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

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, godmother, 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.

“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 revert to my original question. You have given me youth and all the appurtenances 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 masterstroke 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 interpretation, 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 charging 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 meaning 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 crisscross multitudinous 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.”

“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 companionship. 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 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 tempted 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