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

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.

XXVI In Time’s Hourglass

“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 hourglass 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 hourglass, just above the fallen sands. With her fingertips she touched the sand that was in Time’s hourglass, 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 hourglass, and Jurgen saw that all the sand in Time’s hourglass 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