Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice by James Branch Cabell (book recommendations based on other books .TXT) 📗

and who had frequently regretted that Dame Lisa had borne him none.

"It is enough to get the poor dear a name for eccentricity," he had been used to say.

So Jurgen now made much of his step-children: and indeed he found their innocent prattle quite as intelligent, in essentials, as the talk of the full-grown nature myths who infested the palace of Anaïtis. And the four of them—Jurgen, and critical Alecto, and grave Tisiphonê, and fairy-like little Megæra,—would take long walks, and play with their dolls (though Alecto was a trifle condescending toward dolls), and romp together in the eternal evening of Cocaigne; and discuss what sort of dresses and trinkets Mother would probably bring them when she came back from Ecbatana or Lesbos, and would generally enjoy themselves.

Rather pathetically earnest and unimaginative little lasses, Jurgen found the young Eumenidês: they inherited much of their mother's narrow-mindedness, if not their father's brooding and gloomy tendencies; but in them narrow-mindedness showed merely as amusing. And Jurgen loved them, and would often reflect what a pity it was that these dear little girls were destined when they reached maturity, to spend the rest of their lives in haunting criminals and adulterers and parricides and, generally, such persons as must inevitably tarnish the girls' outlook upon life, and lead them to see too much of the worst side of human nature.

So Jurgen was content enough. But still he was not actually happy, not even among the endless pleasures of Cocaigne.

"And what is this thing that I desire?" he would ask himself, again and again.

And still he did not know: he merely felt he was not getting justice: and a dim sense of this would trouble him even while he was playing with the Eumenidês.

25.

Cantraps of the Master Philologist

But now, as has been recorded, it was September, and Jurgen could see that Anaïtis too was worrying over something. She kept it from him as long as possible: first said it was nothing at all, then said he would know it soon enough, then wept a little over the possibility that he would probably be very glad to hear it, and eventually told him. For in becoming the consort of a nature myth connected with the Moon Jurgen had of course exposed himself to the danger of being converted into a solar legend by the Philologists, and in that event would be compelled to leave Cocaigne with the Equinox, to enter into autumnal exploits elsewhere. And Anaïtis was quite heart-broken over the prospect of losing Jurgen.

"For I have never had such a Prince Consort in Cocaigne, so maddening, and so helpless, and so clever; and the girls are so fond of you, although they have not been able to get on at all with so many of their step-fathers! And I know that you are flippant and heartless, but you have quite spoiled me for other men. No, Jurgen, there is no need to argue, for I have experimented with at least a dozen lovers lately, when I was traveling, and they bored me insufferably. They had, as you put it, dear, no conversation: and you are the only young man I have found in all these ages who could talk interestingly."

"There is a reason for that, since like you, Anaïtis, I am not so youthful as I appear."

"I do not care a straw about appearances," wept Anaïtis, "but I know that I love you, and that you must be leaving me with the Equinox unless you can settle matters with the Master Philologist."

"Well, my pet," says Jurgen, "the Jews got into Jericho by trying."

He armed, and girded himself with Caliburn, drank a couple of bottles of wine, put on the shirt of Nessus over all, and then went to seek this thaumaturgist.

Anaïtis showed him the way to an unpretentious residence, where a week's washing was drying and flapping in the side yard. Jurgen knocked boldly, and after an interval the door was opened by the Master Philologist himself.

"You must pardon this informality," he said, blinking through his great spectacles, which had dust on them: "but time was by ill luck arrested hereabouts on a Thursday evening, and so the maid is out indefinitely. I would suggest, therefore, that the lady wait outside upon the porch. For the neighbors to see her go in would not be respectable."

"Do you know what I have come for?" says Jurgen, blustering, and splendid in his glittering shirt and his gleaming armor. "For I warn you I am justice."

"I think you are lying, and I am sure you are making an unnecessary noise. In any event, justice is a word, and I control all words."

"You will discover very soon, sir, that actions speak louder than words."

"I believe that is so," said the Master Philologist, still blinking, "just as the Jewish mob spoke louder than He Whom they crucified. But the Word endures."

"You are a quibbler!"

"You are my guest. So I advise you, in pure friendliness, not to impugn the power of my words."

Said Jurgen, scornfully: "But is justice, then, a word?"

"Oh, yes, it is one of the most useful. It is the Spanish justicia, the Portuguese justiça, the Italian giustizia, all from the Latin justus. Oh, yes indeed, but justice is one of my best connected words, and one of the best trained also, I can assure you."

"Aha, and to what degraded uses do you put this poor enslaved intimidated justice!"

"There is but one intelligent use," said the Master Philologist, unruffled, "for anybody to make of words. I will explain it to you, if you will come in out of this treacherous draught. One never knows what a cold may lead to."

Then the door closed upon them, and Anaïtis waited outside, in some trepidation.

Presently Jurgen came out of that unpretentious residence, and so back to Anaïtis, discomfited. Jurgen flung down his magic sword, charmed Caliburn.

"This, Anaïtis, I perceive to be an outmoded weapon. There is no weapon like words, no armor against words, and with words the Master Philologist has conquered me. It is not at all equitable: but the man showed me a huge book wherein were the names of everything in the world, and justice was not among them. It develops that, instead, justice is merely a common noun, vaguely denoting an ethical idea of conduct proper to the circumstances, whether of individuals or communities. It is, you observe, just a grammarian's notion."

"But what has he decided about you, Jurgen?"

"Alas, dear Anaïtis, he has decided, in spite of all that I could do, to derive Jurgen from jargon, indicating a confused chattering such as birds give forth at sunrise: thus ruthlessly does the Master Philologist convert me into a solar legend. So the affair is settled, and we must part, my darling."

Anaïtis took up the sword. "But this is valuable, since the man who wields it is the mightiest of warriors."

"It is a rush, a rotten twig, a broomstraw, against the insidious weapons of the Master Philologist. But keep it if you like, my dear, and give it to your next Prince Consort. I am ashamed to have trifled with such toys," says Jurgen, in fretted disgust. "And besides, the Master Philologist assures me I shall mount far higher through the aid of this."

"But what is on that bit of parchment?"

"Thirty-two of the Master Philologist's own words that I begged of him. See, my dear, he made this cantrap for me with his own hand and ink." And Jurgen read from the parchment, impressively: "'At the death of Adrian the Fifth, Pedro Juliani, who should be named John the Twentieth, was through an error in the reckoning elevated to the papal chair as John the Twenty-first.'"

Said Anaïtis, blankly: "And is that all?"

"Why, yes: and surely thirty-two whole words should be enough for the most exacting."

"But is it magic? are you certain it is authentic magic?"

"I have learned that there is always magic in words."

"Now, if you ask my opinion, Jurgen, your cantrap is nonsense, and can never be of any earthly use to anybody. Without boasting, dear, I have handled a great deal of black magic in my day, but I never encountered a spell at all like this."

"None the less, my darling, it is evidently a cantrap, for else the
Master Philologist would never have given it to me."

"But how are you to use it, pray?"

"Why, as need directs," said Jurgen, and he put the parchment into the pocket of his glittering shirt. "Yes, I repeat, there is always something to be done with words, and here are thirty-two authentic words from the Master Philologist himself, not to speak of three commas and a full-stop. Oh, I shall certainly go far with this."

"We women have firmer faith in the sword," replied Anaïtis. "At all events, you and I cannot remain upon this thaumaturgist's porch indefinitely."

So Anaïtis put up Caliburn, and carried it from the thaumaturgist's unpretentious residence to her fine palace in the old twilit wood: and afterward, as everybody knows, she gave this sword to King Arthur, who with its aid rose to be hailed as one of the Nine Worthies of the World. So did the husband of Guenevere win for himself eternal fame with that which Jurgen flung away.

26.

In Time's Hour-Glass

"Well, well!" said Jurgen, when he had taken off all that foolish ironmongery, and had made himself comfortable in his shirt; "well, beyond doubt, the situation is awkward. I was content enough in Cocaigne, and it is unfair that I should be thus ousted. Still, a sensible person will manage to be content anywhere. But whither, pray, am I expected to go?"

"Into whatever land you may elect, my dear," said Anaïtis, fondly. "That much at least I can manage for you: and the interpretation of your legend can be arranged afterward."

"But I grow tired of all the countries I have ever seen, dear Anaïtis, and in my time I have visited nearly all the lands that are known to men."

"That too can be arranged: and you can go instead into one of the countries which are desired by men. Indeed there are a number of such realms which no man has ever visited except in dreams, so that your choice is wide."

"But how am I to make a choice without having seen any of these countries? It is not fair to be expecting me to do anything of the sort."

"Why, I will show them to you," Anaïtis replied.

The two of them then went together into a small blue chamber, the walls of which were ornamented with gold stars placed helter-skelter. The room was entirely empty save for an hour-glass near twice the height of a man.

"It is Time's own glass," said Anaïtis, "which was left in my keeping when Time went to sleep."

Anaïtis opened a little door of carved crystal that was in the lower half of the hour-glass, just above the fallen sands. With her finger-tips she touched the sand that was in Time's hour-glass, and in the sand she drew a triangle with equal sides, she who was strangely gifted and perverse. Then she drew just such another figure so that the tip of it penetrated the first triangle. The sand began to smoulder there, and vapors rose into the upper part of the hour-glass, and Jurgen saw that all the sand in Time's hour-glass was kindled by a magic generated by the contact of these two triangles. And in the vapors a picture formed.

"I see a land of woods and rivers, Anaïtis. A very old fellow, regally crowned, lies asleep under an ash-tree, guarded by a watchman who has more arms and hands than Jigsbyed."

"It is Atlantis you behold, and the sleeping of ancient Time—Time, to whom this glass belongs,—while Briareus watches."

"Time sleeps quite naked, Anaïtis, and, though it is a delicate matter to talk about, I notice he has met with a deplorable accident."

"So that Time begets nothing any more, Jurgen, the while he brings about old happenings over and over, and changes the name of what is ancient, in order to persuade himself he has a new plaything. There is really no more tedious and wearing old dotard anywhere, I can assure you. But Atlantis is only the western province of Cocaigne. Now do you look again, Jurgen!"

"Now I behold a flowering plain and three steep hills, with a castle upon each hill. There are woods wherein the foliage is crimson: shining birds with white bodies and purple heads feed upon the clusters of golden berries that grow everywhere: and people go