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

much as an egg in the house. For my lord and gentleman has had other fish to fry, in his fine new courting clothes. And that⁠—and on a man of your age, with a paunch to you like a beer barrel and with legs like pipe-stems!⁠—yes, that infamous shirt of yours is the reason you had better, for your own comfort, come home the long way. For I warn you, Jurgen, that the style in which I have caught you rigged out has quite decided me, before I go home or anywhere else, to stop by for a word or so with your high and mighty Madame Dorothy. So you had just as well not be along with me, for there is no pulling wool over my eyes any longer, and you two need never think to hoodwink me again about your goings-on. No, Jurgen, you cannot fool me; for I can read you like a book. And such behavior, at your time of life, does not surprise me at all, because it is precisely what I would have expected of you.”

With that Dame Lisa passed through the door and went away, still talking. It was of Heitman Michael’s wife that the wife of Jurgen spoke, discoursing of the personal traits, and of the past doings, and (with augmented fervor) of the figure and visage of Madame Dorothy, as all these abominations appeared to the eye of discernment, and must be revealed by the tongue of candor, as a matter of public duty.

So passed Dame Lisa, neither as flame nor mist, but as the voice of judgment.

XLIX Of the Compromise with Koshchei

“Phew!” said Koshchei, in the ensuing silence: “you had better stay overnight, in any event. I really think, friend, you will be more comfortable, just now at least, in this quiet cave.”

But Jurgen had taken up his hat. “No, I dare say I, too, had better be going,” says Jurgen. “I thank you very heartily for your intended kindness, sir, still I do not know but it is better as it is. And is there anything”⁠—Jurgen coughed delicately⁠—“and is there anything to pay, sir?”

“Oh, just a trifle, first of all, for a year’s maintenance of Dame Lisa. You see, Jurgen, that is an almighty fine shirt you are wearing: it rather appeals to me; and I fancy, from something your wife let drop just now, it did not impress her as being quite suited to you. So, in the interest of domesticity, suppose you ransom Dame Lisa with that fine shirt of yours?”

“Why, willingly,” said Jurgen, and he took off the shirt of Nessus.

“You have worn this for some time, I understand,” said Koshchei, meditatively: “and did you ever notice any inconvenience in wearing this garment?”

“Not that I could detect, Prince; it fitted me, and seemed to impress everybody most favorably.”

“There!” said Koshchei; “that is what I have always contended. To the strong man, and to wholesome matter of fact people generally, it is a fatal irritant; but persons like you can wear the shirt of Nessus very comfortably for a long, long while, and be generally admired; and you end by exchanging it for your wife’s society. But now, Jurgen, about yourself. You probably noticed that my door was marked Keep Out. One must have rules, you know. Often it is a nuisance, but still rules are rules; and so I must tell you, Jurgen, it is not permitted any person to leave my presence unmaimed, if not actually annihilated. One really must have rules, you know.”

“You would chop off an arm? or a hand? or a whole finger? Come now, Prince, you must be joking!”

Koshchei the Deathless was very grave as he sat there, in meditation, drumming with his long jet-black fingers upon the tabletop that was curiously inlaid with thirty pieces of silver. In the lamplight his sharp nails glittered like flame points, and the color suddenly withdrew from his eyes, so that they showed like small white eggs.

“But, man, how strange you are!” said Koshchei, presently; and life flowed back into his eyes, and Jurgen ventured the liberty of breathing. “Inside, I mean. Why, there is hardly anything left. Now rules are rules, of course; but you, who are the remnant of a poet, may depart unhindered whenever you will, and I shall take nothing from you. For really it is necessary to draw the line somewhere.”

Jurgen meditated this clemency; and with a sick heart he seemed to understand. “Yes; that is probably the truth; for I have not retained the faith, nor the desire, nor the vision. Yes, that is probably the truth. Well, at all events, Prince, I very unfeignedly admired each of the ladies to whom you were friendly enough to present me, and I was greatly flattered by their offers. More than generous I thought them. But it really would not do for me to take up with any one of them now. For Lisa is my wife, you see. A great deal has passed between us, sir, in the last ten years⁠—And I have been a sore disappointment to her, in many ways⁠—And I am used to her⁠—”

Then Jurgen considered, and regarded the black gentleman with mingled envy and commiseration. “Why, no, you probably would not understand, sir, on account of your not being, I suppose, a married person. But I can assure you it is always pretty much like that.”

“I lack grounds to dispute your aphorism,” observed Koshchei, “inasmuch as matrimony was certainly not included in my doom. None the less, to a bystander, the conduct of you both appears remarkable. I could not understand, for example, just how your wife proposed to have you keep out of her sight forever and still have supper with her tonight; nor why she should desire to sup with such a reprobate as she described with unbridled pungency and disapproval.”

“Ah, but again, it is always pretty much like that, sir. And the truth of it, Prince,