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

ago, and these men would now be dead in any event, so you see it does not matter now.”

“I went astray with women, with I do not know how many women.”

Jurgen shook his head. “This is very shocking news for a son to receive, and you can imagine my feelings. None the less, sir, that also was fifty years ago, and nobody is bothering over it now.”

“You jackanapes, I tell you that I swore and stole and forged and burned four houses and broke the Sabbath and was guilty of mayhem and spoke disrespectfully to my mother and worshipped a stone image in Porutsa. I tell you I shattered the whole Decalogue, time and again. I committed all the crimes that were ever heard of, and invented six new ones.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jurgen: “but, still, what does it matter if you did?”

“Oh, take away this son of mine!” cried Coth: “for he is his mother all over again; and though I was the vilest sinner that ever lived, I have not deserved to be plagued twice with such silly questions. And I demand that you loitering devils bring more fuel.”

“Sir,” said a panting little fiend, in the form of a tadpole with hairy arms and legs like a monkey’s, as he ran up with four bundles of faggots, “we are doing the very best we can for your discomfort. But you damned have no consideration for us, and do not remember that we are on our feet day and night, waiting upon you,” said the little devil, whimpering, as with his pitchfork he raked up the fire about Coth. “You do not even remember the upset condition of the country, on account of the war with Heaven, which makes it so hard for us to get you all the inconveniences of life. Instead, you lounge in your flames, and complain about the service, and Grandfather Satan punishes us, and it is not fair.”

“I think, myself,” said Jurgen, “you should be gentler with the boy. And as for your crimes, sir, come, will you not conquer this pride which you nickname conscience, and concede that after any man has been dead a little while it does not matter at all what he did? Why, about Bellegarde no one ever thinks of your throat-cutting and Sabbath-breaking except when very old people gossip over the fire, and your wickedness brightens up the evening for them. To the rest of us you are just a stone in the churchyard which describes you as a paragon of all the virtues. And outside of Bellegarde, sir, your name and deeds mean nothing now to anybody, and no one anywhere remembers you. So really your wickedness is not bothering any person now save these poor toiling devils: and I think that, in consequence, you might consent to put up with such torments as they can conveniently contrive, without complaining so ill-temperedly about it.”

“Ah, but my conscience, Jurgen! that is the point.”

“Oh, if you continue to talk about your conscience, sir, you restrict the conversation to matters I do not understand, and so cannot discuss. But I dare say we will find occasion to thresh out this, and all other matters, by and by: and you and I will make the best of this place, for now I will never leave you.”

Coth began to weep: and he said that his sins in the flesh had been too heinous for this comfort to be permitted him in the unendurable torment which he had fairly earned, and hoped some day to come by.

“Do you care about me, one way or the other, then?” says Jurgen, quite astounded.

And from the midst of his flame Coth, the son of Smoit, talked of the birth of Jurgen, and of the infant that had been Jurgen, and of the child that had been Jurgen. And a horrible, deep, unreasonable emotion moved in Jurgen as he listened to the man who had begotten him, and whose flesh was Jurgen’s flesh, and whose thoughts had not ever been Jurgen’s thoughts: and Jurgen did not like it. Then the voice of Coth was bitterly changed, as he talked of the young man that had been Jurgen, of the young man who was idle and rebellious and considerate of nothing save his own light desires; and of the division which had arisen between Jurgen and Jurgen’s father Coth spoke likewise: and Jurgen felt better now, but was still grieved to know how much his father had once loved him.

“It is lamentably true,” says Jurgen, “that I was an idle and rebellious son. So I did not follow your teachings. I went astray, oh, very terribly astray. I even went astray, sir I must tell you, with a nature myth connected with the Moon.”

“Oh, hideous abomination of the heathen!”

“And she considered, sir, that thereafter I was likely to become a solar legend.”

“I should not wonder,” said Coth, and he shook his bald and dome-shaped head despondently. “Ah, my son, it simply shows you what comes of these wild courses.”

“And in that event, I would, of course, be released from sojourning in the underworld by the Spring Equinox. Do you not think so, sir?” says Jurgen, very coaxingly, because he remembered that, according to Satan, whatever Coth believed would be the truth in Hell.

“I am sure,” said Coth⁠—“why, I am sure I do not know anything about such matters.”

“Yes, but what do you think?”

“I do not think about it at all.”

“Yes, but⁠—”

“Jurgen, you have a very uncivil habit of arguing with people⁠—”

“Still, sir⁠—”

“And I have spoken to you about it before⁠—”

“Yet, father⁠—”

“And I do not wish to have to speak to you about it again⁠—”

“None the less, sir⁠—”

“And when I say that I have no opinion⁠—”

“But everybody has an opinion, father!” Jurgen shouted this, and felt it was quite like old times.

“How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice, sir!”

“But I only meant⁠—”

“Do not lie to me, Jurgen! and stop interrupting me! For, as I was saying