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

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—"

"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 saying when you began to yell at your father as though you were addressing 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."

"They are not!" said his father, angrily. "Why do you keep contradicting 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 emperors 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.

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 precedes 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 everywhere 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 misfortune 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 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, became 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 absence of any joint acquaintances are unlikely ever to meet properly."

"I have no herald handy, for I travel incognito. However, I am that
Jurgen who recently made himself Emperor of Noumaria, King of
Eubonia, Prince of Cocaigne, and Duke of Logreus; and of whom you
have doubtless 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 divined your rank from your lovely clothes. I can but entreat you to overlook 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 particularly with their poor mothers."

So Jurgen comforted Florimel, and he put his arm around her.

"Come, come!" he said, "but I will see that your vacation passes pleasantly. 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."

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 polygamy, 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