Jurgen - James Branch Cabell (reading a book TXT) 📗

people get an ill name for gratitude! And now do I perceive how wise I am, always to speak pleasantly of everybody, in this world of talebearers.”

Then Jurgen prepared his own supper, went to bed, and slept soundly.

“I have implicit confidence,” says he, “in Lisa. I have particular confidence in her ability to take care of herself in any surroundings.”

That was all very well: but time passed, and presently it began to be rumored that Dame Lisa walked on Morven. Her brother, who was a grocer and a member of the town-council, went thither to see about this report. And sure enough, there was Jurgen’s wife walking in the twilight and muttering incessantly.

“Fie, sister!” says the town-councillor, “this is very unseemly conduct for a married woman, and a thing likely to be talked about.”

“Follow me!” replied Dame Lisa. And the town-councillor followed her a little way in the dusk, but when she came to Amneran Heath and still went onward, he knew better than to follow.

Next evening the elder sister of Dame Lisa went to Morven. This sister had married a notary, and was a shrewd woman. In consequence, she took with her this evening a long wand of peeled willow-wood. And there was Jurgen’s wife walking in the twilight and muttering incessantly.

“Fie, sister!” says the notary’s wife, who was a shrewd woman, “and do you not know that all this while Jurgen does his own sewing, and is once more making eyes at Countess Dorothy?”

Dame Lisa shuddered; but she only said, “Follow me!”

And the notary’s wife followed her to Amneran Heath, and across the heath, to where a cave was. This was a place of abominable repute. A lean hound came to meet them there in the twilight, lolling his tongue: but the notary’s wife struck thrice with her wand, and the silent beast left them. And Dame Lisa passed silently into the cave, and her sister turned and went home to her children, weeping.

So the next evening Jurgen himself came to Morven, because all his wife’s family assured him this was the manly thing to do. Jurgen left the shop in charge of Urien Villemarche, who was a highly efficient clerk. Jurgen followed his wife across Amneran Heath until they reached the cave. Jurgen would willingly have been elsewhere.

For the hound squatted upon his haunches, and seemed to grin at Jurgen; and there were other creatures abroad, that flew low in the twilight, keeping close to the ground like owls; but they were larger than owls and were more discomforting. And, moreover, all this was just after sunset upon Walburga’s Eve, when almost anything is rather more than likely to happen.

So Jurgen said, a little peevishly: “Lisa, my dear, if you go into the cave I will have to follow you, because it is the manly thing to do. And you know how easily I take cold.”

The voice of Dame Lisa, now, was thin and wailing, a curiously changed voice. “There is a cross about your neck. You must throw that away.”

Jurgen was wearing such a cross, through motives of sentiment, because it had once belonged to his dead mother. But now, to pleasure his wife, he removed the trinket, and hung it on a barberry bush; and with the reflection that this was likely to prove a deplorable business, he followed Dame Lisa into the cave.

II Assumption of a Noted Garment

The tale tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen could see no one. But the cave stretched straight forward, and downward, and at the far end was a glow of light. Jurgen went on and on, and so came presently to a centaur: and this surprised him not a little, because Jurgen knew that centaurs were imaginary creatures.

Certainly they were curious to look at: for here was the body of a fine bay horse, and rising from its shoulders, the sunburnt body of a young fellow who regarded Jurgen with grave and not unfriendly eyes. The Centaur was lying beside a fire of cedar and juniper wood: near him was a platter containing a liquid with which he was anointing his hoofs. This stuff, as the Centaur rubbed it in with his fingers, turned the appearance of his hoofs to gold.

“Hail, friend,” says Jurgen, “if you be the work of God.”

“Your protasis is not good Greek,” observed the Centaur, “because in Hellas we did not make such reservations. Besides, it is not so much my origin as my destination which concerns you.”

“Well, friend, and whither are you going?”

“To the garden between dawn and sunrise, Jurgen.”

“Surely, now, but that is a fine name for a garden! and it is a place I would take joy to be seeing.”

“Up upon my back, Jurgen, and I will take you thither,” says the Centaur, and heaved to his feet. Then said the Centaur, when the pawnbroker hesitated: “Because, as you must understand, there is no other way. For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in what men humorously called real life; so that of course only imaginary creatures such as I can enter it.”

“That sounds very reasonable,” Jurgen estimated: “but as it happens, I am looking for my wife, whom I suspect to have been carried off by a devil, poor fellow!”

And Jurgen began to explain to the Centaur what had befallen.

The Centaur laughed. “It may be for that reason I am here. There is, in any event, only one remedy in this matter. Above all devils⁠—and above all gods, they tell me, but certainly above all centaurs⁠—is the power of Koshchei the Deathless, who made things as they are.”

“It is not always wholesome,” Jurgen submitted, “to speak of Koshchei. It seems especially undesirable in a dark place like this.”

“None the less, I suspect it is to him you must go for justice.”

“I would prefer not doing that,” said Jurgen, with unaffected candor.

“You have my sympathy: but there is no question of preference where Koshchei is concerned. Do you think, for