Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice Part 43

"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 mult.i.tudinous moving as far as thought can reach: and beyond that the moving goes. All moves. All moves uncomprehendingly, and to the sound of laughter. For all moves in consonance with a higher power that understands the meaning of the movement. And each moves the pieces before him in consonance with his ability. So the game is endless and ruthless: and there is merriment overhead, but it is very far away."

"n.o.body 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 d.a.m.nable question, which your shadow has been whispering to me from the beginning of our companions.h.i.+p. 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 resolved 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 pa.s.sing 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 tempted me. Yes, to be sure. Well, well! come now, you know, that is very gratifying."

"None the less your chast.i.ty, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Anatis and Chloris and Florimel, so that I have 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 Glathion 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, G.o.dmother, 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 h.e.l.l and Philistia severally. Moreover, you visited the Queen of Pseudopolis in circ.u.mstances 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 instance of misconduct with a woman?" says Jurgen, sternly.

"No, dearie, as I joyfully concede. The very worst reported is that matters were sometimes a.s.suming 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, G.o.dmother, 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 always a great believer in chast.i.ty, and in the old days I used to insure the chast.i.ty of all my priests in the only way that is infallible."

"In fact, I noticed something of the sort as you pa.s.sed in Leuke."

"And over and over again I have been angered by my shadow's reports, and was about to punish you, my poor dearie, when I would remember 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 s.h.i.+ftless business, dearie, for you are making nothing of the 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 shadow 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 Leshy 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, G.o.dmother, and must you still be mumbling that! Come now, forget you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and ancient privilege of kins.h.i.+p 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 plat.i.tudes 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 chast.i.ty, which is the one commendable trait that you possess--"

"My chast.i.ty, I grant you, is remarkable. Nevertheless, you really gave because I was the cleverer."

"--And what I give I can retract at will!"

"Come, come, you know very well you can do nothing of the sort. I refer you to Saevius Nicanor. None of the Leshy 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 ridiculous, since you dispute the authority of Saevius 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 persons 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 judicious taciturnity! for really n.o.body 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 s.p.a.ce 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 person. He felt the calves of his legs, and they were shrunken. He patted himself centrally, and underneath the s.h.i.+rt of Nessus the paunch of Jurgen was of impressive dimension. In other respects he had abated.

"Then, too, I have forgotten something very suddenly," reflected Jurgen. "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 unusual 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 alluded 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 entreaty, 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 Leshy: but really they do not seem to be very intelligent.

Otherwise this 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 advantage 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 almost 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 remember 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 better--Still, it is an interminable nuisance was.h.i.+ng your own dishes: and I appear to have no apt.i.tude 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.