Jurgen, James Branch Cabell [ebook reader computer .txt] 📗

“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 eudæmonism, and you are talking nonsense, and I am busy, and you annoy me,” said the Satyr.

“Well, but in Cocaigne,” said Jurgen, “this eudæmonism was considered 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 yourself you are talking nonsense. And I repeat that such unheard-of nonsense 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 morning,” observed Jurgen.

“But Silenus is always drunk,” the bald-headed man responded, with a dignified hiccup.

“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 partake of it impiously, and so are they very properly punished for their audacity. 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 disreputably 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.

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 customary,” reflected Jurgen, “for the unarguable reason it is their custom, and has always been their custom. And they will desist from these practises 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 deceitful saviour, mother of all gods, that comest now, pleased with long wanderings, 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 connected 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 Anaïtis had called her, Æsred. Today, 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.