 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 observ-
ance 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 Jur-
gen 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 im-
probabilities 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, al-
though the two were curiously alike; and that of the two this woman
here was, somehow, infinitely the lovelier.

160
 "Lady, if you indeed be the Swan's daughter, long and long ago there
was a child 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, be-
cause 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 al-
ways 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 incon-
veniently 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 en-
feebled 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.

161
 "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."

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Chapter 31
The Fall of Pseudopolis
So Jurgen abode in Leukê, and complied with the customs of that coun-
try; 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 Pseudo-
polis, 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

163
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 Pseudopol-
is. 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 there-
into without any opposition. They defiled this city of blasphemous col-
ors, 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 Si-
lenus: 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."

164
 "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 hu-
miliating. But I will take the very best of care of you, and feed you with
my own acorns, and it will be a purely temporary 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 natur-
al 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.

165
Chapter 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.
"The People of the Field," said they, "have never fought, and for them
to begin now would be a very unheard-of thing indeed."
So the Fields were captured by the Philistines, and Chloris and Jurgen
and all the People of the Field were judged summarily. They were de-
clared to be obsolete illusions, whose merited doom was to be relegated
to limbo. To Jurgen this appeared unreasonable.
"For I am no illusion," he asserted. "I am manifestly flesh and blood,
and in addition, I am the high King of Eubonia, and no less. Why, in dis-
puting these facts you contest circumstances that are so well known
hereabouts as to rank among mathematical certainties. And that makes
you look foolish, as I tell you for your own good."
This vexed the leaders of the Philistines, as it always vexes people to
be told anything for their own good. "We would have you know," said
they, "that we are not mathematicians; and that moreover, we have no
kings in Philistia, where all must do what seems to be expected of them,
and have no other law."
"How then can you be the leaders of Philistia?"
"Why, it is expected that women and priests should behave unaccount-
ably. Therefore all we who are women or priests do what we will in Phil-
istia, and the men there obey us. And it is we, the priests of Philistia,
who do not think you can possibly have any flesh and blood under a
shirt which we recognize to be a conventional figure of speech. It does
not stand to reason. And certainly you could not ever prove such a thing
by mathematics; and to say so is nonsense."
"But I can prove it by mathematics, quite irrefutably. I can prove any-
thing you require of me by whatever means you may prefer," said

166
Jurgen, modestly, "for the simple reason that I am a monstrous clever
fellow."
Then spoke the wise Queen Dolores, saying: "I have studied mathem-
atics. I will question this young man, in my tent to-night, and in the
morning I will report the truth as to his claims. Are you content to en-
dure this interrogatory, my spruce young fellow who wear the shirt of a
king?"
Jurgen looked full upon her: she was lovely as a hawk is lovely: and of
all that Jurgen saw Jurgen approved. He assumed the rest to be in keep-
ing: and deduced that Dolores was a fine woman.
"Madame and Queen," said Jurgen, "I am content. And I can promise
to deal fairly with you."
So that evening Jurgen was conducted into the purple tent of Queen
Dolores of Philistia. It was quite dark there, and Jurgen went in alone,
and wondering what would happen next: but this scented darkness he
found of excellent augury, if only because it prevented his shadow from
following him.
"Now, you who claim to be flesh and blood, and King of Eubonia, too,"
says the voice of Queen Dolores, "what is this nonsense you were talking
about proving any such claims by mathematics?"
"Well, but my mathematics," replied Jurgen, "are Praxagorean."
"What, do you mean Praxagoras of Cos?"
"As if," scoffed Jurgen, "anybody had ever heard of any other
Praxagoras!"
"But he, as I recall, belonged to the medical school of the Dogmatici,"
observed the wise Queen Dolores, "and was particularly celebrated for
his researches in anatomy. Was he, then, also a mathematician?"
"The two are not incongruous, madame, as I would be delighted to
demonstrate."
"Oh, nobody said that! For, indeed, it does seem to me I have heard of
this Praxagorean system of mathematics, though, I confess, I have never
studied it."
"Our school, madame, postulates, first of all, that since the science of
mathematics is an abstract science, it is best inculcated by some concrete
example."
Said the Queen: "But that sounds rather complicated."
"It occasionally leads to complications," Jurgen admitted, "through a
choice of the wrong example. But the axiom is no less true."
"Come, then, and sit next to me on this couch if you can find it in the
dark; and do you explain to me what you mean."

167
 "Why, madame, by a concrete example I mean one that is perceptible
to any of the senses—as to sight or hearing, or touch—"
"Oh, oh!" said the Queen, "now I perceive what you mean by a con-
crete example. And grasping this, I can understand that complications
must of course arise from a choice of the wrong example."
"Well, then, madame, it is first necessary to implant in you, by the
force of example, a lively sense of the peculiar character, and virtues and
properties, of each of the numbers upon which is based the whole sci-
ence of Praxagorean mathematics. For in order to convince you thor-
oughly, we must start far down, at the beginning of all things."
"I see," said the Queen, "or rather, in this darkness I cannot see at all,
but I perceive your point. Your opening interests me: and you may go
on."
"Now ONE, or the monad," says Jurgen, "is the principle and the end
of all: it reveals the sublime knot which binds together the chain of
causes: it is the symbol of identity, of equality, of existence, of conserva-
tion, and of general harmony." And Jurgen emphasized these character-
istics vigorously. "In brief, ONE is a symbol of the union of things: it in-
troduces that generating virtue which is the cause of all combinations:
and consequently ONE is a good principle."
"Ah, ah!" said Queen Dolores, "I heartily admire a good principle. But
what has become of your concrete example?"
"It is ready for you, madame: there is but ONE Jurgen."
"Oh, I assure you, I am not yet convinced of that. Still, the audacity of
your example will help me to remember ONE, whether or not you prove
to be really unique."
"Now, TWO, or the dyad, the origin of contrasts—"
Jurgen went on penetratingly to demonstrate that TWO was a symbol
of diversity and of restlessness and of disorder, ending in collapse and
separation: and was accordingly an evil principle. Thus was the life of
every man made wretched by the struggle between his TWO compon-
ents, his soul and his body; and thus was the rapture of expectant par-
ents considerably abated by the advent of TWINS.
THREE, or the triad, however, since everything was composed of three
substances, contained the most sublime mysteries, which Jurgen duly
communicated. We must remember, he pointed out, that Zeus carried a
TRIPLE thunderbolt, and Poseidon a TRIDENT, whereas Adês was
guarded by a dog with THREE heads: this in addition to the omnipotent
brothers themselves being a TRIO.

168
 Thus Jurgen continued to impart the Praxagorean significance of each
digit separately: and by and by the Queen was declaring his flow of wis-
dom was superhuman.
"Ah, but, madame, not even the wisdom of a king is without limit.
EIGHT, I repeat, then, is appropriately the number of the Beatitudes.
And NINE, or the ennead, also, being the multiple of THREE, should be
regarded as sacred—"
The Queen attended docilely to his demonstration of the peculiar
properties of NINE. And when he had ended she confessed that beyond
doubt NINE should be regarded as miraculous. But she repudiated his
analogues as to the muses, the lives of a cat, and how many tailors made
a man.
"Rather, I shall remember always," she declared, "that King Jurgen of
Eubonia is a NINE days' wonder."
"Well, madame," said Jurgen, with a sigh, "now that we have reached
NINE, I regret to say we have exhausted the digits."
"Oh, what a pity!" cried Queen Dolores. "Nevertheless, I will concede
the only illustration I disputed; there is but ONE Jurgen: and certainly
this Praxagorean system of mathematics is a fascinating study." And
promptly she commenced to plan Jurgen's return with her into Philistia,
so that she might perfect herself in the higher branches of mathematics.
"For you must teach me calculus and geometry and all other sciences in
which these digits are employed. We can arrange some compromise with
the priests. That is always possible with the priests of Philistia, and in-
deed the priests of Sesphra can be made to help anybody in anything.
And as for your Hamadryad, I will attend to her myself."
"But, no," says Jurgen, "I am ready enough in all conscience to com-
promise elsewhere: but to compound with the forces of Philistia is the
one thing I cannot do."
"Do you mean that, King Jurgen?" The Queen was astounded.
"I mean it, my dear, as I mean nothing else. You are in many ways an
admirable people, and you are in all ways a formidable people. So I ad-
mire, I dread, I avoid, and at the very last pinch I defy. For you are not
my people, and willy-nilly my gorge rises against your laws, as equally
insane and abhorrent. Mind you, though, I assert nothing. You may be
right in attributing wisdom to these laws; and certainly I cannot go so far
as to say you are wrong: but still, at the same time—! That is the way I
feel about it. So I, who compromise with everything else, can make no
compromise with Philistia. No, my adored Dolores, it is not a virtue,
rather it is an instinct with me, and I have no choice."

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 Even Dolores, who was Queen of all the Philistines, could perceive
that this man spoke truthfully. "I am sorry," says she, with real regret,
"for you could be much run after in Philistia."
"Yes," said Jurgen, "as an instructor in mathematics."
"But, no, King Jurgen, not only in mathematics," said Dolores, reason-
ably. "There is poetry, for instance! For they tell me you are a poet, and a
great many of my people take poetry quite seriously, I believe. Of course,
I do not have much time for reading, myself. So you can be the Poet
Laureate of Philistia, on any salary you like. And you can teach us all
your ideas by writing beautiful poems about them. And you and I can be
very happy together."
"Teach, teach! there speaks Philistia, and very temptingly, too, through
an adorable mouth, that would bribe me with praise and fine food and
soft days forever. It is a thing that happens rather often, though. And I
can but repeat that art is not a branch of pedagogy!"
"Really I am heartily sorry. For apart from mathematics, I like you,
King Jurgen, just as a person."
"I, too, am sorry, Dolores. For I confess to a weakness for the women of
Philistia."
"Certainly you have given me no cause to suspect you of any weak-
ness in that quarter," observed Dolores, "in the long while you have been
alone with me, and have talked so wisely and have reasoned so deeply. I
am afraid that after to-night I shall find all other men more or less super-
ficial. Heigho! and I shall probably weep my eyes out to-morrow when
you are relegated to limbo. For that is what the priests will do with you,
King Jurgen, on one plea or another, if you do not conform to the laws of
Philistia."
"And that one compromise I cannot make! Ah, but even now I have a
plan wherewith to escape your priests: and failing that, I possess a
cantrap to fall back upon in my hour of direst need. My private affairs
are thus not yet in a hopeless or even in a dejected condition. This fact
now urges me to observe that TEN, or the decade, is the measure of all,
since it contains all the numeric relations and harmonies—"
So they continued their study of mathematics until it was time for Jur-
gen to appear again before his judges.
And in the morning Queen Dolores sent word to her priests that she
was too sleepy to attend their council, but that the man was indisputably
flesh and blood, amply deserved to be a king, and as a mathematician
had not his peer.

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 Now these points being settled, the judges conferred, and Jurgen was
decreed a backslider into the ways of undesirable error. His judges were
the priests of Vel-Tyno and Sesphra and Ageus, who are the Gods of
Philistia.
Then the priest of Ageus put on his spectacles and consulted the ca-
nonical law, and declared that this change in the indictment necessitated
a severance of Jurgen from the others, in the infliction of punishment.
"For each, of course, must be relegated to the limbo of his fathers, as
was foretold, in order that the prophecies may be fulfilled. Religion lan-
guishes when prophecies are not fulfilled. Now it appears that the fore-
fathers of the flesh and blood prisoner were of a different faith from the
progenitors of these obsolete illusions, and that his fathers foretold quite
different things, and that their limbo was called Hell."
"It is little you know," says Jurgen, "of the religion of Eubonia."
"We have it written down in this great book," the priest of Vel-Tyno
then told him,—"every word of it without blot or error."
"Then you will see that the King of Eubonia is the head of the church
there, and changes all the prophecies at will. Learned Gowlais says so
directly: and the judicious Stevegonius was forced to agree with him,
however unwillingly, as you will instantly discover by consulting the
third section of his widely famous nineteenth chapter."
"Both Gowlais and Stevegonius were probably notorious heretics,"
says the priest of Ageus. "I believe that was settled once for all at the Diet
of Orthumar."
"Eh!" says Jurgen. He did not like this priest. "Now I will wager, sirs,"
Jurgen continued, a trifle patronizingly, "that you gentlemen have not
read Gowlais, or even Stevegonius, in the light of Vossler's commentar-
ies. And that is why you underrate them."
"I at least have read every word that was ever written by any of these
three," replied the priest of Sesphra—"and with, as I need hardly say, the
liveliest abhorrence. And this Gowlais in particular, as I hasten to agree
with my learned confrère, is a most notorious heretic—"
"Oh, sir," said Jurgen, horrified, "whatever are you telling me about
Gowlais!"
"I tell you that I have been roused to indignation by his Historia de Bello
Veneris—"
"You surprise me: still—"
"—Shocked by his Pornoboscodidascolo—"
"I can hardly believe it: even so, you must grant—"
"—And horrified by his Liber de immortalitate Mentulæ—"

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 "Well, conceding you that earlier work, sir, yet, at the same time—"
"—And have been disgusted by his De modo coeundi—"
"Ah, but, none the less—"
"—And have shuddered over the unspeakable enormities of his Ero-
topægnion! of his Cinædica! and especially of his Epipedesis, that most pes-
tilential and abominable book, quem sine horrore nemo potest legere—"
"Still, you cannot deny—"
"—And have read also all the confutations of this detestable Gowlais:
as those of Zanchius, Faventinus, Lelius Vincentius, Lagalla, Thomas
Giaminus, and eight other admirable commentators—"
"You are very exact, sir: but—"
"—And that, in short, I have read every book you can imagine," says
the priest of Sesphra.
The shoulders of Jurgen rose to his ears, and Jurgen silently flung out
his hands, palms upward.
"For, I perceive," says Jurgen, to himself, "that this Realist is too cir-
cumstantial for me. None the less, he invents his facts: it is by citing
books which never existed that he publicly confutes the Gowlais whom I
invented privately: and that is not fair. Now there remains only one
chance for Jurgen; but luckily that chance is sure."
"Why are you fumbling in your pocket?" asks the old priest of Ageus,
fidgeting and peering.
"Aha, you may well ask!" cried Jurgen. He unfolded the cantrap which
had been given him by the Master Philologist, and which Jurgen had
treasured against the time when more was needed than a glib tongue. "O
most unrighteous judges," says Jurgen, sternly, "now hear and tremble!
'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!'"
"Hah, and what have we to do with that?" inquired the priest of Vel-
Tyno, with raised eyebrows. "Why are you telling us of these irrelevant
matters?"
"Because I thought it would interest you," said Jurgen. "It was a fact
that appeared to me rather amusing. So I thought I would mention it."
"Then you have very queer ideas of amusement," they told him. And
Jurgen perceived that either he had not employed his cantrap correctly
or else that its magic was unappreciated by the leaders of Philistia.

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Chapter 33
Farewell to Chloris
Now the Philistines led out their prisoners, and made ready to inflict the
doom which was decreed. And they permitted the young King of Eu-
bonia to speak with Chloris.
"Farewell to you now, Jurgen!" says Chloris, weeping softly. "It is little
I care what foolish words these priests of Philistia may utter against me.
But the big-armed axemen are felling my tree yonder, to get them timber
to make a bedstead for the Queen of Philistia: for that is what this Queen
Dolores ordered them to do the first thing this morning."
And Jurgen raised his hands. "You women!" he said. "What man
would ever have thought of that?"
"So when my tree is felled I must depart into a sombre land wherein
there is no laughter at all; and where the puzzled dead go wandering fu-
tilely through fields of scentless asphodel, and through tall sullen groves
of myrtle,—the puzzled quiet dead, who may not even weep as I do
now, but can only wonder what it is that they regret. And I too must
taste of Lethê, and forget all I have loved."
"You should give thanks to the imagination of your forefathers, my
dear, that your doom is no worse. For I am going into a more barbaric
limbo, into the Hell of a people who thought entirely too much about
flames and pitchforks," says Jurgen, ruefully. "I tell you it is the deuce
and all, to come of morbid ancestry." And he kissed Chloris, upon the
brow. "My dear, dear girl," he said, with a gulp, "as long as you remem-
ber me, do so with charity."
"Jurgen"—and she clung close to him—"you were not ever unkind, not
even for a moment. Jurgen, you have not ever spoken one harsh word to
me or any other person, in all the while we were together. O Jurgen,
whom I have loved as you could love nobody, it was not much those
other women had left me to worship!"
"Indeed, it is a pity that you loved me, Chloris, for I was not worthy."
And for the instant Jurgen meant it.

173
 "If any other person said that, Jurgen, I would be very angry. And
even to hear you say it troubles me, because there was never a hamadry-
ad between two hills that had a husband one-half so clever-foolish as he
made light of time and chance, with his sleek black head cocked to one
side, and his mischievous brown eyes a-twinkle."
And Jurgen wondered that this should be the notion Chloris had of
him, and that a gesture should be the things she remembered about him:
and he was doubly assured that no woman bothers to understand the
man she elects to love and cosset and slave for.
"O woman dear," says Jurgen, "but I have loved you, and my heart is
water now that you are taken from me: and to remember your ways and
the joy I had in them will be a big and grinding sorrow in the long time
to come. Oh, not with any heroic love have I loved you, nor with any
madness and high dreams, nor with much talking either; but with a love
befitting my condition, with a quiet and cordial love."
"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 Jur-
gen. 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.

174
 "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 hurry-
ing. 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 appoint-
ment 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 noth-
ing 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 deliberate-
ness 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 com-
promise 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.

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 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.

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Chapter 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 ti-
ger, 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 Em-
peror 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, doubt-
fully, "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?"

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 "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 un-
dictatorial human being in Hell. Nobody as a rule drops in on us save in-
ordinately proud and conscientious ghosts, whose self-conceit is intoler-
able, and whose demands are outrageous."
"How can that be?"
"Why, we have to punish them. Of course they are not properly pun-
ished 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 fore-
fathers 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 pi-
tiful: 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 Phle-
geton: 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, espe-
cially 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.

178
 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 Canna-
gosta; "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 recog-
nize 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 al-
ways deeper and yet deeper into the lowlands of Hell, until they had
come to Barathum.

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Chapter 35
What Grandfather Satan Reported
Next the tale tells how three inferior devils made a loud music with bag-
pipes 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 car-
dinals 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

180
manufacture of linen and woolen cloth and gloves and cameos and
brandy, though the majority of my subjects are engaged in cattle-breed-
ing 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 mat-
ters. In any event, you Emperor Jurgen, by what authority do you ques-
tion Satan, in Satan's home?"
"I have heard that word which the ass spoke with the cat," replied Jur-
gen; 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 forefath-
ers walking about it exultant in the enormity of their sins and in the ter-
rible punishments they expected in requital. Now Koshchei will do al-
most 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 contem-
plates 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

181
should be named John the Twentieth, was through an error in the reck-
oning 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 con-
sequence, 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 incor-
rectly 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.

182
Chapter 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 ad-
equate 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, Jur-
gen, did you become an emperor?"
"Oh, sir, and is this a place wherein to talk about mere earthly dignit-
ies? 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 con-
science. 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 re-
ceive, and you can imagine my feelings. None the less, sir, that also was
fifty years ago, and nobody is bothering over it now."

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 "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."
"Sir," said a panting little fiend, in the form of a tadpole with hairy
arms and legs like a monkey's, as he ran up with four bundles of faggots,
"we are doing the very best we can for your discomfort. But you damned
have no consideration for us, and do not remember that we are on our
feet day and night, waiting upon you," said the little devil, whimpering,
as with his pitchfork he raked up the fire about Coth. "You do not even
remember the upset condition of the country, on account of the war with
Heaven, which makes it so hard for us to get you all the inconveniences
of life. Instead, you lounge in your flames, and complain about the ser-
vice, and Grandfather Satan punishes us, and it is not fair."
"I think, myself," said Jurgen, "you should be gentler with the boy.
And as for your crimes, sir, come, will you not conquer this pride which
you nickname conscience, and concede that after any man has been dead
a little while it does not matter at all what he did? Why, about Bellegarde
no one ever thinks of your throat-cutting and Sabbath-breaking except
when very old people gossip over the fire, and your wickedness bright-
ens up the evening for them. To the rest of us you are just a stone in the
churchyard which describes you as a paragon of all the virtues. And out-
side of Bellegarde, sir, your name and deeds mean nothing now to any-
body, and no one anywhere remembers you. So really your wickedness
is not bothering any person now save these poor toiling devils: and I
think that, in consequence, you might consent to put up with such tor-
ments as they can conveniently contrive, without complaining so ill-
temperedly about it."
"Ah, but my conscience, Jurgen! that is the point."
"Oh, if you continue to talk about your conscience, sir, you restrict the
conversation to matters I do not understand, and so cannot discuss. But I
dare say we will find occasion to thresh out this, and all other matters, by

184
and by: and you and I will make the best of this place, for now I will nev-
er leave you."
Coth began to weep: and he said that his sins in the flesh had been too
heinous for this comfort to be permitted him in the unendurable torment
which he had fairly earned, and hoped some day to come by.
"Do you care about me, one way or the other, then?" says Jurgen, quite
astounded.
And from the midst of his flame Coth, the son of Smoit, talked of the
birth of Jurgen, and of the infant that had been Jurgen, and of the child
that had been Jurgen. And a horrible, deep, unreasonable emotion
moved in Jurgen as he listened to the man who had begotten him, and
whose flesh was Jurgen's flesh, and whose thoughts had not ever been
Jurgen's thoughts: and Jurgen did not like it. Then the voice of Coth was
bitterly changed, as he talked of the young man that had been Jurgen, of
the young man who was idle and rebellious and considerate of nothing
save his own light desires; and of the division which had arisen between
Jurgen and Jurgen's father Coth spoke likewise: and Jurgen felt better
now, but was still grieved to know how much his father had once loved
him.
"It is lamentably true," says Jurgen, "that I was an idle and rebellious
son. So I did not follow your teachings. I went astray, oh, very terribly
astray. I even went astray, sir I must tell you, with a nature myth connec-
ted with the Moon."
"Oh, hideous abomination of the heathen!"
"And she considered, sir, that thereafter I was likely to become a solar
legend."
"I should not wonder," said Coth, and he shook his bald and dome-
shaped head despondently. "Ah, my son, it simply shows you what
comes of these wild courses."
"And in that event, I would, of course, be released from sojourning in
the underworld by the Spring Equinox. Do you not think so, sir?" says
Jurgen, very coaxingly, because he remembered that, according to Satan,
whatever Coth believed would be the truth in Hell.
"I am sure," said Coth—"why, I am sure I do not know anything about
such matters."
"Yes, but what do you think?"
"I do not think about it at all."
"Yes, but—"
"Jurgen, you have a very uncivil habit of arguing with people—"
"Still, sir—"

185
 "And I have spoken to you about it before—"
"Yet, father—"
"And I do not wish to have to speak to you about it again—"
"None the less, sir—"
"And when I say that I have no opinion—"
"But everybody has an opinion, father!" Jurgen shouted this, and felt it
was quite like old times.
"How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice, sir!"
"But I only meant—"
"Do not lie to me, Jurgen! and stop interrupting me! For, as I was say-
ing when you began to yell at your father as though you were address-
ing an unreasonable person, it is my opinion that I know nothing
whatever about Equinoxes! and do not care to know anything about
Equinoxes, I would have you understand! and that the less said as to
such disreputable topics the better, as I tell you to your face!"
And Jurgen groaned. "Here is a pretty father! If you had thought so, it
would have happened. But you imagine me in a place like this, and have
not sufficient fairness, far less paternal affection, to imagine me out of it."
"I can only think of your well merited affliction, you quarrelsome
scoundrel! and of the host of light women with whom you have sinned!
and of the doom which has befallen you in consequence!"
"Well, at worst," says Jurgen, "there are no women here. That ought to
be a comfort to you."
"I think there are women here," snapped his father. "It is reputed that
quite a number of women have had consciences. But these conscientious
women are probably kept separate from us men, in some other part of
Hell, for the reason that if they were admitted into Chorasma they would
attempt to tidy the place and make it habitable. I know your mother
would have been meddling out of hand."
"Oh, sir, and must you still be finding fault with mother?"
"Your mother, Jurgen, was in many ways an admirable woman. But,"
said Coth, "she did not understand me."
"Ah, well, that may have been the trouble. Still, all this you say about
women being here is mere guess-work."
"It is not!" said Coth, "and I want none of your impudence, either. How
many times must I tell you that?"
Jurgen scratched his ear reflectively. For he still remembered what
Grandfather Satan had said, and Coth's irritation seemed promising.
"Well, but the women here are all ugly, I wager."

186
 "They are not!" said his father, angrily. "Why do you keep contradict-
ing me?"
"Because you do not know what you are talking about," says Jurgen,
egging him on. "How could there be any pretty women in this horrible
place? For the soft flesh would be burned away from their little bones,
and the loveliest of queens would be reduced to a horrid cinder."
"I think there are any number of vampires and succubi and such
creatures, whom the flames do not injure at all, because these creatures
are informed with an ardor that is unquenchable and is more hot than
fire. And you understand perfectly what I mean, so there is no need for
you to stand there goggling at me like a horrified abbess!"
"Oh, sir, but you know very well that I would have nothing to do with
such unregenerate persons."
"I do not know anything of the sort. You are probably lying to me. You
always lied to me. I think you are on your way to meet a vampire now."
"What, sir, a hideous creature with fangs and leathery wings!"
"No, but a very poisonous and seductively beautiful creature."
"Come, now! you do not really think she is beautiful."
"I do think so. How dare you tell me what I think and do not think!"
"Ah, well, I shall have nothing to do with her."
"I think you will," said his father: "ah, but I think you will be up to
your tricks with her before this hour is out. For do I not know what em-
perors are? and do I not know you?"
And Coth fell to talking of Jurgen's past, in the customary terms of a
family squabble, such as are not very nicely repeatable elsewhere. And
the fiends who had been tormenting Coth withdrew in embarrassment,
and so long as Coth continued talking they kept out of earshot.

187
Chapter 37
Invention of the Lovely Vampire
So again Coth parted with his son in anger, and Jurgen returned again
toward Barathum; and, whether or not it was a coincidence, Jurgen met
precisely the vampire of whom he had inveigled his father into thinking.
She was the most seductively beautiful creature that it would be possible
for Jurgen's father or any other man to imagine: and her clothes were
orange-colored, for a reason sufficiently well known in Hell, and were
embroidered everywhere with green fig-leaves.
"A good morning to you, madame," says Jurgen, "and whither are you
going?"
"Why, to no place at all, good youth. For this is my vacation, granted
yearly by the Law of Kalki—"
"And who is Kalki, madame?"
"Nobody as yet: but he will come as a stallion. Meanwhile his Law pre-
cedes him, so that I am spending my vacation peacefully in Hell, with
none of my ordinary annoyances to bother me."
"And what, madame, can they be?"
"Why, you must understand that it is little rest a vampire gets on
earth, with so many fine young fellows like yourself going about every-
where eager to be destroyed."
"But how, madame, did you happen to become a vampire if the life
does not please you? And what is it that they call you?"
"My name, sir," replied the Vampire, sorrowfully, "is Florimel, because
my nature no less than my person was as beautiful as the flowers of the
field and as sweet as the honey which the bees (who furnish us with such
admirable examples of industry) get out of these flowers. But a sad mis-
fortune changed all this. For I chanced one day to fall ill and die (which,
of course, might happen to anyone), and as my funeral was leaving the
house the cat jumped over my coffin. That was a terrible misfortune to
befall a poor dead girl so generally respected, and in wide demand as a
seamstress; though, even then, the worst might have been averted had

188
not my sister-in-law been of what they call a humane disposition and
foolishly attached to the cat. So they did not kill it, and I, of course, be-
came a vampire."
"Yes, I can understand that was inevitable. Still, it seems hardly fair. I
pity you, my dear." And Jurgen sighed.
"I would prefer, sir, that you did not address me thus familiarly, since
you and I have omitted the formality of an introduction; and in the ab-
sence of any joint acquaintances are unlikely ever to meet properly."
"I have no herald handy, for I travel incognito. However, I am that Jur-
gen who recently made himself Emperor of Noumaria, King of Eubonia,
Prince of Cocaigne, and Duke of Logreus; and of whom you have doubt-
less heard."
"Why, to be sure!" says she, patting her hair straight. "And who would
have anticipated meeting your highness in such a place!"
"One says 'majesty' to an emperor, my dear. It is a detail, of course: but
in my position one has to be a little exigent."
"I perfectly comprehend, your majesty; and indeed I might have di-
vined your rank from your lovely clothes. I can but entreat you to over-
look my unintentional breach of etiquette: and I make bold to add that a
kind heart reveals the splendor of its graciousness through the interest
which your majesty has just evinced in my disastrous history."
"Upon my word," thinks Jurgen, "but in this flow of words I seem to
recognize my father's imagination when in anger."
Then Florimel told Jurgen of her horrible awakening in the grave, and
of what had befallen her hands and feet there, the while that against her
will she fed repugnantly, destroying first her kindred and then the
neighbors. This done, she had arisen.
"For the cattle still lived, and that troubled me. When I had put an end
to this annoyance, I climbed into the church belfry, not alone, for one
went with me of whom I prefer not to talk; and at midnight I sounded
the bell so that all who heard it would sicken and die. And I wept all the
while, because I knew that when everything had been destroyed which I
had known in my first life in the flesh, I would be compelled to go into
new lands, in search of the food which alone can nourish me, and I was
always sincerely attached to my home. So it was, your majesty, that I
forever relinquished my sewing, and became a lovely peril, a flashing
desolation, and an evil which smites by night, in spite of my abhorrence
of irregular hours: and what I do I dislike extremely, for it is a sad fate to
become a vampire, and still to sympathize with your victims, and partic-
ularly with their poor mothers."

189
 So Jurgen comforted Florimel, and he put his arm around her.
"Come, come!" he said, "but I will see that your vacation passes pleas-
antly. And I intend to deal fairly with you, too."
Then he glanced sidewise at his shadow, and whispered a suggestion
which caused Florimel to sigh. "By the terms of my doom," said she, "at
no time during the nine lives of the cat can I refuse. Still, it is a comfort
you are the Emperor of Noumaria and have a kind heart."
"Oh, and a many other possessions, my dear! and I again assure you
that I intend to deal fairly with you."
So Florimel conducted Jurgen, through the changeless twilight of
Barathum, like that of a gray winter afternoon, to a quiet cleft by the Sea
of Blood, which she had fitted out very cosily in imitation of her girlhood
home; and she lighted a candle, and made him welcome to her cleft. And
when Jurgen was about to enter it he saw that his shadow was following
him into the Vampire's home.
"Let us extinguish this candle!" says Jurgen, "for I have seen so many
flames to-day that my eyes are tired."
So Florimel extinguished the candle, with a good-will that delighted
Jurgen. And now they were in utter darkness, and in the dark nobody
can see what is happening. But that Florimel now trusted Jurgen and his
Noumarian claims was evinced by her very first remark.
"I was in the beginning suspicious of your majesty," said Florimel,
"because I had always heard that every emperor carried a magnificent
sceptre, and you then displayed nothing of the sort. But now, somehow,
I do not doubt you any longer. And of what is your majesty thinking?"
"Why, I was reflecting, my dear," says Jurgen, "that my father imagines
things very satisfactorily."

190
Chapter 38
As to Applauded Precedents
Afterward Jurgen abode in Hell, and complied with the customs of that
country. And the tale tells that a week or it might be ten days after his
meeting with Florimel, Jurgen married her, without being at all hindered
by his having three other wives. For the devils, he found, esteemed poly-
gamy, and ranked it above mere skill at torturing the damned, through a
literal interpretation of the saying that it is better to marry than to burn.
"And formerly," they told Jurgen, "you could hardly come across a
marriage anywhere that was not hallmarked 'made in Heaven': but since
we have been at war with Heaven we have quite taken away that trade
from our enemies. So you may marry here as much as you like."
"Why, then," says Jurgen, "I shall marry in haste, and repeat at leisure.
But can one obtain a divorce here?"
"Oh, no," said they. "We trafficked in them for a while, but we found
that all persons who obtained divorces through our industry promptly
thanked Heaven they were free at last. In the face of such ingratitude we
gave over that profitless trade, and now there is a manufactory, for spe-
cialties in men's clothing, upon the old statutory grounds."
"But these makeshifts are unsatisfactory, and I wish to know, in con-
fidence, what do you do in Hell when there is no longer any putting up
with your wives."
The devils all blushed. "We would prefer not to tell you," said they,
"for it might get to their ears."
"Now do I perceive," said Jurgen, "that Hell is pretty much like any
other place."
So Jurgen and the lovely Vampire were duly married. First Jurgen's
nails were trimmed, and the parings were given to Florimel. A broom-
stick was laid before them, and they stepped over it. Then Florimel said
"Temon!" thrice, and nine times did Jurgen reply "Arigizator!" Afterward
the Emperor Jurgen and his bride were given a posset of dudaïm and
eruca, and the devils modestly withdrew.

191
 Thereafter Jurgen abode in Hell, and complied with the customs of
that country, and was tolerably content for a while. Now Jurgen shared
with Florimel that quiet cleft which she had fitted out in imitation of her
girlhood home: and they lived in the suburbs of Barathum, very respect-
ably, by the shore of the sea. There was, of course, no water in Hell; in-
deed the importation of water was forbidden, under severe penalties, in
view of its possible use for baptismal purposes: this sea was composed of
the blood that had been shed by piety in furthering the kingdom of the
Prince of Peace, and was reputed to be the largest ocean in existence.
And it explained the nonsensical saying which Jurgen had so often
heard, as to Hell's being paved with good intentions.
"For Epigenes of Rhodes is right, after all," said Jurgen, "in suggesting
a misprint: and the word should be 'laved'."
"Why, to be sure, your majesty," assented Florimel: "ah, but I always
said your majesty had remarkable powers of penetration, quite apart
from your majesty's scholarship."
For Florimel had this cajoling way of speaking. None the less, all vam-
pires have their foibles, and are nourished by the vigor and youth of
their lovers. So one morning Florimel complained of being unwell, and
attributed it to indigestion.
Jurgen stroked her head meditatively; then he opened his glittering
shirt, and displayed what was plain enough to see.
"I am full of vigor and I am young," said Jurgen, "but my vigor and my
youthfulness are of a peculiar sort, and are not wholesome. So let us
have no more of your tricks, or you will quite spoil your vacation by be-
ing very ill indeed."
"But I had thought all emperors were human!" said Florimel, in a flut-
ter of blushing penitence, exceedingly pretty to observe.
"Even so, sweetheart, all emperors are not Jurgens," he replied, magni-
ficently. "Therefore you will find that not every emperor is justly styled
the father of his people, or is qualified by nature to wield the sceptre of
Noumaria. I trust this lesson will suffice."
"It will," said Florimel, with a wry face.
So thereafter they had no further trouble of this sort, and the wound
on Jurgen's breast was soon healed.
And Jurgen kept away from the damned, of course, because he and
Florimel were living respectably. They paid a visit to Jurgen's father,
however, very shortly after they were married, because this was the
proper thing to do. And Coth was civil enough, for Coth, and voiced a
hope that Florimel might have a good influence upon Jurgen and make

192
him worth his salt, but did not pretend to be optimistic. Yet this visit was
never returned, because Coth considered his wickedness was too great
for him to be spared a moment of torment, and so would not leave his
flame.
"And really, your majesty," said Florimel, "I do not wish for an instant
to have the appearance of criticizing your majesty's relatives. But I do
think that your majesty's father might have called upon us, at least once,
particularly after I offered to have a fire made up for him to sit on any
time he chose to come. I consider that your majesty's father assumes
somewhat extravagant airs, in the lack of any definite proof as to his hav-
ing been a bit more wicked than anybody else: and the child-like candor
which has always been with me a leading characteristic prevents con-
cealment of my opinion."
"Oh, it is just his conscience, dear."
"A conscience is all very well in its place, your majesty; and I, for one,
would never have been able to endure the interminable labor of seducing
and assassinating so many fine young fellows if my conscience had not
assured me that it was all the fault of my sister-in-law. But, even so, there
is no sense in letting your conscience make a slave of you: and when con-
science reduces your majesty's father to ignoring the rules of common ci-
vility and behaving like a candle-wick, I am sure that matters are being
carried too far."
"And right you are, my dear. However, we do not lack for company.
So come now, make yourself fine, and shake the black dog from your
back, for we are spending the evening with the Asmodeuses."
"And will your majesty talk politics again?"
"Oh, I suppose so. They appear to like it."
"I only wish that I did, your majesty," observed Florimel, and she
yawned by anticipation.
For with the devils Jurgen got on garrulously. The religion of Hell is
patriotism, and the government is an enlightened democracy. This con-
tented the devils, and Jurgen had learned long ago never to fall out with
either of these codes, without which, as the devils were fond of ob-
serving, Hell would not be what it is.
They were, to Jurgen's finding, simple-minded fiends who allowed
themselves to be deplorably overworked by the importunate dead. They
got no rest because of the damned, who were such persons as had been
saddled with a conscience, and who in consequence demanded intermin-
able torments. And at the time of Jurgen's coming into Hell political af-
fairs were in a very bad way, because there was a considerable party

193
among the younger devils who were for compounding the age-old war
with Heaven, at almost any price, in order to get relief from this unceas-
ing influx of conscientious dead persons in search of torment. For it was
well-known that when Satan submitted to be bound in chains there
would be no more death: and the annoying immigration would thus be
ended. So said the younger devils: and considered Grandfather Satan
ought to sacrifice himself for the general welfare.
Then too they pointed out that Satan had been perforce their presiding
magistrate ever since the settlement of Hell, because a change of admin-
istration is inexpedient in war-time: so that Satan must term after term
be re-elected: and of course Satan had been voted absolute power in
everything, since this too is customary in wartime. Well, and after the
first few thousand years of this the younger devils began to whisper that
such government was not ideal democracy.
But their more conservative elders were enraged by these effete and
wild new notions, and dealt with their juniors somewhat severely, tear-
ing them into bits and quite destroying them. The elder devils then pro-
ceeded to inflict even more startling punishments.
*****
So Grandfather Satan was much vexed, because the laws were being
violated everywhere: and a day or two after Jurgen's advent Satan issued
a public appeal to his subjects, that the code of Hell should be better re-
spected. But under a democratic government people do not like to be
perpetually bothering about law and order, as one of the older and
stronger devils pointed out to Jurgen.
Jurgen drew a serious face, and he stroked his chin. "Why, but look
you," says Jurgen, "in deploring the mob spirit that has been manifesting
itself sporadically throughout this country against the advocates of peace
and submission to the commands of Heaven and other pro-Celestial pro-
paganda,—and in warning loyal citizenship that such outbursts must be
guarded against, as hurtful to the public welfare of Hell,—why, Grand-
father Satan should bear in mind that the government, in large measure,
holds the remedy of the evil in its own hands." And Jurgen looked very
severely toward Satan.
"Come now," says Phlegeton, nodding his head, which was like that of
a bear, except for his naked long, red ears, inside each of which was a
flame like that of a spirit-lamp: "come now, but this young emperor in
the fine shirt speaks uncommonly well!"

194
 "So we spoke together in Pandemonium," said Belial, wistfully, "in the
brave days when Pandemonium was newly built and we were all imps
together."
"Yes, his talk is of the old school, than which there is none better. So
pray continue, Emperor Jurgen," cried the elderly devils, "and let us
know what you are talking about."
"Why, merely this," says Jurgen, and again he looked severely toward
Satan: "I tell you that as long as sentimental weakness marks the prosec-
ution of offences in violation of the laws necessitated by war-time condi-
tions; as long as deserved punishment for overt acts of pro-Celestialism
is withheld; as long as weak-kneed clemency condones even a suspicion
of disloyal thinking: then just so long will a righteously incensed, if now
and then misguided patriotism take into its own hands vengeance upon
the offenders."
"But, still—" said Grandfather Satan.
"Ineffectual administration of the law," continued Jurgen, sternly, "is
the true defence of these outbursts: and far more justly deplorable than
acts of mob violence is the policy of condonation that furnishes occasion
for them. The patriotic people of Hell are not in a temper to be trifled
with, now that they are at war. Conviction for offenses against the nation
should not be behedged about with technicalities devised for over-re-
fined peacetime jurisprudence. Why, there is no one of you, I am sure,
but has at his tongue's tip the immortal words of Livonius as to this very
topic: and so I shall not repeat them. But I fancy you will agree with me
that what Livonius says is unanswerable."
So it was that Jurgen went on at a great rate, and looking always very
sternly at Grandfather Satan.
"Yes, yes!" said Satan, wriggling uncomfortably, but still not thinking
of Jurgen entirely: "yes, all this is excellent oratory, and not for a moment
would I decry the authority of Livonius. And your quotation is uncom-
monly apropos and all that sort of thing. But with what are you charging
me?"
"With sentimental weakness," retorted Jurgen. "Was it not only yester-
day one of the younger devils was brought before you, upon the charge
that he had said the climate in Heaven was better than the climate here?
And you, sir, Hell's chief magistrate—you it was who actually asked him
if he had ever uttered such a disloyal heresy!"
"Now, but what else was I to do?" said Satan, fidgeting, and swishing
his great bushy tail so that it rustled against his horns, and still not really
turning his mind from that ancient thought.

195
 "You should have remembered, sir, that a devil whose patriotism is
impugned is a devil to be punished; and that there is no time to be pry-
ing into irrevelant questions of his guilt or innocence. Otherwise, I take
it, you will never have any real democracy in Hell."
Now Jurgen looked very impressive, and the devils were all cheering
him.
"And so," says Jurgen, "your disgusted hearers were wearied by such
frivolous interrogatories, and took the fellow out of your hands, and tore
him into particularly small bits. Now I warn you, Grandfather Satan, that
it is your duty as a democratic magistrate just so to deal with such of-
fenders first of all, and to ask your silly questions afterward. For what
does Rudigernus say outright upon this point? and Zantipher Magnus,
too? Why, my dear sir, I ask you plainly, where in the entire history of
international jurisprudence will you find any more explicit language
than these two employ?"
"Now certainly," says Satan, with his bleak smile, "you cite very re-
spectable authority: and I shall take your reproof in good part. I will en-
deavor to be more strict in the future. And you must not blame my laxity
too severely, Emperor Jurgen, for it is a long while since any man came
living into Hell to instruct us how to manage matters in time of war. No
doubt, precisely as you say, we do need a little more severity hereabouts,
and would gain by adopting more human methods. Rudigernus,
now?—yes, Rudigernus is rather unanswerable, and I concede it frankly.
So do you come home and have supper with me, Emperor Jurgen, and
we will talk over these things."
Then Jurgen went off arm in arm with Grandfather Satan, and Jurgen's
erudition and sturdy common-sense were forevermore established
among the older and more solid element in Hell. And Satan followed
Jurgen's suggestions, and the threatened rebellion was satisfactorily dis-
couraged, by tearing into very small fragments anybody who grumbled
about anything. So that all the subjects of Satan went about smiling
broadly all the time at the thought of what might befall them if they
seemed dejected. Thus was Hell a happier looking place because of
Jurgen's coming.

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Chapter 39
Of Compromises in Hell
Now Grandfather Satan's wife was called Phyllis: and apart from having
wings like a bat's, she was the loveliest little slip of devilishness that Jur-
gen had seen in a long while. Jurgen spent this night at the Black House
of Barathum, and two more nights, or it might be three nights: and the
details of what Jurgen used to do there, after supper, when he would
walk alone in the Black House Gardens, among the artfully colored cast-
iron flowers and shrubbery, and would so come to the grated windows
of Phyllis's room, and would stand there joking with her in the dark, are
not requisite to this story.
Satan was very jealous of his wife, and kept one of her wings clipped
and held her under lock and key, as the treasure that she was. But Jurgen
was accustomed to say afterward that, while the gratings over the win-
dows were very formidable, they only seemed somehow to enhance the
piquancy of his commerce with Dame Phyllis. This queen, said Jurgen,
he had found simply unexcelled at repartee.
Florimel considered the saying cryptic: just what precisely did his
majesty mean?
"Why, that in any and all circumstances Dame Phyllis knows how to
take a joke, and to return as good as she receives."
"So your majesty has already informed me: and certainly jokes can be
exchanged through a grating—"
"Yes, that was what I meant. And Dame Phyllis appeared to appreciate
my ready flow of humor. She informs me Grandfather Satan is of a cold
dry temperament, with very little humor in him, so that they go for
months without exchanging any pleasantries. Well, I am willing to taste
any drink once: and for the rest, remembering that my host had very
enormous and intimidating horns, I was at particular pains to deal fairly
with my hostess. Though, indeed, it was more for the honor and the
glory of the affair than anything else that I exchanged pleasantries with

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Satan's wife. For to do that, my dear, I felt was worthy of the Emperor
Jurgen."
"Ah, I am afraid your majesty is a sad scapegrace," replied Florimel:
"however, we all know that the sceptre of an emperor is respected
everywhere."
"Indeed," says Jurgen, "I have often regretted that I did not bring with
me my jewelled sceptre when I left Noumaria."
She shivered at some unspoken thought: it was not until some while
afterward that Florimel told Jurgen of her humiliating misadventure
with the absent-minded Sultan of Garçao's sceptre. Now she only replied
that jewels might, conceivably, seem ostentatious and out of place.
Jurgen agreed to this truism: for of course they were living very
quietly, and Jurgen was splendid enough for any reasonable wife's re-
quirements, in his glittering shirt.
So Jurgen got on pleasantly with Florimel. But he never became as
fond of her as he had been of Guenevere or Anaïtis, nor one-tenth as
fond of her as he had been of Chloris. In the first place, he suspected that
Florimel had been invented by his father, and Coth and Jurgen had never
any tastes in common: and in the second place, Jurgen could not but see
that Florimel thought a great deal of his being an emperor.
"It is my title she loves, not me," reflected Jurgen, sadly, "and her affec-
tion is less for that which is really integral to me than for imperial orbs
and sceptres and such-like external trappings."
And Jurgen would come out of Florimel's cleft considerably dejected,
and would sit alone by the Sea of Blood, and would meditate how in-
equitable it was that the mere title of emperor should thus shut him off
from sincerity and candor.
"We who are called kings and emperors are men like other men: we
are as rightly entitled as other persons to the solace of true love and af-
fection: instead, we live in a continuous isolation, and women offer us all
things save their hearts, and we are a lonely folk. No, I cannot believe
that Florimel loves me for myself alone: it is my title which dazzles her.
And I would that I had never made myself the emperor of Noumaria: for
this emperor goes about everywhere in a fabulous splendor, and is, very
naturally, resistless in his semi-mythical magnificence. Ah, but these im-
perial gewgaws distract the thoughts of Florimel from the real Jurgen; so
that the real Jurgen is a person whom she does not understand at all.
And it is not fair."
Then, too, he had a sort of prejudice against the way in which Florimel
spent her time in seducing and murdering young men. It was not

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possible, of course, actually to blame the girl, since she was the victim of
circumstances, and had no choice about becoming a vampire, once the
cat had jumped over her coffin. Still, Jurgen always felt, in his illogical
masculine way, that her vocation was not nice. And equally in the illo-
gical way of men, did he persist in coaxing Florimel to tell him of her
vampiric transactions, in spite of his underlying feeling that he would
prefer to have his wife engaged in some other trade: and the merry little
creature would humor him willingly enough, with her purple eyes a-
sparkle, and with her vivid lips curling prettily back, so as to show her
tiny white sharp teeth quite plainly.
She was really very pretty thus, as she told him of what happened in
Copenhagen when young Count Osmund went down into the blind
beggar-woman's cellar, and what they did with bits of him; and of how
one kind of serpent came to have a secret name, which, when cried aloud
in the night, with the appropriate ceremony, will bring about delicious
happenings; and of what one can do with small unchristened children, if
only they do not kiss you, with their moist uncertain little mouths, for
then this thing is impossible; and of what use she had made of young Sir
Ganelon's skull, when he was through with it, and she with him; and of
what the young priest Wulfnoth had said to the crocodiles at the very
last.
"Oh, yes, my life has its amusing side," said Florimel: "and one likes to
feel, of course, that one is not wholly out of touch with things, and is
even, in one's modest way, contributing to the suppression of folly. But
even so, your majesty, the calls that are made upon one! the things that
young men expect of you, as the price of their bodily and spiritual ruin!
and the things their relatives say about you! and, above all, the constant
strain, the irregular hours, and the continual effort to live up to one's po-
sition! Oh, yes, your majesty, I was far happier when I was a con-
sumptive seamstress and took pride in my buttonholes. But from a
sister-in-law who only has you in to tea occasionally as a matter of duty,
and who is prominent in churchwork, one may, of course, expect any-
thing. And that reminds me that I really must tell your majesty about
what happened in the hay-loft, just after the abbot had finished
undressing—"
So she would chatter away, while Jurgen listened and smiled indul-
gently. For she certainly was very pretty. And so they kept house in Hell
contentedly enough until Florimel's vacation was at an end: and then
they parted, without any tears but in perfect friendliness.

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 And Jurgen always remembered Florimel most pleasantly, but not as a
wife with whom he had ever been on terms of actual intimacy.
Now when this lovely Vampire had quitted him, the Emperor Jurgen,
in spite of his general popularity and the deference accorded his political
views, was not quite happy in Hell.
"It is a comfort, at any rate," said Jurgen, "to discover who originated
the theory of democratic government. I have long wondered who started
the notion that the way to get a wise decision on any conceivable ques-
tion was to submit it to a popular vote. Now I know. Well, and the devils
may be right in their doctrines; certainly I cannot go so far as to say they
are wrong: but still, at the same time—!"
For instance, this interminable effort to make the universe safe for
democracy, this continual warring against Heaven because Heaven
clung to a tyrannical form of autocratic government, sounded both logic-
al and magnanimous, and was, of course, the only method of insuring
any general triumph for democracy: yet it seemed rather futile to Jurgen,
since, as he knew now, there was certainly something in the Celestial
system which made for military efficiency, so that Heaven usually won.
Moreover, Jurgen could not get over the fact that Hell was just a notion
of his ancestors with which Koshchei had happened to fall in: for Jurgen
had never much patience with antiquated ideas, particularly when any-
one put them into practice, as Koshchei had done.
"Why, this place appears to me a glaring anachronism," said Jurgen,
brooding over the fires of Chorasma: "and its methods of tormenting
conscientious people I cannot but consider very crude indeed. The devils
are simple-minded and they mean well, as nobody would dream of
denying, but that is just it: for hereabouts is needed some more pertina-
cious and efficiently disagreeable person—"
And that, of course, reminded him of Dame Lisa: and so it was the
thoughts of Jurgen turned again to doing the manly thing. And he
sighed, and went among the devils tentatively looking and inquiring for
that intrepid fiend who in the form of a black gentleman had carried off
Dame Lisa. But a queer happening befell, and it was that nowhere could
Jurgen find the black gentleman, nor did any of the devils know any-
thing about him.
"From what you tell us, Emperor Jurgen," said they all, "your wife was
an acidulous shrew, and the sort of woman who believes that whatever
she does is right."
"It was not a belief," says Jurgen: "it was a mania with the poor dear."
"By that fact, then, she is forever debarred from entering Hell."

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 "You tell me news," says Jurgen, "which if generally known would
lead many husbands into vicious living."
"But it is notorious that people are saved by faith. And there is no faith
stronger than that of a bad-tempered woman in her own infallibility.
Plainly, this wife of yours is the sort of person who cannot be tolerated
by anybody short of the angels. We deduce that your Empress must be in
Heaven."
"Well, that sounds reasonable. And so to Heaven I will go, and it may
be that there I shall find justice."
"We would have you know," the fiends cried, bristling, "that in Hell
we have all kinds of justice, since our government is an enlightened
democracy."
"Just so," says Jurgen: "in an enlightened democracy one has all kinds
of justice, and I would not dream of denying it. But you have not, you
conceive, that lesser plague, my wife; and it is she whom I must continue
to look for."
"Oh, as you like," said they, "so long as you do not criticize the exigen-
cies of war-time. But certainly we are sorry to see you going into a coun-
try where the benighted people put up with an autocrat Who was not
duly elected to His position. And why need you continue seeking your
wife's society when it is so much pleasanter living in Hell?"
And Jurgen shrugged. "One has to do the manly thing sometimes."
So the fiends told him the way to Heaven's frontiers, pitying him. "But
the crossing of the frontier must be your affair."
"I have a cantrap," said Jurgen; "and my stay in Hell has taught me
how to use it."
Then Jurgen followed his instructions, and went into Meridie, and
turned to the left when he had come to the great puddle where the ad-
ders and toads are reared, and so passed through the mists of Tartarus,
with due care of the wild lightning, and took the second turn to his
left—"always in seeking Heaven be guided by your heart," had been the
advice given him by devils,—and thus avoiding the abode of Jemra, he
crossed the bridge over the Bottomless Pit and the solitary Narakas. And
Brachus, who kept the toll-gate on this bridge, did that of which the
fiends had forewarned Jurgen: but for this, of course, there was no help.

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Chapter 40
The Ascension of Pope Jurgen
The tale tells how on the feast of the Annunciation Jurgen came to the
high white walls which girdle Heaven. For Jurgen's forefathers had, of
course, imagined that Hell stood directly contiguous to Heaven, so that
the blessed could augment their felicity by gazing down upon the tor-
tures of the damned. Now at this time a boy angel was looking over the
parapet of Heaven's wall.
"And a good day to you, my fine young fellow," says Jurgen. "But of
what are you thinking so intently?" For just as Dives had done long years
before, now Jurgen found that a man's voice carries perfectly between
Hell and Heaven.
"Sir," replies the boy, "I was pitying the poor damned."
"Why, then, you must be Origen," says Jurgen, laughing.
"No, sir, my name is Jurgen."
"Heyday!" says Jurgen: "well, but this Jurgen has been a great many
persons in my time. So very possibly you speak the truth."
"I am Jurgen, the son of Coth and Azra."
"Ah, ah! but so were all of them, my boy."
"Why, then, I am Jurgen, the grandson of Steinvor, and the grandchild
whom she loved above her other grandchildren: and so I abide forever in
Heaven with all the other illusions of Steinvor. But who, messire, are you
that go about Hell unscorched, in such a fine looking shirt?"
Jurgen reflected. Clearly it would never do to give his real name, and
thus raise the question as to whether Jurgen was in Heaven or Hell. Then
he recollected the cantrap of the Master Philologist, which Jurgen had
twice employed incorrectly. And Jurgen cleared his throat, for he be-
lieved that he now understood the proper use of cantraps.
"Perhaps," says Jurgen, "I ought not to tell you who I am. But what is
life without confidence in one another? Besides, you appear a boy of re-
markable discretion. So I will confide in you that I am Pope John the
Twentieth, Heaven's regent upon Earth, now visiting this place upon

202
Celestial business which I am not at liberty to divulge more particularly,
for reasons that will at once occur to a young man of your unusual
cleverness."
"Oh, but I say! that is droll. Do you just wait a moment!" cried the boy
angel.
His bright face vanished, with a whisking of brown curls: and Jurgen
carefully re-read the cantrap of the Master Philologist. "Yes, I have
found, I think, the way to use such magic," observes Jurgen.
Presently the young angel re-appeared at the parapet. "I say, messire! I
looked on the Register—all popes are admitted here the moment they
die, without inquiring into their private affairs, you know, so as to avoid
any unfortunate scandal,—and we have twenty-three Pope Johns listed.
And sure enough, the mansion prepared for John the Twentieth is va-
cant. He seems to be the only pope that is not in Heaven."
"Why, but of course not," says Jurgen, complacently, "inasmuch as you
see me, who was once Bishop of Rome and servant to the servants of
God, standing down here on this cinder-heap."
"Yes, but none of the others in your series appears to place you. John
the Nineteenth says he never heard of you, and not to bother him in the
middle of a harp lesson—"
"He died before my accession, naturally."
"—And John the Twenty-first says he thinks they lost count somehow,
and that there never was any Pope John the Twentieth. He says you
must be an impostor."
"Ah, professional jealousy!" sighed Jurgen: "dear me, this is very sad,
and gives one a poor opinion of human nature. Now, my boy, I put it to
you fairly, how could there have been a twenty-first unless there had
been a twentieth? And what becomes of the great principle of papal in-
fallibility when a pope admits to a mistake in elementary arithmetic? Oh,
but this is a very dangerous heresy, let me tell you, an Inquisition matter,
a consistory business! Yet, luckily, upon his own contention, this Pedro
Juliani—"
"And that was his name, too, for he told me! You evidently know all
about it, messire," said the young angel, visibly impressed.
"Of course, I know all about it. Well, I repeat, upon his own contention
this man is non-existent, and so, whatever he may say amounts to noth-
ing. For he tells you there was never any Pope John the Twentieth: and
either he is lying or he is telling you the truth. If he is lying, you, of
course, ought not to believe him: yet, if he is telling you the truth, about
there never having been any Pope John the Twentieth, why then, quite

203
plainly, there was never any Pope John the Twenty-first, so that this man
asserts his own non-existence; and thus is talking nonsense, and you, of
course, ought not to believe in nonsense. Even did we grant his insane
contention that he is nobody, you are too well brought up, I am sure, to
dispute that nobody tells lies in Heaven: it follows that in this case
nobody is lying; and so, of course, I must be telling the truth, and you
have no choice save to believe me."
"Now, certainly that sounds all right," the younger Jurgen conceded:
"though you explain it so quickly it is a little difficult to follow you."
"Ah, but furthermore, and over and above this, and as a tangible proof
of the infallible particularity of every syllable of my assertion," observes
the elder Jurgen, "if you will look in the garret of Heaven you will find
the identical ladder upon which I descended hither, and which I directed
them to lay aside until I was ready to come up again. Indeed, I was just
about to ask you to fetch it, inasmuch as my business here is satisfactor-
ily concluded."
Well, the boy agreed that the word of no pope, whether in Hell or
Heaven, was tangible proof like a ladder: and again he was off. Jurgen
waited, in tolerable confidence.
It was a matter of logic. Jacob's Ladder must from all accounts have
been far too valuable to throw away after one night's use at Beth-El; it
would come in very handy on Judgment Day: and Jurgen's knowledge of
Lisa enabled him to deduce that anything which was being kept because
it would come in handy some day would inevitably be stored in the gar-
ret, in any establishment imaginable by women. "And it is notorious that
Heaven is a delusion of old women. Why, the thing is a certainty," said
Jurgen; "simply a mathematical certainty."
And events proved his logic correct: for presently the younger Jurgen
came back with Jacob's Ladder, which was rather cobwebby and obsolete
looking after having been lain aside so long.
"So you see you were perfectly right," then said this younger Jurgen, as
he lowered Jacob's Ladder into Hell. "Oh, Messire John, do hurry up and
have it out with that old fellow who slandered you!"
Thus it came about that Jurgen clambered merrily from Hell to Heaven
upon a ladder of unalloyed, time-tested gold: and as he climbed the shirt
of Nessus glittered handsomely in the light which shone from Heaven:
and by this great light above him, as Jurgen mounted higher and yet
higher, the shadow of Jurgen was lengthened beyond belief along the
sheer white wall of Heaven, as though the shadow were reluctant and
adhered tenaciously to Hell. Yet presently Jurgen leaped the ramparts:

204
and then the shadow leaped too; and so his shadow came with Jurgen in-
to Heaven, and huddled dispiritedly at Jurgen's feet.
"Well, well!" thinks Jurgen, "certainly there is no disputing the magic
of the Master Philologist when it is correctly employed. For through its
aid I am entering alive into Heaven, as only Enoch and Elijah have done
before me: and moreover, if this boy is to be believed, one of the very
handsomest of Heaven's many mansions awaits my occupancy. One
could not ask more of any magician fairly. Aha, if only Lisa could see me
now!"
That was his first thought. Afterward Jurgen tore up the cantrap and
scattered its fragments as the Master Philologist had directed. Then Jur-
gen turned to the boy who aided Jurgen to get into Heaven.
"Come, youngster, and let us have a good look at you!"
And Jurgen talked with the boy that he had once been, and stood face
to face with all that Jurgen had been and was not any longer. And this
was the one happening which befell Jurgen that the writer of the tale
lacked heart to tell of.
So Jurgen quitted the boy that he had been. But first had Jurgen
learned that in this place his grandmother Steinvor (whom King Smoit
had loved) abode and was happy in her notion of Heaven; and that
about her were her notions of her children and of her grandchildren.
Steinvor had never imagined her husband in Heaven, nor King Smoit
either.
"That is a circumstance," says Jurgen, "which heartens me to hope one
may find justice here. Yet I shall keep away from my grandmother, the
Steinvor whom I knew and loved, and who loved me so blindly that this
boy here is her notion of me. Yes, in mere fairness to her, I must keep
away."
So he avoided that part of Heaven wherein were his grandmother's il-
lusions: and this was counted for righteousness in Jurgen. That part of
Heaven smelt of mignonette, and a starling was singing there.

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Chapter 41
Of Compromises in Heaven
Jurgen then went unhindered to where the God of Jurgen's grandmother
sat upon a throne, beside a sea of crystal. A rainbow, made high and nar-
row like a window frame, so as to fit the throne, formed an arch-way in
which He sat: at His feet burned seven lamps, and four remarkable
winged creatures sat there chaunting softly, "Glory and honor and
thanks to Him Who liveth forever!" In one hand of the God was a
sceptre, and in the other a large book with seven red spots on it.
There were twelve smaller thrones, without rainbows, upon each side
of the God of Jurgen's grandmother, in two semi-circles: upon these in-
ferior thrones sat benignant-looking elderly angels, with long white hair,
all crowned, and clothed in white robes, and having a harp in one hand,
and in the other a gold flask, about pint size. And everywhere fluttered
and glittered the multicolored wings of seraphs and cherubs, like magni-
fied paroquets, as they went softly and gaily about the golden haze that
brooded over Heaven, to a continuous sound of hushed organ music and
a remote and undistinguishable singing.
Now the eyes of this God met the eyes of Jurgen: and Jurgen waited
thus for a long while, and far longer, indeed, than Jurgen suspected.
"I fear You," Jurgen said, at last: "and, yes, I love You: and yet I cannot
believe. Why could You not let me believe, where so many believed? Or
else, why could You not let me deride, as the remainder derided so nois-
ily? O God, why could You not let me have faith? for You gave me no
faith in anything, not even in nothingness. It was not fair."
And in the highest court of Heaven, and in plain view of all the angels,
Jurgen began to weep.
"I was not ever your God, Jurgen."
"Once very long ago," said Jurgen, "I had faith in You."
"No, for that boy is here with Me, as you yourself have seen. And to-
day there is nothing remaining of him anywhere in the man that is
Jurgen."

206
 "God of my grandmother! God Whom I too loved in boyhood!" said
Jurgen then: "why is it that I am denied a God? For I have searched: and
nowhere can I find justice, and nowhere can I find anything to worship."
"What, Jurgen, and would you look for justice, of all places, in
Heaven?"
"No," Jurgen said; "no, I perceive it cannot be considered here. Else
You would sit alone."
"And for the rest, you have looked to find your God without, not look-
ing within to see that which is truly worshipped in the thoughts of Jur-
gen. Had you done so, you would have seen, as plainly as I now see, that
which alone you are able to worship. And your God is maimed: the dust
of your journeying is thick upon him; your vanity is laid as a napkin
upon his eyes; and in his heart is neither love nor hate, not even for his
only worshipper."
"Do not deride him, You Who have so many worshippers! At least, he
is a monstrous clever fellow," said Jurgen: and boldly he said it, in the
highest court of Heaven, and before the pensive face of the God of
Jurgen's grandmother.
"Ah, very probably. I do not meet with many clever people. And as for
My numerous worshippers, you forget how often you have demon-
strated that I was the delusion of an old woman."
"Well, and was there ever a flaw in my logic?"
"I was not listening to you, Jurgen. You must know that logic does not
much concern us, inasmuch as nothing is logical hereabouts."
And now the four winged creatures ceased their chaunting, and the
organ music became a far-off murmuring. And there was silence in
Heaven. And the God of Jurgen's grandmother, too, was silent for a
while, and the rainbow under which He sat put off its seven colors and
burned with an unendurable white, tinged bluishly, while the God con-
sidered ancient things. Then in the silence this God began to speak.
Some years ago (said the God of Jurgen's grandmother) it was repor-
ted to Koshchei that scepticism was abroad in his universe, and that one
walked therein who would be contented with no rational explanation.
"Bring me this infidel," says Koshchei: so they brought to him in the void
a little bent gray woman in an old gray shawl. "Now, tell me why you
will not believe," says Koshchei, "in things as they are."
Then the decent little bent gray woman answered civilly; "I do not
know, sir, who you may happen to be. But, since you ask me, everybody
knows that things as they are must be regarded as temporary afflictions,

207
and as trials through which we are righteously condemned to pass, in or-
der to attain to eternal life with our loved ones in Heaven."
"Ah, yes," said Koshchei, who made things as they are; "ah, yes, to be
sure! and how did you learn of this?"
"Why, every Sunday morning the priest discoursed to us about
Heaven, and of how happy we would be there after death."
"Has this woman died, then?" asked Koshchei.
"Yes, sir," they told him,—"recently. And she will believe nothing we
explain to her, but demands to be taken to Heaven."
"Now, this is very vexing," Koshchei said, "and I cannot, of course, put
up with such scepticism. That would never do. So why do you not con-
vey her to this Heaven which she believes in, and thus put an end to the
matter?"
"But, sir," they told him, "there is no such place."
Then Koshchei reflected. "It is certainly strange that a place which does
not exist should be a matter of public knowledge in another place. Where
does this woman come from?"
"From Earth," they told him.
"Where is that?" he asked: and they explained to him as well as they
could.
"Oh, yes, over that way," Koshchei interrupted. "I remember.
Now—but what is your name, woman who wish to go to Heaven?"
"Steinvor, sir: and if you please I am rather in a hurry to be with my
children again. You see, I have not seen any of them for a long while."
"But stay," said Koshchei: "what is that which comes into this woman's
eyes as she speaks of her children?" They told him it was love.
"Did I create this love?" says Koshchei, who made things as they are.
And they told him, no: and that there were many sorts of love, but that
this especial sort was an illusion which women had invented for them-
selves, and which they exhibited in all dealings with their children. And
Koshchei sighed.
"Tell me about your children," Koshchei then said to Steinvor: "and
look at me as you talk, so that I may see your eyes."
So Steinvor talked of her children: and Koshchei, who made all things,
listened very attentively. Of Coth she told him, of her only son, confess-
ing Coth was the finest boy that ever lived,—"a little wild, sir, at first, but
then you know what boys are,"—and telling of how well Coth had done
in business and of how he had even risen to be an alderman. Koshchei,
who made all things, seemed properly impressed. Then Steinvor talked
of her daughters, of Imperia and Lindamira and Christine: of Imperia's

208
beauty, and of Lindamira's bravery under the mishaps of an unlucky
marriage, and of Christine's superlative housekeeping. "Fine women, sir,
every one of them, with children of their own! and to me they still seem
such babies, bless them!" And the decent little bent gray woman laughed.
"I have been very lucky in my children, sir, and in my grandchildren,
too," she told Koshchei. "There is Jurgen, now, my Coth's boy! You may
not believe it, sir, but there is a story I must tell you about Jurgen—" So
she ran on very happily and proudly, while Koshchei, who made all
things, listened, and watched the eyes of Steinvor.
Then privately Koshchei asked, "Are these children and grandchildren
of Steinvor such as she reports?"
"No, sir," they told him privately.
So as Steinvor talked Koshchei devised illusions in accordance with
that which Steinvor said, and created such children and grandchildren as
she described. Male and female he created them standing behind Stein-
vor, and all were beautiful and stainless: and Koshchei gave life to these
illusions.
Then Koshchei bade her turn about. She obeyed: and Koshchei was
forgotten.
Well, Koshchei sat there alone in the void, looking not very happy,
and looking puzzled, and drumming upon his knee, and staring at the
little bent gray woman, who was busied with her children and grand-
children, and had forgotten all about him. "But surely, Lindamira," he
hears Steinvor say, "we are not yet in Heaven."—"Ah, my dear mother,"
replies her illusion of Lindamira, "to be with you again is Heaven: and
besides, it may be that Heaven is like this, after all."—"My darling child,
it is sweet of you to say that, and exactly like you to say that. But you
know very well that Heaven is fully described in the Book of Revela-
tions, in the Bible, as the glorious place that Heaven is. Whereas, as you
can see for yourself, around us is nothing at all, and no person at all ex-
cept that very civil gentleman to whom I was just talking; and who,
between ourselves, seems woefully uninformed about the most ordinary
matters."
"Bring Earth to me," says Koshchei. This was done, and Koshchei
looked over the planet, and found a Bible. Koshchei opened the Bible,
and read the Revelation of St. John the Divine, while Steinvor talked
with her illusions. "I see," said Koshchei. "The idea is a little garish.
Still—!" So he replaced the Bible, and bade them put Earth, too, in its
proper place, for Koshchei dislikes wasting anything. Then Koshchei

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smiled and created Heaven about Steinvor and her illusions, and he
made Heaven just such a place as was described in the book.
"And so, Jurgen, that was how it came about," ended the God of
Jurgen's grandmother. "And Me also Koshchei created at that time, with
the seraphim and the saints and all the blessed, very much as you see us:
and, of course, he caused us to have been here always, since the begin-
ning of time, because that, too, was in the book."
"But how could that be done?" says Jurgen, with brows puckering.
"And in what way could Koshchei juggle so with time?"
"How should I know, since I am but the illusion of an old woman, as
you have so frequently proved by logic? Let it suffice that whatever
Koshchei wills, not only happens, but has already happened beyond the
ancientest memory of man and his mother. How otherwise could he be
Koshchei?"
"And all this," said Jurgen, virtuously, "for a woman who was not even
faithful to her husband!"
"Oh, very probably!" said the God: "at all events, it was done for a wo-
man who loved. Koshchei will do almost anything to humor love, since
love is one of the two things which are impossible to Koshchei."
"I have heard that pride is impossible to Koshchei—"
The God of Jurgen's grandmother raised His white eyebrows. "What is
pride? I do not think I ever heard of it before. Assuredly it is something
that does not enter here."
"But why is love impossible to Koshchei?"
"Because Koshchei made things as they are, and day and night he con-
templates things as they are. How, then, can Koshchei love anything?"
But Jurgen shook his sleek black head. "That I cannot understand at
all. If I were imprisoned in a cell wherein was nothing except my verses I
would not be happy, and certainly I would not be proud: but even so, I
would love my verses. I am afraid that I fall in more readily with the
ideas of Grandfather Satan than with Yours; and without contradicting
You, I cannot but wonder if what You reveal is true."
"And how should I know whether or not I speak the truth?" the God
asked of him, "since I am but the illusion of an old woman, as you have
so frequently proved by logic."
"Well, well!" said Jurgen, "You may be right in all matters, and cer-
tainly I cannot presume to say You are wrong: but still, at the same
time—! No, even now I do not quite believe in You."
"Who could expect it of a clever fellow, who sees so clearly through
the illusions of old women?" the God asked, a little wearily.

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 And Jurgen answered:
"God of my grandmother, I cannot quite believe in You, and Your do-
ings as they are recorded I find incoherent and a little droll. But I am
glad the affair has been so arranged that You may always now be real to
brave and gentle persons who have believed in and have worshipped
and have loved You. To have disappointed them would have been un-
fair: and it is right that before the faith they had in You not even
Koshchei who made things as they are was able to be reasonable.
"God of my grandmother, I cannot quite believe in You; but remem-
bering the sum of love and faith that has been given You, I tremble. I
think of the dear people whose living was confident and glad because of
their faith in You: I think of them, and in my heart contends a blind con-
trition, and a yearning, and an enviousness, and yet a tender sort of
amusement colors all. Oh, God, there was never any other deity who had
such dear worshippers as You have had, and You should be very proud
of them.
"God of my grandmother, I cannot quite believe in You, yet I am not as
those who would come peering at You reasonably. I, Jurgen, see You
only through a mist of tears. For You were loved by those whom I loved
greatly very long ago: and when I look at You it is Your worshippers and
the dear believers of old that I remember. And it seems to me that dates
and manuscripts and the opinions of learned persons are very trifling
things beside what I remember, and what I envy!"
"Who could have expected such a monstrous clever fellow ever to
envy the illusions of old women?" the God of Jurgen's grandmother
asked again: and yet His countenance was not unfriendly.
"Why, but," said Jurgen, on a sudden, "why, but my grandmother—in
a way—was right about Heaven and about You also. For certainly You
seem to exist, and to reign in just such estate as she described. And yet,
according to Your latest revelation, I too was right—in a way—about
these things being an old woman's delusions. I wonder now—?"
"Yes, Jurgen?"
"Why, I wonder if everything is right, in a way? I wonder if that is the
large secret of everything? It would not be a bad solution, sir," said Jur-
gen, meditatively.
The God smiled. Then suddenly that part of Heaven was vacant, ex-
cept for Jurgen, who stood there quite alone. And before him was the
throne of the vanished God and the sceptre of the God, and Jurgen saw
that the seven spots upon the great book were of red sealing-wax.

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 Jurgen was afraid: but he was particularly appalled by his conscious-
ness that he was not going to falter. "What, you who have been duke and
prince and king and emperor and pope! and do such dignities content a
Jurgen? Why, not at all," says Jurgen.
So Jurgen ascended the throne of Heaven, and sat beneath that won-
drous rainbow: and in his lap now was the book, and in his hand was the
sceptre, of the God of Jurgen's grandmother.
Jurgen sat thus, for a long while regarding the bright vacant courts of
Heaven. "And what will you do now?" says Jurgen, aloud. "Oh, fretful
little Jurgen, you that have complained because you had not your desire,
you are omnipotent over Earth and all the affairs of men. What now is
your desire?" And sitting thus terribly enthroned, the heart of Jurgen
was as lead within him, and he felt old and very tired. "For I do not
know. Oh, nothing can help me, for I do not know what thing it is that I
desire! And this book and this sceptre and this throne avail me nothing
at all, and nothing can ever avail me: for I am Jurgen who seeks he
knows not what."
So Jurgen shrugged, and climbed down from the throne of the God,
and wandering at adventure, came presently to four archangels. They
were seated upon a fleecy cloud, and they were eating milk and honey
from gold porringers: and of these radiant beings Jurgen inquired the
quickest way out of Heaven.
"For hereabouts are none of my illusions," said Jurgen, "and I must
now return to such illusions as are congenial. One must believe in
something. And all that I have seen in Heaven I have admired and en-
vied, but in none of these things could I believe, and with none of these
things could I be satisfied. And while I think of it, I wonder now if any of
you gentlemen can give me news of that Lisa who used to be my wife?"
He described her; and they regarded him with compassion.
But these archangels, he found, had never heard of Lisa, and they as-
sured him there was no such person in Heaven. For Steinvor had died
when Jurgen was a boy, and so she had never seen Lisa; and in con-
sequence, had not thought about Lisa one way or the other, when Stein-
vor outlined her notions to Koshchei who made things as they are.
Now Jurgen discovered, too, that, when his eyes first met the eyes of
the God of Jurgen's grandmother, Jurgen had stayed motionless for
thirty-seven days, forgetful of everything save that the God of his grand-
mother was love.
"Nobody else has willingly turned away so soon," Zachariel told him:
"and we think that your insensibility is due to some evil virtue in the

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glittering garment which you are wearing, and of which the like was
never seen in Heaven."
"I did but search for justice," Jurgen said: "and I could not find it in the
eyes of your God, but only love and such forgiveness as troubled me."
"Because of that should you rejoice," the four archangels said; "and so
should all that lives rejoice: and more particularly should we rejoice that
dwell in Heaven, and hourly praise our Lord God's negligence of justice,
whereby we are permitted to enter into this place."

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Chapter 42
Twelve That are Fretted Hourly
So it was upon Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather more
than likely to happen, that Jurgen went hastily out of Heaven, without
having gained or wasted any love there. St. Peter unbarred for him, not
the main entrance, but a small private door, carved with innumerable
fishes in bas-relief, because this exit opened directly upon any place you
chose to imagine.
"For thus," St. Peter said, "you may return without loss of time to your
own illusions."
"There was a cross," said Jurgen, "which I used to wear about my neck,
through motives of sentiment, because it once belonged to my dead
mother. For no woman has ever loved me save that Azra who was my
mother—"
"I wonder if your mother told you that?" St. Peter asked him, smiling
reminiscently. "Mine did, time and again. And sometimes I have
wondered—? For, as you may remember, I was a married man, Jurgen:
and my wife did not quite understand me," said St. Peter, with a sigh.
"Why, indeed," says Jurgen, "my case is not entirely dissimilar: and the
more I marry, the less I find of comprehension. I should have had more
sympathy with King Smoit, who was certainly my grandfather. Well,
you conceive, St. Peter, these other women have trusted me, more or less,
because they loved a phantom Jurgen. But Azra trusted me not at all, be-
cause she loved me with clear eyes. She comprehended Jurgen, and yet
loved him: though I for one, with all my cleverness, cannot do either of
these things. None the less, in order to do the manly thing, in order to
pleasure a woman,—and a married woman, too!—I flung away the little
gold cross which was all that remained to me of my mother: and since
then, St. Peter, the illusions of sentiment have given me a woefully wide
berth. So I shall relinquish Heaven to seek a cross."
"That has been done before, Jurgen, and I doubt if much good came of
it."

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 "Heyday, and did it not lead to the eternal glory of the first and
greatest of the popes? It seems to me, sir, that you have either very little
memory or very little gratitude, and I am tempted to crow in your face."
"Why, now you talk like a cherub, Jurgen, and you ought to have bet-
ter manners. Do you suppose that we Apostles enjoy hearing jokes made
about the Church?"
"Well, it is true, St. Peter, that you founded the Church—"
"Now, there you go again! That is what those patronizing seraphim
and those impish cherubs are always telling us. You see, we Twelve sit
together in Heaven, each on his white throne: and we behold everything
that happens on Earth. Now from our station there has been no ignoring
the growth and doings of what you might loosely call Christianity. And
sometimes that which we see makes us very uncomfortable, Jurgen.
Especially as just then some cherub is sure to flutter by, in a broad grin,
and chuckle, 'But you started it.' And we did; I cannot deny that in a way
we did. Yet really we never anticipated anything of this sort, and it is not
fair to tease us about it."
"Indeed, St. Peter, now I think of it, you ought to be held responsible
for very little that has been said or done in the shadow of a steeple. For
as I remember it, you Twelve attempted to convert a world to the teach-
ings of Jesus: and good intentions ought to be respected, however drolly
they may turn out."
It was apparent this sympathy was grateful to the old Saint, for he was
moved to a more confidential tone. Meditatively he stroked his long
white beard, then said with indignation: "If only they would not claim
sib with us we could stand it: but as it is, for centuries we have felt like
fools. It is particularly embarrassing for me, of course, being on the wick-
et; for to cap it all, Jurgen, the little wretches die, and come to Heaven
impudent as sparrows, and expect me to let them in! From their thumb-
screwings, and their auto-da-fés, and from their massacres, and patriotic
sermons, and holy wars, and from every manner of abomination, they
come to me, smirking. And millions upon millions of them, Jurgen!
There is no form of cruelty or folly that has not come to me for praise,
and no sort of criminal idiot who has not claimed fellowship with me,
who was an Apostle and a gentleman. Why, Jurgen, you may not believe
it, but there was an eminent bishop came to me only last week in the ex-
pectation that I was going to admit him,—and I with the full record of
his work for temperance, all fairly written out and in my hand!"
Now Jurgen was surprised. "But temperance is surely a virtue, St.
Peter."

215
 "Ah, but his notion of temperance! and his filthy ravings to my face, as
though he were talking in some church or other! Why, the slavering little
blasphemer! to my face he spoke against the first of my Master's mir-
acles, and against the last injunction which was laid upon us Twelve,
spluttering that the wine was unfermented! To me he said this, look you,
Jurgen! to me, who drank of that noble wine at Cana and equally of that
sustaining wine we had in the little upper room in Jerusalem when the
hour of trial was near and our Master would have us at our best! With
me, who have since tasted of that unimaginable wine which the Master
promised us in His kingdom, the busy wretch would be arguing! and
would have convinced me, in the face of all my memories, that my
Master, Who was a Man among men, was nourished by such thin swill
as bred this niggling brawling wretch to plague me!"
"Well, but indeed, St. Peter, there is no denying that wine is often
misused."
"So he informed me, Jurgen. And I told him by that argument he
would prohibit the making of bishops, for reasons he would find in the
mirror: and that, remembering what happened at the Crucifixion, he
would clap every lumber dealer into jail. So they took him away still
slavering," said St. Peter, wearily. "He was threatening to have somebody
else elected in my place when I last heard him: but that was only old
habit."
"I do not think, however, that I encountered any such bishop, sir,
down yonder."
"In the Hell of your fathers? Oh, no: your fathers meant well, but their
notions were limited. No, we have quite another eternal home for these
blasphemers, in a region that was fitted out long ago, when the need
grew pressing to provide a place for zealous Churchmen."
"And who devised this place, St. Peter?"
"As a very special favor, we Twelve to whom is imputed the beginning
and the patronizing of such abominations were permitted to design and
furnish this place. And, of course, we put it in charge of our former con-
frère, Judas. He seemed the appropriate person. Equally of course, we
put a very special roof upon it, the best imitation which we could con-
trive of the War Roof, so that none of those grinning cherubs could see
what long reward it was we Twelve who founded Christianity had con-
trived for these blasphemers."
"Well, doubtless that was wise."
"Ah, and if we Twelve had our way there would be just such another
roof kept always over Earth. For the slavering madman has left a many

216
like him clamoring and spewing about the churches that were named for
us Twelve, and in the pulpits of the churches that were named for us:
and we find it embarrassing. It is the doctrine of Mahound they splutter,
and not any doctrine that we ever preached or even heard of: and they
ought to say so fairly, instead of libeling us who were Apostles and gen-
tlemen. But thus it is that the rascals make free with our names: and the
cherubs keep track of these antics, and poke fun at us. So that it is not all
pleasure, this being a Holy Apostle in Heaven, Jurgen, though once we
Twelve were happy enough." And St. Peter sighed.
"One thing I did not understand, sir: and that was when you spoke just
now of the War Roof."
"It is a stone roof, made of the two tablets handed down at Sinai,
which God fits over Earth whenever men go to war. For He is merciful:
and many of us here remember that once upon a time we were men and
women. So when men go to war God screens the sight of what they do,
because He wishes to be merciful to us."
"That must prevent, however, the ascent of all prayers that are made in
war-time."
"Why, but, of course, that is the roof's secondary purpose," replied St.
Peter. "What else would you expect when the Master's teachings are be-
ing flouted? Rumors get through, though, somehow, and horribly pre-
posterous rumors. For instance, I have actually heard that in war-time
prayers are put up to the Lord God to back His favorites and take part in
the murdering. Not," said the good Saint, in haste, "that I would believe
even a Christian bishop to be capable of such blasphemy: I merely want
to show you, Jurgen, what wild stories get about. Still, I remember, back
in Cappadocia—" And then St. Peter slapped his thigh. "But would you
keep me gossiping here forever, Jurgen, with the Souls lining up at the
main entrance like ants that swarm to molasses! Come, out of Heaven
with you, Jurgen! and back to whatever place you imagine will restore to
you your own proper illusions! and let me be returning to my duties."
"Well, then, St. Peter, I imagine Amneran Heath, where I flung away
my mother's last gift to me."
"And Amneran Heath it is," said St. Peter, as he thrust Jurgen through
the small private door that was carved with fishes in bas-relief.
And Jurgen saw that the Saint spoke truthfully.

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Chapter 43
Postures before a Shadow
Thus Jurgen stood again upon Amneran Heath. And again it was
Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather more than likely to hap-
pen: and the low moon was bright, so that the shadow of Jurgen was
long and thin. And Jurgen searched for the gold cross that he had worn
through motives of sentiment, but he could not find it, nor did he ever
recover it: but barberry bushes and the thorns of barberry bushes he
found in great plenty as he searched vainly. All the while that he
searched, the shirt of Nessus glittered in the moonlight, and the shadow
of Jurgen streamed long and thin, and every movement that was made
by Jurgen the shadow parodied. And as always, it was the shadow of a
lean woman, with her head wrapped in a towel.
Now Jurgen regarded this shadow, and to Jurgen it was abhorrent.
"Oh, Mother Sereda," says he, "for a whole year your shadow has
dogged me. Many lands we have visited, and many sights we have seen:
and at the end all that we have done is a tale that is told: and it is a tale
that does not matter. So I stand where I stood at the beginning of my
foiled journeying. The gift you gave me has availed me nothing: and I do
not care whether I be young or old: and I have lost all that remained to
me of my mother and of my mother's love, and I have betrayed my
mother's pride in me, and I am weary."
Now a little whispering gathered upon the ground, as though dead
leaves were moving there: and the whispering augmented (because this
was upon Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather more than
likely to happen), and the whispering became the ghost of a voice.
"You flattered me very cunningly, Jurgen, for you are a monstrous
clever fellow." This it was that the voice said drily.
"A number of people might say that with tolerable justice," Jurgen de-
clared: "and yet I guess who speaks. As for flattering you, godmother, I
was only joking that day in Glathion: in fact, I was careful to explain as
much, the moment I noticed your shadow seemed interested in my idle

218
remarks and was writing them all down in a notebook. Oh, no, I can as-
sure you I trafficked quite honestly, and have dealt fairly everywhere.
For the rest, I really am very clever: it would be foolish of me to deny it."
"Vain fool!" said the voice of Mother Sereda.
Jurgen replied: "It may be that I am vain. But it is certain that I am
clever. And even more certain is the fact that I am weary. For, look you,
in the tinsel of my borrowed youth I have gone romancing through the
world; and into lands unvisited by other men have I ventured, playing at
spillikins with women and gear and with the welfare of kingdoms; and
into Hell have I fallen, and into Heaven have I climbed, and into the
place of the Lord God Himself have I crept stealthily: and nowhere have
I found what I desired. Nor do I know what my desire is, even now. But
I know that it is not possible for me to become young again, whatever I
may appear to others."
"Indeed, Jurgen, youth has passed out of your heart, beyond the reach
of Léshy: and the nearest you can come to regaining youth is to behave
childishly."
"O godmother, but do give rein to your better instincts and all that sort
of thing, and speak with me more candidly! Come now, dear lady, there
should be no secrets between you and me. In Leukê you were reported
to be Cybelê, the great Res Dea, the mistress of every tangible thing. In
Cocaigne they spoke of you as Æsred. And at Cameliard Merlin called
you Adères, dark Mother of the Little Gods. Well, but at your home in
the forest, where I first had the honor of making your acquaintance, god-
mother, you told me you were Sereda, who takes the color out of things,
and controls all Wednesdays. Now these anagrams bewilder me, and I
desire to know you frankly for what you are."
"It may be that I am all these. Meanwhile I bleach, and sooner or later I
bleach everything. It may be that some day, Jurgen, I shall even take the
color out of a fool's conception of himself."
"Yes, yes! but just between ourselves, godmother, is it not this shadow
of you that prevents my entering, quite, into the appropriate emotion,
the spirit of the occasion, as one might say, and robs my life of the zest
which other persons apparently get out of living? Come now, you know
it is! Well, and for my part, godmother, I love a jest as well as any man
breathing, but I do prefer to have it intelligible."
"Now, let me tell you something plainly, Jurgen!" Mother Sereda
cleared her invisible throat, and began to speak rather indignantly.
*****

219
 "Well, godmother, if you will pardon my frankness, I do not think it is
quite nice to talk about such things, and certainly not with so much
candor. However, dismissing these considerations of delicacy, let us re-
vert to my original question. You have given me youth and all the ap-
purtenances of youth: and therewith you have given, too, in your joking
way—which nobody appreciates more heartily than I,—a shadow that
renders all things not quite satisfactory, not wholly to be trusted, not to
be met with frankness. Now—as you understand, I hope,—I concede the
jest, I do not for a moment deny it is a master-stroke of humor. But, after
all, just what exactly is the point of it? What does it mean?"
"It may be that there is no meaning anywhere. Could you face that in-
terpretation, Jurgen?"
"No," said Jurgen: "I have faced god and devil, but that I will not face."
"No more would I who have so many names face that. You jested with
me. So I jest with you. Probably Koshchei jests with all of us. And he, no
doubt—even Koshchei who made things as they are,—is in turn the butt
of some larger jest."
"He may be, certainly," said Jurgen: "yet, on the other hand—"
"About these matters I do not know. How should I? But I think that all
of us take part in a moving and a shifting and a reasoned using of the
things which are Koshchei's, a using such as we do not comprehend, and
are not fit to comprehend."
"That is possible," said Jurgen: "but, none the less—!"
"It is as a chessboard whereon the pieces move diversely: the knights
leaping sidewise, and the bishops darting obliquely, and the rooks char-
ging straightforward, and the pawns laboriously hobbling from square
to square, each at the player's will. There is no discernible order, all to
the onlooker is manifestly in confusion: but to the player there is a mean-
ing in the disposition of the pieces."
"I do not deny it: still, one must grant—"
"And I think it is as though each of the pieces, even the pawns, had a
chessboard of his own which moves as he is moved, and whereupon he
moves the pieces to suit his will, in the very moment wherein he is
moved willy-nilly."
"You may be right: yet, even so—"
"And Koshchei who directs this infinite moving of puppets may well
be the futile harried king in some yet larger game."
"Now, certainly I cannot contradict you: but, at the same time—!"
"So goes this criss-cross multitudinous moving as far as thought can
reach: and beyond that the moving goes. All moves. All moves

220
uncomprehendingly, and to the sound of laughter. For all moves in con-
sonance with a higher power that understands the meaning of the move-
ment. And each moves the pieces before him in consonance with his abil-
ity. So the game is endless and ruthless: and there is merriment over-
head, but it is very far away."
"Nobody is more willing to concede that these are handsome fancies,
Mother Sereda. But they make my head ache. Moreover, two people are
needed to play chess, and your hypothesis does not provide anybody
with an antagonist. Lastly, and above all, how do I know there is a word
of truth in your high-sounding fancies?"
"How can any of us know anything? And what is Jurgen, that his
knowing or his not knowing should matter to anybody?"
Jurgen slapped his hands together. "Hah, Mother Sereda!" says he,
"but now I have you. It is that, precisely that damnable question, which
your shadow has been whispering to me from the beginning of our com-
panionship. And I am through with you. I will have no more of your
gifts, which are purchased at the cost of hearing that whisper. I am re-
solved henceforward to be as other persons, and to believe implicitly in
my own importance."
"But have you any reason to blame me? I restored to you your youth.
And when, just at the passing of that replevined Wednesday which I
loaned, you rebuked the Countess Dorothy very edifyingly, I was
pleased to find a man so chaste: and therefore I continued my grant of
youth—"
"Ah, yes!" said Jurgen: "then that was the way of it! You were pleased,
just in the nick of time, by my virtuous rebuke of the woman who temp-
ted me. Yes, to be sure. Well, well! come now, you know, that is very
gratifying."
"None the less your chastity, however unusual, has proved a barren
virtue. For what have you made of a year of youth? Why, each thing that
every man of forty-odd by ordinary regrets having done, you have done
again, only more swiftly, compressing the follies of a quarter of a century
into the space of one year. You have sought bodily pleasures. You have
made jests. You have asked many idle questions. And you have doubted
all things, including Jurgen. In the face of your memories, in the face of
what you probably considered cordial repentance, you have made of
your second youth just nothing. Each thing that every man of forty-odd
regrets having done, you have done again."
"Yes: it is undeniable that I re-married," said Jurgen. "Indeed, now I
think of it, there was Anaïtis and Chloris and Florimel, so that I have

221
married thrice in one year. But I am largely the victim of heredity, you
must remember, since it was without consulting me that Smoit of Gla-
thion perpetuated his characteristics."
"Your marriages I do not criticize, for each was in accordance with the
custom of the country: the law is always respectable; and matrimony is
an honorable estate, and has a steadying influence, in all climes. It is true
my shadow reports several other affairs—"
"Oh, godmother, and what is this you are telling me!"
"There was a Yolande and a Guenevere"—the voice of Mother Sereda
appeared to read from a memorandum,—"and a Sylvia, who was your
own step-grandmother, and a Stella, who was a yogini, whatever that
may be; and a Phyllis and a Dolores, who were the queens of Hell and
Philistia severally. Moreover, you visited the Queen of Pseudopolis in
circumstances which could not but have been unfavorably viewed by her
husband. Oh, yes, you have committed follies with divers women."
"Follies, it may be, but no crimes, not even a misdemeanor. Look you,
Mother Sereda, does your shadow report in all this year one single in-
stance of misconduct with a woman?" says Jurgen, sternly.
"No, dearie, as I joyfully concede. The very worst reported is that mat-
ters were sometimes assuming a more or less suspicious turn when you
happened to put out the light. And, of course, shadows cannot exist in
absolute darkness."
"See now," said Jurgen, "what a thing it is to be careful! Careful, I
mean, in one's avoidance of even an appearance of evil. In what other
young man of twenty-one may you look to find such continence? And
yet you grumble!"
"I do not complain because you have lived chastely. That pleases me,
and is the single reason you have been spared this long."
"Oh, godmother, and whatever are you telling me!"
"Yes, dearie, had you once sinned with a woman in the youth I gave,
you would have been punished instantly and very terribly. For I was al-
ways a great believer in chastity, and in the old days I used to insure the
chastity of all my priests in the only way that is infallible."
"In fact, I noticed something of the sort as you passed in Leukê."
"And over and over again I have been angered by my shadow's re-
ports, and was about to punish you, my poor dearie, when I would re-
member that you held fast to the rarest of all virtues in a man, and that
my shadow reported no irregularities with women. And that would
please me, I acknowledge: so I would let matters run on a while longer.
But it is a shiftless business, dearie, for you are making nothing of the

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youth I restored to you. And had you a thousand lives the result would
be the same."
"Nevertheless, I am a monstrous clever fellow." Jurgen chuckled here.
"You are, instead, a palterer; and your life, apart from that fine song
you made about me, is sheer waste."
"Ah, if you come to that, there was a brown man in the Druid forest,
who showed me a very curious spectacle, last June. And I am not apt to
lose the memory of what he showed me, whatever you may say, and
whatever I may have said to him."
"This and a many other curious spectacles you have seen and have
made nothing of, in the false youth I gave you. And therefore my shad-
ow was angry that in the revelation of so much futile trifling I did not
take away the youth I gave—as I have half a mind to do, even now, I
warn you, dearie, for there is really no putting up with you. But I spared
you because of my shadow's grudging reports as to your continence,
which is a virtue that we of the Léshy peculiarly revere."
Now Jurgen considered. "Eh?—then it is within your ability to make
me old again, or rather, an excellently preserved person of forty-odd, or
say, thirty-nine, by the calendar, but not looking it by a long shot? Such
threats are easily voiced. But how can I know that you are speaking the
truth?"
"How can any of us know anything? And what is Jurgen, that his
knowing or his not knowing should matter to anybody?"
"Ah, godmother, and must you still be mumbling that! Come now, for-
get you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and an-
cient privilege of kinship by calling me harsh names, but it is in the face
of this plain fact: I got from you what never man has got before. I am a
monstrous clever fellow, say what you will: for already I have cajoled
you out of a year of youth, a year wherein I have neither builded nor
robbed any churches, but have had upon the whole a very pleasant time.
Ah, you may murmur platitudes and threats and axioms and anything
else which happens to appeal to you: the fact remains that I got what I
wanted. Yes, I cajoled you very neatly into giving me eternal youth. For,
of course, poor dear, you are now powerless to take it back: and so I shall
retain, in spite of you, the most desirable possession in life."
"I gave, in honor of your chastity, which is the one commendable trait
that you possess—"
"My chastity, I grant you, is remarkable. Nevertheless, you really gave
because I was the cleverer."
"—And what I give I can retract at will!"

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 "Come, come, you know very well you can do nothing of the sort. I
refer you to Sævius Nicanor. None of the Léshy can ever take back the
priceless gift of youth. That is explicitly proved, in the Appendix."
"Now, but I am becoming angry—"
"To the contrary, as I perceive with real regret, you are becoming ri-
diculous, since you dispute the authority of Sævius Nicanor."
"—And I will show you—oh, but I will show you, you jackanapes!"
"Ah, but come now! keep your temper in hand! All fairly erudite per-
sons know you cannot do the thing you threaten: and it is notorious that
the weakest wheel of every cart creaks loudest. So do you cultivate a ju-
dicious taciturnity! for really nobody is going to put up with petulance in
an ugly and toothless woman of your age, as I tell you for your own
good."
It always vexes people to be told anything for their own good. So what
followed happened quickly. A fleece of cloud slipped over the moon.
The night seemed bitterly cold, for the space of a heart-beat, and then
matters were comfortable enough. The moon emerged in its full glory,
and there in front of Jurgen was the proper shadow of Jurgen. He
dazedly regarded his hands, and they were the hands of an elderly per-
son. He felt the calves of his legs, and they were shrunken. He patted
himself centrally, and underneath the shirt of Nessus the paunch of Jur-
gen was of impressive dimension. In other respects he had abated.
"Then, too, I have forgotten something very suddenly," reflected Jur-
gen. "It was something I wanted to forget. Ah, yes! but what was it that I
wanted to forget? Why, there was a brown man—with something un-
usual about his feet—He talked nonsense and behaved idiotically in a
Druid forest—He was probably insane. No, I do not remember what it
was that I have forgotten: but I am sure it has gnawed away in the back
of my mind, like a small ruinous maggot: and that, after all, it was of no
importance."
Aloud he wailed, in his most moving tones: "Oh, Mother Sereda, I did
not mean to anger you. It was not fair to snap me up on a thoughtless
word! Have mercy upon me, Mother Sereda, for I would never have al-
luded to your being so old and plain-looking if I had known you were so
vain!"
But Mother Sereda did not appear to be softened by this form of en-
treaty, for nothing happened.
"Well, then, thank goodness, that is over!" says Jurgen, to himself. "Of
course, she may be listening still, and it is dangerous jesting with the
Léshy: but really they do not seem to be very intelligent. Otherwise this

224
irritable maunderer would have known that, everything else apart, I am
heartily tired of the responsibilities of youth under any such constant
surveillance. Now all is changed: there is no call to avoid a suspicion of
wrong doing by transacting all philosophical investigations in the dark:
and I am no longer distrustful of lamps or candles, or even of sunlight.
Old body, you are as grateful as old slippers, to a somewhat wearied
man: and for the second time I have tricked Mother Sereda rather neatly.
My knowledge of Lisa, however painfully acquired, is a decided advant-
age in dealing with anything that is feminine."
Then Jurgen regarded the black cave. "And that reminds me it still
would be, I suppose, the manly thing to continue my quest for Lisa. The
intimidating part is that if I go into this cave for the third time I shall al-
most certainly get her back. By every rule of tradition the third attempt is
invariably successful. I wonder if I want Lisa back?"
Jurgen meditated: and he shook a grizzled head. "I do not definitely
know. She was an excellent cook. There were pies that I shall always re-
member with affection. And she meant well, poor dear! But then if it was
really her head that I sliced off last May—or if her temper is not any bet-
ter—Still, it is an interminable nuisance washing your own dishes: and I
appear to have no aptitude whatever for sewing and darning things. But,
to the other hand, Lisa nags so: and she does not understand me—"
Jurgen shrugged. "See-saw! the argument for and against might run on
indefinitely. Since I have no real preference, I will humor prejudice by
doing the manly thing. For it seems only fair: and besides, it may fail
after all"
Then he went into the cave for the third time.

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Chapter 44
In the Manager's Office
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 Nessus had lain in wait for Jurgen. Again Jurgen stooped, and
crawled through the opening in the cave's wall, and so came to where
lamps were burning upon tall iron stands. Now, one by one, these lamps
were going out, and there were now no women here: instead, Jurgen
trod inch deep in fine white ashes, leaving the print of his feet upon
them.
He went forward as the cave stretched. He came to a sharp turn in the
cave, with the failing lamplight now behind him, so that his shadow con-
fronted Jurgen, blurred but unarguable. It was the proper shadow of a
commonplace and elderly pawnbroker, and Jurgen regarded it with
approval.
Jurgen came then into a sort of underground chamber, from the roof of
which was suspended a kettle of quivering red flames. Facing him was a
throne, and back of this were rows of benches: but here, too, was
nobody. Resting upright against the vacant throne was a triangular
white shield: and when Jurgen looked more closely he could see there
was writing upon it. Jurgen carried this shield as close as he could to the
kettle of flames, for his eyesight was now not very good, and besides, the
flames in the kettle were burning low: and Jurgen deciphered the mes-
sage that was written upon the shield, in black and red letters.
"Absent upon important affairs," it said. "Will be back in an hour." And
it was signed, "Thragnar R."
"I wonder now for whom King Thragnar left this notice?" reflected Jur-
gen—"certainly not for me. And I wonder, too, if he left it here a year ago
or only this evening? And I wonder if it was Thragnar's head I removed
in the black and silver pavilion? Ah, well, there are a number of things to

226
wonder about in this incredible cave, wherein the lights are dying out, as
I observe with some discomfort. And I think the air grows chillier."
Then Jurgen looked to his right, at the stairway which he and Guenev-
ere had ascended; and he shook his head. "Glathion is no fit resort for a
respectable pawnbroker. Chivalry is for young people, like the late Duke
of Logreus. But I must get out of this place, for certainly there is in the air
a deathlike chill."
So Jurgen went on down the aisle between the rows of benches where-
from Thragnar's warriors had glared at Jurgen when he was last in this
part of the cave. At the end of the aisle was a wooden door painted
white. It was marked, in large black letters, "Office of the Man-
ager—Keep Out." So Jurgen opened this door.
He entered into a notable place illuminated by six cresset lights. These
lights were the power of Assyria, and Nineveh, and Egypt, and Rome,
and Athens, and Byzantium: six other cressets stood ready there, but fire
had not yet been laid to these. Back of all was a large blackboard with
much figuring on it in red chalk. And here, too, was the black gentleman,
who a year ago had given his blessing to Jurgen, for speaking civilly of
the powers of darkness. To-night the black gentleman wore a black
dressing-gown that was embroidered with all the signs of the Zodiac. He
sat at a table, the top of which was curiously inlaid with thirty pieces of
silver: and he was copying entries from one big book into another. He
looked up from his writing pleasantly enough, and very much as though
he were expecting Jurgen.
"You find me busy with the Stellar Accounts," says he, "which appear
to be in a fearful muddle. But what more can I do for you, Jurgen?—for
you, my friend, who spoke a kind word for things as they are, and fur-
nished me with one or two really very acceptable explanations as to why
I had created evil?"
"I have been thinking, Prince—" begins the pawnbroker.
"And why do you call me a prince, Jurgen?"
"I do not know, sir. But I suspect that my quest is ended, and that you
are Koshchei the Deathless."
The black gentleman nodded. "Something of the sort. Koshchei, or
Ardnari, or Ptha, or Jaldalaoth, or Abraxas,—it is all one what I may be
called hereabouts. My real name you never heard: no man has ever
heard my name. So that matter we need hardly go into."
"Precisely, Prince. Well, but it is a long way that I have traveled round-
about, to win to you who made things as they are. And it is eager I am to
learn just why you made things as they are."

227
 Up went the black gentleman's eyebrows into regular Gothic arches.
"And do you really think, Jurgen, that I am going to explain to you why I
made things as they are?"
"I fail to see, Prince, how my wanderings could have any other equit-
able climax."
"But, friend, I have nothing to do with justice. To the contrary, I am
Koshchei who made things as they are."
Jurgen saw the point. "Your reasoning, Prince, is unanswerable. I bow
to it. I should even have foreseen it. Do you tell me, then, what thing is
this which I desire, and cannot find in any realm that man has known
nor in any kingdom that man has imagined."
Koshchei was very patient. "I am not, I confess, anything like as well
acquainted with what has been going on in this part of the universe as I
ought to be. Of course, events are reported to me, in a general sort of
way, and some of my people were put in charge of these stars, a while
back: but they appear to have run the constellation rather shiftlessly.
Still, I have recently been figuring on the matter, and I do not despair of
putting the suns hereabouts to some profitable use, in one way or anoth-
er, after all. Of course, it is not as if it were an important constellation.
But I am an Economist, and I dislike waste—"
Then he was silent for an instant, not greatly worried by the problem,
as Jurgen could see, but mildly vexed by his inability to divine the solu-
tion out of hand. Presently Koshchei said:
"And in the mean time, Jurgen, I am afraid I cannot answer your ques-
tion on the spur of the moment. You see, there appears to have been a
great number of human beings, as you call them, evolved upon—oh,
yes!—upon Earth. I have the approximate figures over yonder, but they
would hardly interest you. And the desires of each one of these human
beings seem to have been multitudinous and inconstant. Yet, Jurgen, you
might appeal to the local authorities, for I remember appointing some, at
the request of a very charming old lady."
"In fine, you do not know what thing it is that I desire," said Jurgen,
much surprised.
"Why, no, I have not the least notion," replied Koshchei. "Still, I sus-
pect that if you got it you would protest it was a most unjust affliction.
So why keep worrying about it?"
Jurgen demanded, almost indignantly: "But have you not then, Prince,
been guiding all my journeying during this last year?"
"Now, really, Jurgen, I remember our little meeting very pleasantly.
And I endeavored forthwith to dispose of your most urgent annoyance.

228
But I confess I have had one or two other matters upon my mind since
then. You see, Jurgen, the universe is rather large, and the running of it is
a considerable tax upon my time. I cannot manage to see anything like as
much of my friends as I would be delighted to see of them. And so per-
haps, what with one thing and another, I have not given you my undi-
vided attention all through the year—not every moment of it, that is."
"Ah, Prince, I see that you are trying to spare my feelings, and it is
kind of you. But the upshot is that you do not know what I have been
doing, and you did not care what I was doing. Dear me! but this is a very
sad come-down for my pride."
"Yes, but reflect how remarkable a possession is that pride of yours,
and how I wonder at it, and how I envy it in vain,—I, who have nothing
anywhere to contemplate save my own handiwork. Do you consider,
Jurgen, what I would give if I could find, anywhere in this universe of
mine, anything which would make me think myself one-half so import-
ant as you think Jurgen is!" And Koshchei sighed.
But instead, Jurgen considered the humiliating fact that Koshchei had
not been supervising Jurgen's travels. And of a sudden Jurgen perceived
that this Koshchei the Deathless was not particularly intelligent. Then
Jurgen wondered why he should ever have expected Koshchei to be in-
telligent? Koshchei was omnipotent, as men estimate omnipotence: but
by what course of reasoning had people come to believe that Koshchei
was clever, as men estimate cleverness? The fact that, to the contrary,
Koshchei seemed well-meaning, but rather slow of apprehension and a
little needlessly fussy, went far toward explaining a host of matters
which had long puzzled Jurgen. Cleverness was, of course, the most ad-
mirable of all traits: but cleverness was not at the top of things, and never
had been. "Very well, then!" says Jurgen, with a shrug; "let us come to
my third request and to the third thing that I have been seeking. Here,
though, you ought to be more communicative. For I have been thinking,
Prince, my wife's society is perhaps becoming to you a trifle
burdensome."
"Eh, sirs, I am not unaccustomed to women. I may truthfully say that
as I find them, so do I take them. And I was willing to oblige a fellow
rebel."
"But I do not know, Prince, that I have ever rebelled. Far from it, I have
everywhere conformed with custom."
"Your lips conformed, but all the while your mind made verses, Jur-
gen. And poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is."

229
 "—And besides, you call me a fellow rebel. Now, how can it be pos-
sible that Koshchei, who made all things as they are, should be a rebel?
unless, indeed, there is some power above even Koshchei. I would very
much like to have that explained to me, sir."
"No doubt: but then why should I explain it to you, Jurgen?" says the
black gentleman.
"Well, be that as it may, Prince! But—to return a little—I do not know
that you have obliged me in carrying off my wife. I mean, of course, my
first wife."
"Why, Jurgen," says the black gentleman, in high astonishment, "do
you mean to tell me that you want the plague of your life back again!"
"I do not know about that either, sir. She was certainly very hard to
live with. On the other hand, I had become used to having her about. I
rather miss her, now that I am again an elderly person. Indeed, I believe I
have missed Lisa all along."
The black gentleman meditated. "Come, friend," he says, at last. "You
were a poet of some merit. You displayed a promising talent which
might have been cleverly developed, in any suitable environment. Now,
I repeat, I am an Economist: I dislike waste: and you were never fitted to
be anything save a poet. The trouble was"—and Koshchei lowered his
voice to an impressive whisper,—"the trouble was your wife did not un-
derstand you. She hindered your art. Yes, that precisely sums it up: she
interfered with your soul-development, and your instinctive need of self-
expression, and all that sort of thing. You are very well rid of this wo-
man, who converted a poet into a pawnbroker. To the other side, as is
with point observed somewhere or other, it is not good for man to live
alone. But, friend, I have just the wife for you."
"Well, Prince," said Jurgen, "I am willing to taste any drink once."
So Koshchei waved his hand: and there, quick as winking, was the
loveliest lady that Jurgen had ever imagined.

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Chapter 45
The Faith of Guenevere
Very fair was this woman to look upon, with her shining gray eyes and
small smiling lips, a fairer woman might no man boast of having seen.
And she regarded Jurgen graciously, with her cheeks red and white,
very lovely to observe. She was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk,
and about her neck was a collar of red gold. And she told him, quite as
though she spoke with a stranger, that she was Queen Guenevere.
"But Lancelot is turned monk, at Glastonbury: and Arthur is gone into
Avalon," says she: "and I will be your wife if you will have me, Jurgen."
And Jurgen saw that Guenevere did not know him at all, and that
even his name to her was meaningless. There were a many ways of ac-
counting for this: but he put aside the unflattering explanation that she
had simply forgotten all about Jurgen, in favor of the reflection that the
Jurgen she had known was a scapegrace of twenty-one. Whereas he was
now a staid and knowledgeable pawnbroker.
And it seemed to Jurgen that he had never really loved any woman
save Guenevere, the daughter of Gogyrvan Gawr, and the pawnbroker
was troubled.
"For again you make me think myself a god," says Jurgen. "Madame
Guenevere, when man recognized himself to be Heaven's vicar upon
earth, it was to serve and to glorify and to protect you and your radiant
sisterhood that man consecrated his existence. You were beautiful, and
you were frail; you were half goddess and half bric-à-brac. Ohimé, I re-
cognize the call of chivalry, and my heart-strings resound: yet, for innu-
merable reasons, I hesitate to take you for my wife, and to concede my-
self your appointed protector, responsible as such to Heaven. For one
matter, I am not altogether sure that I am Heaven's vicar here upon
earth. Certainly the God of Heaven said nothing to me about it, and I
cannot but suspect that Omniscience would have selected some more
competent representative."
"It is so written, Messire Jurgen."

231
 Jurgen shrugged. "I too, in the intervals of business, have written
much that is beautiful. Very often my verses were so beautiful that I
would have given anything in the world in exchange for somewhat less
sure information as to the author's veracity. Ah, no, madame, desire and
knowledge are pressing me so sorely that, between them, I dare not love
you, and still I cannot help it!"
Then Jurgen gave a little wringing gesture with his hands. His smile
was not merry; and it seemed pitiful that Guenevere should not remem-
ber him.
"Madame and queen," says Jurgen, "once long and long ago there was
a man who worshipped all women. To him they were one and all of sac-
red, sweet intimidating beauty. He shaped sonorous rhymes of this, in
praise of the mystery and sanctity of women. Then a count's tow-headed
daughter whom he loved, with such love as it puzzles me to think of
now, was shown to him just as she was, as not even worthy of hatred.
The goddess stood revealed, unveiled, and displaying in all things such
mediocrity as he fretted to find in himself. That was unfortunate. For he
began to suspect that women, also, are akin to their parents; and are no
wiser, and no more subtle, and no more immaculate, than the father who
begot them. Madame and queen, it is not good for any man to suspect
this."
"It is certainly not the conduct of a chivalrous person, nor of an au-
thentic poet," says Queen Guenevere. "And yet your eyes are big with
tears."
"Hah, madame," he replied, "but it amuses me to weep for a dead man
with eyes that once were his. For he was a dear lad before he went ram-
paging through the world, 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 for all his
laughter, he could not understand his fellows, nor could he love them,
nor could he detect anything in aught they said or did save their exceed-
ing folly."
"Why, man's folly is indeed very great, Messire Jurgen, and the doings
of this world are often inexplicable: and so does it come about that man
can be saved by faith alone."
"Ah, but this boy had lost his fellows' cordial common faith in the im-
portance of what use they made of half-hours and months and years;
and because a jill-flirt had opened his eyes so that they saw too much, he

232
had lost faith in the importance of his own actions, too. There was a little
time of which the passing might be made not unendurable; beyond
gaped unpredictable darkness; and that was all there was of certainty
anywhere. Meanwhile, he had the loan of a brain which played with
ideas, and a body that went delicately down pleasant ways. And so he
was never the mate for you, dear Guenevere, because he had not suffi-
cient faith in anything at all, not even in his own deductions."
Now said Queen Guenevere: "Farewell to you, then, Jurgen, for it is I
that am leaving you forever. I was to them that served me the lovely and
excellent masterwork of God: in Caerleon and Northgalis and at Joyeuse
Garde might men behold me with delight, because, men said, to view me
was to comprehend the power and kindliness of their Creator. Very
beautiful was Iseult, and the face of Luned sparkled like a moving gem;
Morgaine and Enid and Viviane and shrewd Nimuë were lovely, too;
and the comeliness of Ettarde exalted the beholder like a proud music:
these, going statelily about Arthur's hall, seemed Heaven's finest crafts-
manship until the Queen came to her daïs, as the moon among glowing
stars: men then affirmed that God in making Guenevere had used both
hands. And it is I that am leaving you forever. My beauty was no human
white and red, said they, but an explicit sign of Heaven's might. In ap-
proaching me men thought of God, because in me, they said, His
splendor was incarnate. That which I willed was neither right nor
wrong: it was divine. This thing it was that the knights saw in me; this
surety, as to the power and kindliness of their great Father, it was of
which the chevaliers of yesterday were conscious in beholding me, and
of men's need to be worthy of such parentage; and it is I that am leaving
you forever."
Said Jurgen: "I could not see all this in you, not quite all this, because
of a shadow that followed me. Now it is too late, and this is a sorrowful
thing which is happening. I am become as a rudderless boat that goes
from wave to wave: I am turned to unfertile dust which a whirlwind
makes coherent, and presently lets fall. And so, farewell to you, Queen
Guenevere, for it is a sorrowful thing and a very unfair thing that is
happening."
Thus he cried farewell to the daughter of Gogyrvan Gawr. And in-
stantly she vanished like the flame of a blown out altar-candle.

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Chapter 46
The Desire of Anaïtis
And again Koshchei waved his hand. Then came to Jurgen a woman
who was strangely gifted and perverse. Her dark eyes glittered: upon
her head was a net-work of red coral, with branches radiating down-
ward, and her tunic was of two colors, being shot with black and crim-
son curiously mingled.
And Anaïtis also had forgotten Jurgen, or else she did not recognize
him in this man of forty and something: and again belief awoke in
Jurgen's heart that this was the only woman whom Jurgen had really
loved, as he listened to Anaïtis and to her talk of marvelous things.
Of the lore of Thaïs she spoke, and of the schooling of Sappho, and of
the secrets of Rhodopê, and of the mourning for Adonis: and the refrain
of all her talking was not changed. "For we 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. As thus and
thus," says she. And the bright-colored pensive woman spoke with an-
tique directness of matters that Jurgen, being no longer a scapegrace of
twenty-one, found rather embarrassing.
"Come, come!" thinks he, "but it will never do to seem provincial. I be-
lieve that I am actually blushing."
Aloud he said: "Sweetheart, there was—why, not a half-hour since!—a
youth who sought quite zealously for the over-mastering frenzies you
prattle about. But, candidly, he could not find the flesh whose touch
would rouse insanity. The lad had opportunities, too, let me tell you!
Hah, I recall with tenderness the glitter of eyes and hair, and the gay gar-
ments, and the soft voices of those fond foolish women, even now. But
he went from one pair of lips to another, with an ardor that was always
half-feigned, and with protestations which were conscious echoes of
some romance or other. Such escapades were pleasant enough: but they
were not very serious, after all. For these things concerned his body

234
alone: and I am more than an edifice of viands reared by my teeth. To
pretend that what my body does or endures is of importance seems
rather silly nowadays. I prefer to regard it as a necessary beast of burden
which I maintain, at considerable expense and trouble. So I shall make
no more pother about it."
But then again Queen Anaïtis spoke of marvelous things; and he
listened, fair-mindedly; for the Queen spoke now of that which was hers
to share with him.
"Well, I have heard," says Jurgen, "that you have a notable residence in
Cocaigne."
"But that is only a little country place, to which I sometimes repair in
summer, in order to live rustically. No, Jurgen, you must see my palaces.
In Babylon I have a palace where many abide with cords about them and
burn bran for perfume, while they await that thing which is to befall
them. In Armenia I have a palace surrounded by vast gardens, where
only strangers have the right to enter: they there receive a hospitality
that is more than gallant. In Paphos I have a palace wherein is a little
pyramid of white stone, very curious to see: but still more curious is the
statue in my palace at Amathus, of a bearded woman, which displays
other features that women do not possess. And in Alexandria I have a
palace that is tended by thirty-six exceedingly wise and sacred persons,
and wherein it is always night: and there folk seek for monstrous pleas-
ures, even at the price of instant death, and win to both of these swiftly.
Everywhere my palaces stand upon high places near the sea: so they are
beheld from afar by those whom I hold dearest, my beautiful broad-ches-
ted mariners, who do not fear even me, but know that in my palaces they
will find notable employment. For I must tell you of what is to be en-
countered within these places that are mine, and of how pleasantly we
pass our time there." Then she told him.
Now he listened more attentively than ever, and his eyes were nar-
rowed, and his lips were lax and motionless and foolish-looking, and he
was deeply interested. For Anaïtis had thought of some new diversions
since their last meeting: and to Jurgen, even at forty and something, this
queen's voice was all a horrible and strange and lovely magic. "She really
tempts very nicely, too," he reflected, with a sort of pride in her.
Then Jurgen growled and shook himself, half angrily: and he tweaked
the ear of Queen Anaïtis.
"Sweetheart," says he, "you paint a glowing picture: but you are
shrewd enough to borrow your pigments from the day-dreams of inex-
perience. What you prattle about is not at all as you describe it. You

235
forget you are talking to a widely married man of varied experience.
Moreover, I shudder to think of what might happen if Lisa were to walk
in unexpectedly. And for the rest, all this to-do over nameless delights
and unspeakable caresses and other anonymous antics seems rather
naïve. My ears are beset by eloquent gray hairs which plead at closer
quarters than does that fibbing little tongue of yours. And so be off with
you!"
With that Queen Anaïtis smiled very cruelly, and she said: "Farewell
to you, then Jurgen, for it is I that am leaving you forever. Henceforward
you must fret away much sunlight by interminably shunning discomfort
and by indulging tepid preferences. For I, and none but I, can waken that
desire which uses all of a man, and so wastes nothing, even though it
leave that favored man forever after like wan ashes in the sunlight. And
with you I have no more concern, for it is I that am leaving you forever.
Join with your graying fellows, then! and help them to affront the clean
sane sunlight, by making guilds and laws and solemn phrases where-
with to rid the world of me. I, Anaïtis, laugh, and my heart is a wave in
the sunlight. For there is no power like my power, and no living thing
which can withstand my power; and those who deride me, as I well
know, are but the dead dry husks that a wind moves, with hissing
noises, while I harvest in open sunlight. For I am the desire that uses all
of a man: and it is I that am leaving you forever."
Said Jurgen: "I could not see all this in you, not quite all this, because
of a shadow that followed me. Now it is too late, and this is a sorrowful
thing which is happening. I am become as a puzzled ghost who furtively
observes the doings of loud-voiced ruddy persons: and I am compact of
weariness and apprehension, for I no longer discern what thing is I, nor
what is my desire, and I fear that I am already dead. So farewell to you,
Queen Anaïtis, for this, too, is a sorrowful thing and a very unfair thing
that is happening."
Thus he cried farewell to the Sun's daughter. And all the colors of her
loveliness flickered and merged into the likeness of a tall thin flame, that
aspired; and then this flame was extinguished.

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Chapter 47
The Vision of Helen
And for the third time Koshchei waved his hand. Now came to Jurgen a
gold-haired woman, clothed all in white. 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. And, behold-
ing her, Jurgen kneeled.
He hid his face in her white robe: and he stayed thus, without speak-
ing, for a long while.
"Lady of my vision," he said, and his voice broke—"there is that in you
which wakes old memories. For now assuredly I believe your father was
not Dom Manuel but that ardent bird which nestled very long ago in
Leda's bosom. And now Troy's sons are all in Adês' keeping, in the
world below; fire has consumed the walls of Troy, and the years have
forgotten her tall conquerors; but still you are bringing woe on woe to
hapless sufferers."
And again his voice broke. For the world seemed cheerless, and like a
house that none has lived in for a great while.
Queen Helen, the delight of gods and men, replied nothing at all, be-
cause there was no need, inasmuch as the man who has once glimpsed
her loveliness is beyond saving, and beyond the desire of being saved.
"To-night," says Jurgen, "as once through the gray art of Phobetor, now
through the will of Koshchei, it appears that you stand within arm's
reach. Hah, lady, were that possible—and I know very well it is not pos-
sible, whatever my senses may report,—I am not fit to mate with your
perfection. At the bottom of my heart, I no longer desire perfection. For
we who are tax-payers as well as immortal souls must live by politic eva-
sions and formulae and catchwords that fret away our lives as moths
waste a garment; we fall insensibly to common-sense as to a drug; and it

237
dulls and kills whatever in us is rebellious and fine and unreasonable;
and so you will find no man of my years with whom living is not a
mechanism which gnaws away time unprompted. For within this hour I
have become again a creature of use and wont; I am the lackey of
prudence and half-measures; and I have put my dreams upon an allow-
ance. Yet even now I love you more than I love books and indolence and
flattery and the charitable wine which cheats me into a favorable opinion
of myself. What more can an old poet say? For that reason, lady, I pray
you begone, because your loveliness is a taunt which I find
unendurable."
But his voice yearned, because this was Queen Helen, the delight of
gods and men, who regarded him with grave, kind eyes. She seemed to
view, as one appraises the pattern of an unrolled carpet, every action of
Jurgen's life: and she seemed, too, to wonder, without reproach or
trouble, how men could be so foolish, and of their own accord become so
miry.
"Oh, I have failed my vision!" cries Jurgen. "I have failed, and I know
very well that every man must fail: and yet my shame is no less bitter.
For I am transmuted by time's handling! I shudder at the thought of
living day-in and day-out with my vision! And so I will have none of
you for my wife."
Then, trembling, Jurgen raised toward his lips the hand of her who
was the world's darling.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Oh, very long ago I found your
beauty mirrored in a wanton's face! and often in a woman's face I have
found one or another feature wherein she resembled you, and for the
sake of it have lied to that woman glibly. And all my verses, as I know
now, were vain enchantments striving to evoke that hidden loveliness of
which I knew by dim report alone. Oh, all my life was a foiled quest of
you, Queen Helen, and an unsatiated hungering. And for a while I
served my vision, honoring you with clean-handed deeds. Yes, certainly
it should be graved upon my tomb, 'Queen Helen ruled this earth while
it stayed worthy.' But that was very long ago.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Your beauty has been to me as
a robber that stripped my life of joy and sorrow, and I desire not ever to
dream of your beauty any more. For I have been able to love nobody.
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,

238
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.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Hereafter I rove no more a-
questing anything; instead, I potter after hearthside comforts, and play
the physician with myself, and strive painstakingly to make old bones.
And no man's notion anywhere seems worth a cup of mulled wine; and
for the sake of no notion would I endanger the routine which so
hideously bores me. For I am transmuted by time's handling; I have be-
come the lackey of prudence and half-measures; and it does not seem
fair, but there is no help for it. So it is necessary that I now cry farewell to
you, Queen Helen: for I have failed in the service of my vision, and I
deny you utterly!"
Thus he cried farewell to the Swan's daughter: and Queen Helen van-
ished as a bright mist passes, not departing swiftly, as had departed
Queen Guenevere and Queen Anaïtis; and Jurgen was alone with the
black gentleman. And to Jurgen the world seemed cheerless, and like a
house that none has lived in for a great while.

239
Chapter 48
Candid Opinions of Dame Lisa
"Eh, sirs!" observes Koshchei the Deathless, "but some of us are certainly
hard to please." And now Jurgen was already intent to shrug off his dis-
play of emotion. "In selecting a wife, sir," submitted Jurgen, "there are all
sorts of matters to be considered—"
Then bewilderment smote him. For it occurred to Jurgen that his pre-
vious commerce with these three women was patently unknown to
Koshchei. Why, Koshchei, who made all things as they are—Koshchei,
no less—was now doing for Jurgen Koshchei's utmost: and that utmost
amounted to getting for Jurgen what Jurgen had once, with the aid of
youth and impudence, got for himself. Not even Koshchei, then, could
do more for Jurgen than might be accomplished by that youth and im-
pudence and tendency to pry into things generally which Jurgen had just
relinquished as over-restless nuisances. Jurgen drew the inference, and
shrugged; decidedly cleverness was not at the top. However, there was
no pressing need to enlighten Koshchei, and no wisdom in attempting it.
"—For you must understand, sir," continued Jurgen, smoothly, "that,
whatever the first impulse of the moment, it was apparent to any reflect-
ive person that in the past of each of these ladies there was much to sug-
gest inborn inaptitude for domestic life. And I am a peace-loving fellow,
sir; nor do I hold with moral laxity, now that I am forty-odd, except, of
course, in talk when it promotes sociability, and in verse-making
wherein it is esteemed as a conventional ornament. Still, Prince, the
chance I lost! I do not refer to matrimony, you conceive. But in the pres-
ence of these famous fair ones now departed from me forever, with what
glowing words I ought to have spoken! upon a wondrous ladder of
trophes, metaphors and recondite allusions, to what stylistic heights of
Asiatic prose I ought to have ascended! and instead, I twaddled like a
schoolmaster. Decidedly, Lisa is right, and I am good-for-nothing.
However," Jurgen added, hopefully, "it appeared to me that when I last

240
saw her, a year ago this evening, Lisa was somewhat less outspoken than
usual."
"Eh, sirs, but she was under a very potent spell. I found that necessary
in the interest of law and order hereabouts. I, who made things as they
are, am not accustomed to the excesses of practical persons who are ruth-
lessly bent upon reforming their associates. Indeed, it is one of the ad-
vantages of my situation that such folk do not consider things as they
are, and in consequence very rarely bother me." And the black gentle-
man in turn shrugged. "You will pardon me, but I notice in my accounts
that I am positively committed to color this year's anemones to-night,
and there is a rather large planetary system to be discontinued at half-
past ten. So time presses."
"And time is inexorable. Prince, with all due respect, I fancy it is pre-
cisely this truism which you have overlooked. You produce the most
charming of women, in a determined onslaught upon my fancy; but you
forget you are displaying them to a man of forty-and-something."
"And does that make so great a difference?"
"Oh, a sad difference, Prince! For as a man gets on in life he changes in
many ways. He handles sword and lance less creditably, and does not
carry as heavy a staff as he once flourished. He takes less interest in con-
versation, and his flow of humor diminishes. He is not the tireless math-
ematician that he was, if only because his faith in his personal endow-
ments slackens. He recognizes his limitations, and in consequence the
unimportance of his opinions, and indeed he recognizes the probable un-
importance of all fleshly matters. So he relinquishes trying to figure out
things, and sceptres and candles appear to him about equivalent; and he
is inclined to give up philosophical experiments, and to let things pass
unplumbed. Oh, yes, it makes a difference." And Jurgen sighed. "And
yet, for all that, it is a relief, sir, in a way."
"Nevertheless," said Koshchei, "now that you have inspected the
flower of womanhood, I cannot soberly believe you prefer your termag-
ant of a wife."
"Frankly, Prince, I also am, as usual, undecided. You may be right in
all you have urged; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say you are
wrong; but still, at the same time—! Come now, could you not let me see
my first wife for just a moment?"
This was no sooner asked than granted; for there, sure enough, was
Dame Lisa. She was no longer restricted to quiet speech by any stu-
pendous necromancy: and uncommonly plain she looked, after the
passing of those lovely ladies.

241
 "Aha, you rascal!" begins Dame Lisa, addressing Jurgen; "and so you
thought to be rid of me! Oh, a precious lot you are! and a deal of thanks I
get for my scrimping and slaving!" And she began scolding away.
But she began, somewhat to Jurgen's astonishment, by stating that he
was even worse than the Countess Dorothy. Then he recollected that, by
not the most disastrous piece of luck conceivable, Dame Lisa's latest
news from the outside world had been rendered by her sister, the
notary's wife, a twelvemonth back.
And rather unaccountably Jurgen fell to thinking of how unsubstantial
seemed these curious months devoted to other women, as set against the
commonplace years which he and Lisa had fretted through together; of
the fine and merry girl that Lisa had been before she married him; of
how well she knew his tastes in cookery and all his little preferences, and
of how cleverly she humored them on those rare days when nothing had
occurred to vex her; of all the buttons she had replaced, and all the socks
she had darned, and of what tempests had been loosed when anyone
else had had the audacity to criticize Jurgen; and of how much more un-
pleasant—everything considered—life was without her than with her.
She was so unattractive looking, too, poor dear, that you could not but
be sorry for her. And Jurgen's mood was half yearning and half
penitence.
"I think I will take her back, Prince," says Jurgen, very sub-
dued,—"now that I am forty-and-something. For I do not know but it is
as hard on her as on me."
"My friend, do you forget the poet that you might be, even yet? No ra-
tional person would dispute that the society and amiable chat of Dame
Lisa must naturally be a desideratum—"
But Dame Lisa was always resentful of long words. "Be silent, you
black scoffer, and do not allude to such disgraceful things in the presence
of respectable people! For I am a decent Christian woman, I would have
you understand. But everybody knows your reputation! and a very fit
companion you are for that scamp yonder! and volumes could not say
more!"
Thus casually, and with comparative lenience, did Dame Lisa dispose
of Koshchei, who made things as they are, for she believed him to be
merely Satan. And to her husband Dame Lisa now addressed herself
more particularly.
"Jurgen, I always told you you would come to this, and now I hope
you are satisfied. Jurgen, do not stand there with your mouth open, like
a scared fish, when I ask you a civil question! but answer when you are

242
spoken to! Yes, and you need not try to look so idiotically innocent, Jur-
gen, because I am disgusted with you. For, Jurgen, you heard perfectly
well what your very suitable friend just said about me, with my own
husband standing by. No—now I beg of you!—do not ask me what he
said, Jurgen! I leave that to your conscience, and I prefer to talk no more
about it. You know that when I am once disappointed in a person I am
through with that person. So, very luckily, there is no need at all for you
to pile hypocrisy on cowardice, because if my own husband has not the
feelings of a man, and cannot protect me from insults and low company,
I had best be going home and getting supper ready. I dare say the house
is like a pig-sty: and I can see by looking at you that you have been ruin-
ing your eyes by reading in bed again. And to think of your going about
in public, even among such associates, with a button off your shirt!"
She was silent for one terrible moment; then Lisa spoke in frozen
despair.
"And now I look at that shirt, I ask you fairly, Jurgen, do you consider
that a man of your age has any right to be going about in a shirt that
nobody—in a shirt which—in a shirt that I can only—Ah, but I never
saw such a shirt! and neither did anybody else! You simply cannot ima-
gine what a figure you cut in it, Jurgen. Jurgen, I have been patient with
you; I have put up with a great deal, saying nothing where many women
would have lost their temper; but I simply cannot permit you to select
your own clothes, and so ruin the business and take the bread out of our
mouths. In short, you are enough to drive a person mad; and I warn you
that I am done with you forever."
Dame Lisa went with dignity to the door of Koshchei's office.
"So you can come with me or not, precisely as you elect. It is all one to
me, I can assure you, after the cruel things you have said, and the way
you have stormed at me, and have encouraged that notorious black-
amoor to insult me in terms which I, for one, would not soil my lips by
repeating. I do not doubt you consider it is all very clever and amusing,
but you know now what I think about it. And upon the whole, if you do
not feel the exertion will kill you, you had better come home the long
way, and stop by Sister's and ask her to let you have a half-pound of but-
ter; for I know you too well to suppose you have been attending to the
churning."
Dame Lisa here evinced a stately sort of mirth such as is unimaginable
by bachelors.
"You churning while I was away!—oh, no, not you! There is probably
not so much as an egg in the house. For my lord and gentleman has had

243
other fish to fry, in his fine new courting clothes. And that—and on a
man of your age, with a paunch to you like a beer barrel and with legs
like pipe-stems!—yes, that infamous shirt of yours is the reason you had
better, for your own comfort, come home the long way. For I warn you,
Jurgen, that the style in which I have caught you rigged out has quite de-
cided me, before I go home or anywhere else, to stop by for a word or so
with your high and mighty Madame Dorothy. So you had just as well
not be along with me, for there is no pulling wool over my eyes any
longer, and you two need never think to hoodwink me again about your
goings-on. No, Jurgen, you cannot fool me; for I can read you like a
book. And such behavior, at your time of life, does not surprise me at all,
because it is precisely what I would have expected of you."
With that Dame Lisa passed through the door and went away, still
talking. It was of Heitman Michael's wife that the wife of Jurgen spoke,
discoursing of the personal traits, and of the past doings, and (with aug-
mented fervor) of the figure and visage of Madame Dorothy, as all these
abominations appeared to the eye of discernment, and must be revealed
by the tongue of candor, as a matter of public duty.
So passed Dame Lisa, neither as flame nor mist, but as the voice of
judgment.

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Chapter 49
Of the Compromise with Koshchei
"Phew!" said Koshchei, in the ensuing silence: "you had better stay
overnight, in any event. I really think, friend, you will be more comfort-
able, just now at least, in this quiet cave."
But Jurgen had taken up his hat. "No, I dare say I, too, had better be
going," says Jurgen. "I thank you very heartily for your intended kind-
ness, sir, still I do not know but it is better as it is. And is there any-
thing"—Jurgen coughed delicately—"and is there anything to pay, sir?"
"Oh, just a trifle, first of all, for a year's maintenance of Dame Lisa. You
see, Jurgen, that is an almighty fine shirt you are wearing: it rather ap-
peals to me; and I fancy, from something your wife let drop just now, it
did not impress her as being quite suited to you. So, in the interest of do-
mesticity, suppose you ransom Dame Lisa with that fine shirt of yours?"
"Why, willingly," said Jurgen, and he took off the shirt of Nessus.
"You have worn this for some time, I understand," said Koshchei,
meditatively: "and did you ever notice any inconvenience in wearing this
garment?"
"Not that I could detect, Prince; it fitted me, and seemed to impress
everybody most favorably."
"There!" said Koshchei; "that is what I have always contended. To the
strong man, and to wholesome matter of fact people generally, it is a
fatal irritant; but persons like you can wear the shirt of Nessus very com-
fortably for a long, long while, and be generally admired; and you end
by exchanging it for your wife's society. But now, Jurgen, about yourself.
You probably noticed that my door was marked Keep Out. One must
have rules, you know. Often it is a nuisance, but still rules are rules; and
so I must tell you, Jurgen, it is not permitted any person to leave my
presence unmaimed, if not actually annihilated. One really must have
rules, you know."
"You would chop off an arm? or a hand? or a whole finger? Come
now, Prince, you must be joking!"

245
 Koshchei the Deathless was very grave as he sat there, in meditation,
drumming with his long jet-black fingers upon the table-top that was
curiously inlaid with thirty pieces of silver. In the lamplight his sharp
nails glittered like flame points, and the color suddenly withdrew from
his eyes, so that they showed like small white eggs.
"But, man, how strange you are!" said Koshchei, presently; and life
flowed back into his eyes, and Jurgen ventured the liberty of breathing.
"Inside, I mean. Why, there is hardly anything left. Now rules are rules,
of course; but you, who are the remnant of a poet, may depart un-
hindered whenever you will, and I shall take nothing from you. For
really it is necessary to draw the line somewhere."
Jurgen meditated this clemency; and with a sick heart he seemed to
understand. "Yes; that is probably the truth; for I have not retained the
faith, nor the desire, nor the vision. Yes, that is probably the truth. Well,
at all events, Prince, I very unfeignedly admired each of the ladies to
whom you were friendly enough to present me, and I was greatly
flattered by their offers. More than generous I thought them. But it really
would not do for me to take up with any one of them now. For Lisa is
my wife, you see. A great deal has passed between us, sir, in the last ten
years—And I have been a sore disappointment to her, in many
ways—And I am used to her—"
Then Jurgen considered, and regarded the black gentleman with
mingled envy and commiseration. "Why, no, you probably would not
understand, sir, on account of your not being, I suppose, a married per-
son. But I can assure you it is always pretty much like that."
"I lack grounds to dispute your aphorism," observed Koshchei,
"inasmuch as matrimony was certainly not included in my doom. None
the less, to a by-stander, the conduct of you both appears remarkable. I
could not understand, for example, just how your wife proposed to have
you keep out of her sight forever and still have supper with her to-night;
nor why she should desire to sup with such a reprobate as she described
with unbridled pungency and disapproval."
"Ah, but again, it is always pretty much like that, sir. And the truth of
it, Prince, is a great symbol. The truth of it is, we have lived together so
long that my wife has become rather foolishly fond of me. So she is not,
as one might say, quite reasonable about me. No, sir; it is the fashion of
women to discard civility toward those for whom they suffer most will-
ingly; and whom a woman loveth she chasteneth, after a good
precedent."

246
 "But her talking, Jurgen, has nowhere any precedent. Why, it deafens,
it appals, it submerges you in an uproarious sea of fault-finding; and in a
word, you might as profitably oppose a hurricane. Yet you want her
back! Now assuredly, Jurgen, I do not think very highly of your wisdom,
but by your bravery I am astounded."
"Ah, Prince, it is because I can perceive that all women are poets,
though the medium they work in is not always ink. So the moment Lisa
is set free from what, in a manner of speaking, sir, inconsiderate persons
might, in their unthinking way, refer to as the terrors of an underground
establishment that I do not for an instant doubt to be conducted after a
system which furthers the true interests of everybody, and so reflects
vast credit upon its officials, if you will pardon my frankness"—and Jur-
gen smiled ingratiatingly,—"why, at that moment Lisa's thoughts take
form in very much the high denunciatory style of Jeremiah and Amos,
who were remarkably fine poets. Her concluding observations as to the
Countess, in particular, I consider to have been an example of sustained
invective such as one rarely encounters in this degenerate age. Well, her
next essay in creative composition is my supper, which will be an
equally spirited impromptu. To-morrow she will darn and sew me an
epic; and her desserts will continue to be in the richest lyric vein. Such,
sir, are the poems of Lisa, all addressed to me, who came so near to galli-
vanting with mere queens!"
"What, can it be that you are remorseful?" said Koshchei.
"Oh, Prince, when I consider steadfastly the depth and the intensity of
that devotion which, for so many years, has tended me, and has endured
the society of that person whom I peculiarly know to be the most tedious
and irritating of companions, I stand aghast, before a miracle. And I cry,
Oh, certainly a goddess! and I can think of no queen who is fairly men-
tionable in the same breath. Hah, all we poets write a deal about love:
but none of us may grasp the word's full meaning until he reflects that
this is a passion mighty enough to induce a woman to put up with him."
"Even so, it does not seem to induce quite thorough confidence. Jur-
gen, I was grieved to see that Dame Lisa evidently suspects you of run-
ning after some other woman in your wife's absence."
"Think upon that now! And you saw for yourself how little the hand-
somest of women could tempt me. Yet even Lisa's absurd notion I can
comprehend and pardon. And again, you probably would not under-
stand my overlooking such a thing, sir, on account of your not being a
married person. Nevertheless, my forgiveness also is a great symbol."

247
 Then Jurgen sighed and he shook hands, very circumspectly, with
Koshchei, who made things as they are; and Jurgen started out of the
office.
"But I will bear you company a part of the way," says Koshchei.
So Koshchei removed his dressing-gown, and he put on the fine laced
coat which was hung over the back of a strange looking chair with three
legs, each of a different metal; the shirt of Nessus Koshchei folded and
put aside, saying that some day he might be able to use it somehow. And
Koshchei paused before the blackboard and he scratched his head re-
flectively. Jurgen saw that this board was nearly covered with figures
which had not yet been added up; and this blackboard seemed to him
the most frightful thing he had faced anywhere.
Then Koshchei came out of the cave with Jurgen, and Koshchei walked
with Jurgen across Amneran Heath, and through Morven, in the late
evening. And Koshchei talked as they went; and a queer thing Jurgen no-
ticed, and it was that the moon was sinking in the east, as though the
time were getting earlier and earlier. But Jurgen did not presume to criti-
cize this, in the presence of Koshchei, who made things as they are.
"And I manage affairs as best I can, Jurgen. But they get in a fearful
muddle sometimes. Eh, sirs, I have no competent assistants. I have to
look out for everything, absolutely everything! And of course, while in a
sort of way I am infallible, mistakes will occur every now and then in the
actual working out of plans that in the abstract are right enough. So it
really does please me to hear anybody putting in a kind word for things
as they are, because, between ourselves, there is a deal of dissatisfaction
about. And I was honestly delighted, just now, to hear you speaking up
for evil in the face of that rapscallion monk. So I give you thanks and
many thanks, Jurgen, for your kind word."
"'Just now!'" thinks Jurgen. He perceived that they had passed the
Cistercian Abbey, and were approaching Bellegarde. And it was as in a
dream that Jurgen was speaking, "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 lie free from care."
"Save us from hurt and harm, friend, but I am already married—" Then res-
olutely Jurgen put aside the spell that was befogging him. "See here,
Prince, are you beginning all over again? For I really cannot stand any
more of your benevolences."
Koshchei smiled. "No, Jurgen, I am not beginning all over again. For
now I have never begun, and now there is no word of truth in anything

248
which you remember of the year just past. Now none of these things has
ever happened."
"But how can that be, Prince?"
"Why should I tell you, Jurgen? Let it suffice that what I will, not only
happens, but has already happened, beyond the ancientest memory of
man and his mother. How otherwise could I be Koshchei? And so
farewell to you, poor Jurgen, to whom nothing in particular has
happened now. It is not justice I am giving you, but something infinitely
more acceptable to you and all your kind."
"But, to be sure!" says Jurgen. "I fancy that nobody anywhere cares
much for justice. So farewell to you, Prince. And at our parting I ask no
more questions of you, for I perceive it is scant comfort a man gets from
questioning Koshchei, who made things as they are. But I am wondering
what pleasure you get out of it all?"
"Eh, sirs," says Koshchei, with not the most candid of smiles, "I con-
template the spectacle with appropriate emotions."
And so speaking, Koshchei quitted Jurgen forever.
"Yet how may I be sure," thought Jurgen, instantly, "that this black
gentleman was really Koshchei? He said he was? Why, yes; and Hor-
vendile to all intents told me that Horvendile was Koshchei. Aha, and
what else did Horvendile say!—'This is one of the romancer's most ven-
erable devices that is being practised.' Why, but there was Smoit of Gla-
thion, also, so that this is the third time I have been fobbed off with the
explanation I was dreaming! and left with no proof, one way or the
other."
Thus Jurgen, indignantly, and then he laughed. "Why, but, of course! I
may have talked face to face with Koshchei, who made all things as they
are; and again, I may not have. That is the whole point of it—the cream,
as one might say, of the jest—that I cannot ever be sure. Well!"—and Jur-
gen shrugged here—"well, and what could I be expected to do about it?"

249
Chapter 50
The Moment That Did Not Count
And that is really all the story save for the moment Jurgen paused on his
way home. For Koshchei (if it, indeed, was Koshchei) had quitted Jurgen
just as they approached Bellegarde: and as the pawnbroker walked on
alone in the pleasant April evening one called to him from the terrace.
Even in the dusk he knew this was the Countess Dorothy.
"May I speak with you a moment?" says she.
"Very willingly, madame." And Jurgen ascended from the highway to
the terrace.
"I thought it would be near your supper hour. So I was waiting here
until you passed. You conceive, it is not quite convenient for me to seek
you out at the shop."
"Why, no, madame. There is a prejudice," said Jurgen, soberly. And he
waited.
He saw that Madame Dorothy was perfectly composed, yet anxious to
speed the affair. "You must know," said she, "that my husband's birthday
approaches, and I wish to surprise him with a gift. It is therefore neces-
sary that I raise some money without troubling him. How
much—abominable usurer!—could you advance me upon this
necklace?"
Jurgen turned it in his hand. It was a handsome piece of jewelry, famil-
iar to him as formerly the property of Heitman Michael's mother. Jurgen
named a sum.
"But that," the Countess says, "is not a fraction of its worth!"
"Times are very hard, madame. Of course, if you cared to sell outright
I could deal more generously."
"Old monster, I could not do that. It would not be convenient." She
hesitated here. "It would not be explicable."
"As to that, madame, I could make you an imitation in paste which
nobody could distinguish from the original, I can amply understand that

250
you desire to veil from your husband any sacrifices that are entailed by
your affection."
"It is my affection for him," said the Countess quickly.
"I alluded to your affection for him," said Jurgen—"naturally."
Then Countess Dorothy named a price for the necklace. "For it is ne-
cessary I have that much, and not a penny less." And Jurgen shook his
head dubiously, and vowed that ladies were unconscionable bargainers:
but Jurgen agreed to what she asked, because the necklace was worth al-
most as much again. Then Jurgen suggested that the business could be
most conveniently concluded through an emissary.
"If Messire de Nérac, for example, could have matters explained to
him, and could manage to visit me tomorrow, I am sure we could carry
through this amiable imposture without any annoyance whatever to
Heitman Michael," says Jurgen, smoothly.
"Nérac will come then," says the Countess. "And you may give him the
money, precisely as though it were for him."
"But certainly, madame. A very estimable young nobleman, that! and
it is a pity his debts are so large. I heard that he had lost heavily at dice
within the last month; and I grieved, madame."
"He has promised me when these debts are settled to play no
more—But again what am I saying! I mean, Master Inquisitive, that I
take considerable interest in the welfare of Messire de Nérac: and so I
have sometimes chided him on his wild courses. And that is all I mean."
"Precisely, madame. And so Messire de Nérac will come to me to-mor-
row for the money: and there is no more to say."
Jurgen paused. The moon was risen now. These two sat together upon
a bench of carved stone near the balustrade: and before them, upon the
other side of the highway, were luminous valleys and tree-tops. Fleet-
ingly Jurgen recollected the boy and girl who had once sat in this place,
and had talked of all the splendid things which Jurgen was to do, and of
the happy life that was to be theirs together. Then he regarded the com-
posed and handsome woman beside him, and he considered that the
money to pay her latest lover's debts had been assured with a suitable re-
spect for appearances.
"Come, but this is a gallant lady, who would defy the almanac," reflec-
ted Jurgen. "Even so, thirty-eight is an undeniable and somewhat autum-
nal figure, and I suspect young Nérac is bleeding his elderly mistress.
Well, but at his age nobody has a conscience. Yes, and Madame Dorothy
is handsome still; and still my pulse is playing me queer tricks, because
she is near me, and my voice has not the intonation I intend, because she

251
is near me; and still I am three-quarters in love with her. Yes, in the light
of such cursed folly as even now possesses me, I have good reason to
give thanks for the regained infirmities of age. Yet living seems to me a
wasteful and inequitable process, for this is a poor outcome for the boy
and girl that I remember. And weighing this outcome, I am tempted to
weep and to talk romantically, even now."
But he did not. For really, weeping was not requisite. Jurgen was mak-
ing his fair profit out of the Countess's folly, and it was merely his duty
to see that this little business transaction was managed without any
scandal.
"So there is nothing more to say," observed Jurgen, as he rose in the
moonlight, "save that I shall always be delighted to serve you, madame,
and I may reasonably boast that I have earned a reputation for fair
dealing."
And he thought: "In effect, since certainly as she grows older she will
need yet more money for her lovers, I am offering to pimp for her." Then
Jurgen shrugged. "That is one side of the affair. The other is that I trans-
act my legitimate business,—I, who am that which the years have made
of me."
Thus it was that Jurgen quitted the Countess Dorothy, whom, as you
have heard, this pawnbroker had loved in his first youth under the name
of Heart's Desire; and whom in the youth that was loaned him by Moth-
er Sereda he had loved as Queen Helen, the delight of gods and men. For
Jurgen was quitting Madame Dorothy after the simplest of business
transactions, which consumed only a moment, and did not actually
count one way or the other.
And after this moment which did not count, the pawnbroker resumed
his journey, and so came presently to his home. He peeped through the
window. And there in a snug room, with supper laid, sat Dame Lisa
about some sewing, and evidently in a quite amiable frame of mind.
Then terror smote the Jurgen who had faced sorcerers and gods and
devils intrepidly. "For I forgot about the butter!"
But immediately afterward he recollected that, now, not even what
Lisa had said to him in the cave was real. Neither he nor Lisa, now, had
ever been in the cave, and probably there was no longer any such place,
and now there never had been any such place. It was rather confusing.
"Ah, but I must remember carefully," said Jurgen, "that I have not seen
Lisa since breakfast, this morning. Nothing whatever has happened.
There has been no requirement laid upon me, after all, to do the manly
thing. So I retain my wife, such as she is, poor dear! I retain my home. I

252
retain my shop and a fair line of business. Yes, Koshchei—if it was really
Koshchei—has dealt with me very justly. And probably his methods are
everything they should be; certainly I cannot go so far as to say that they
are wrong: but still, at the same time—!"
Then Jurgen sighed, and entered his snug home. Thus it was in the old
days.
EXPLICIT

253
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