Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, James Branch Cabell [mini ebook reader .TXT] 📗

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
Hesperides, 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."

"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 allowed me a rational amount of discomfort."

"Discomfort you would have full measure. For the heart of no man remains 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?"

"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 gradually 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 attractive women."

"Have you no sense except book-sense! It is for that reason I am sending you to Leukê."

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 admirable qualities which she possesses."

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 effrontery 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 respectability, 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 traveling with the Equinox, and so passed without any further protest or argument 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 encountered 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.

"Men say that she excels all other women," replied the Hamadryad, "as immeasurably as all we women perceive her husband to surpass all other 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, because, 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 being 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 confused. 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," 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