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

Hamadryad, “I shall never cease to wonder what he saw in her⁠—no, not if I live to be a thousand.”

“I must,” says Jurgen, “observe this monarch Achilles before the world is a day older. A king is all very well, of course, but no husband wears a crown so as to prevent the affixion of other headgear.”

And Jurgen went down into Pseudopolis, swaggering.

So in the evening, just after sunset, Jurgen returned to the Hamadryad: he walked now with the aid of the ashen staff which Thersitês had given Jurgen, and Jurgen was mirthless and rather humble.

“I have observed your King Achilles,” Jurgen says, “and he is a better man than I. Queen Helen, as I confess with regret, is worthily mated.”

“And what have you to say about her?” inquires the Hamadryad.

“Why, there is nothing more to say than that she is worthily mated, and fit to be the wife of Achilles.” For once, poor Jurgen was really miserable. “For I admire this man Achilles, I envy him, and I fear him,” says Jurgen: “and it is not fair that he should have been created my superior.”

“But is not Queen Helen the loveliest of ladies that you have ever seen?”

“As to that⁠—!” says Jurgen. He led the Hamadryad to a forest pool hard-by the oak-tree in which she resided. The dusky water lay unruffled, a natural mirror. “Look!” said Jurgen, and he spoke with a downward waving of his staff.

The silence gathering in the woods was wonderful. Here the air was sweet and pure: and the little wind which went about the ilex boughs in search of night was a tender and peaceful wind, because it knew that the all-healing night was close at hand.

The Hamadryad replied, “But I see only my own face.”

“It is the answer to your question, none the less. Now do you tell me your name, my dear, so that I may know who in reality is the loveliest of all the ladies I have ever seen.”

The Hamadryad told him that her name was Chloris, and that she always looked a fright with her hair arranged as it was today, and that he was a strangely impudent fellow. So he in turn confessed to her he was King Jurgen of Eubonia, drawn from his remote kingdom by exaggerated reports as to the beauty of Queen Helen. Chloris agreed with him that rumor was in such matters invariably untrustworthy.

This led to further talk as twilight deepened: and the while that a little by a little this pretty girl was converted into a warm breathing shadow, hardly visible to the eye, the shadow of Jurgen departed from him, and he began to talk better and better. He had seen Queen Helen face to face, and other women now seemed unimportant. Whether or not he got into the graces of this Hamadryad did not greatly matter, one way or the other: and in consequence Jurgen talked with such fluency, such apposite remarks and such tenderness as astounded him.

So he sat listening with delight to the seductive tongue of that monstrous clever fellow, Jurgen. For this plump brown-haired bright-eyed little creature, this Chloris, he was honestly sorry. Into the uneventful life of a hamadryad, here in this uncultured forest, could not possibly have entered much pleasurable excitement, and it seemed only right to inject a little. “Why, simply in justice to her!” Jurgen reflected. “I must deal fairly.”

Now it grew darker and darker under the trees, and in the dark nobody can see what happens. There were only two voices that talked, with lengthy pauses: and they spoke gravely of unimportant trifles, like children at play together.

“And how does a king come thus to be traveling without any retinue or even a sword about him?”

“Why, I travel with a staff, my dear, as you perceive: and it suffices me.”

“Certainly it is large enough, in all conscience. Alas, young outlander, who call yourself a king! you carry the bludgeon of a highwayman, and I am afraid of it.”

“My staff is a twig from Yggdrasill, the tree of universal life: Thersitês gave it me, and the sap that throbs therein arises from the Undar fountain, where the grave Norns make laws for men and fix their destinies.”

“Thersitês is a scoffer, and his gifts are mockery. I would have none of them.”

The two began to wrangle, not at all angrily, as to what Jurgen had best do with his prized staff. “Do you take it away from me, at any rate!” says Chloris. So Jurgen hid his staff where Chloris could not possibly see it; and he drew the Hamadryad close to him, and he laughed contentedly.

“Oh, oh! O wretched King,” cried Chloris, “I fear that you will be the death of me! And you have no right to oppress me in this way, for I am not your subject.”

“Rather shall you be my queen, dear Chloris, receiving all that I most prize.”

“But you are too domineering: and I am afraid to be alone with you and your big staff! Ah! not without knowing what she talked about did my mother use to quote her Æolic saying, The king is cruel and takes joy in bloodshed!”

“Presently you will not be afraid of me, nor will you be afraid of my staff. Custom is all. For this likewise is an Æolic saying, The taste of the first olive is unpleasant, but the second is good.”

Now for a while was silence save for the small secretive rumors of the forest. One of the large green locusts which frequent the Island of Leukê began shrilling tentatively.

“Wait now, King Jurgen, for surely I hear footsteps, and one comes to trouble us.”

“It is a wind in the treetops: or perhaps it is a god who envies me. I pause for neither.”

“Ah, but speak reverently of the Gods! For is not Love a god, and a jealous god that has wings with which to leave us?”

“Then am I a god, for in my heart is love, and in every fibre