Chapter VII: Part 7

"No," said Terminus.

"And for what reason?"

"Because I have always stood here without moving," replied Terminus. "Why, for me to move would be a quite unheard-of thing."

So Jurgen left him, and went into the forest. And there Jurgen encountered a smiling young fellow, who rode upon the back of a large ram. This young man had his left fore-finger laid to his lips, and his right hand held an astonishing object to be thus publicly displayed.

"But, oh, dear me! now, really, sir--!" says Jurgen.

"Bah!" says the ram.

But the smiling young fellow said nothing at all as he passed Jurgen, because it is not the custom of Harpocrates to speak.

"Which would be well enough," reflected Jurgen, "if only his custom did not make for stiffness and the embarrassment of others."

Thereafter Jurgen came upon a considerable commotion in the bushes, where a satyr was at play with an oread.

"Oh, but this forest is not respectable!" said Jurgen. "Have you no ethics and morals, you People of the Wood! Have you no sense of responsibility whatever, thus to be frolicking on a working-day?"

"Why, no," responded the Satyr, "of course not. None of my people have such things: and so the natural vocation of all satyrs is that which you are now interrupting."

"Perhaps you speak the truth," said Jurgen. "Still, you ought to be ashamed of the fact that you are not lying."

"For a satyr to be ashamed of himself would be indeed an unheard-of thing! Now go away, you in the glittering shirt! for we are studying eudæmonism, and you are talking nonsense, and I am busy, and you annoy me," said the Satyr.

"Well, but in Cocaigne," said Jurgen, "this eudæmonism was considered an indoor diversion."

"And did you ever hear of a satyr going indoors?"

"Why, save us from all hurt and harm! but what has that to do with it?"

"Do not try to equivocate, you shining idiot! For now you see for yourself you are talking nonsense. And I repeat that such unheard-of nonsense irritates me," said the Satyr.

The Oread said nothing at all. But she too looked annoyed, and Jurgen reflected that it was probably not the custom of oreads to be rescued from the eudæmonism of satyrs.

So Jurgen left them; and yet deeper in the forest he found a bald-headed squat old man, with a big paunch and a flat red nose and very small bleared eyes. Now the old fellow was so helplessly drunk that he could not walk: instead, he sat upon the ground, and leaned against a tree-bole.

"This is a very disgusting state for you to be in so early in the morning," observed Jurgen.

"But Silenus is always drunk," the bald-headed man responded, with a dignified hiccough.

"So here is another one of you! Well, and why are you always drunk, Silenus?"

"Because Silenus is the wisest of the People of the Wood."

"Ah, ah! but I apologize. For here at last is somebody with a plausible excuse for his daily employment. Now, then, Silenus, since you are so wise, come tell me, is it really the best fate for a man to be drunk always?"

"Not at all. Drunkenness is a joy reserved for the Gods: so do men partake of it impiously, and so are they very properly punished for their audacity. For men, it is best of all never to be born; but, being born, to die very quickly."

"Ah, yes! but failing either?"

"The third best thing for a man is to do that which seems expected of him," replied Silenus.

"But that is the Law of Philistia: and with Philistia, they inform me, Pseudopolis is at war."

Silenus meditated. Jurgen had discovered an uncomfortable thing about this old fellow, and it was that his small bleared eyes did not blink nor the lids twitch at all. His eyes moved, as through magic the eyes of a painted statue might move horribly, under quite motionless red lids. Therefore it was uncomfortable when these eyes moved toward you.

"Young fellow in the glittering shirt, I will tell you a secret: and it is that the Philistines were created after the image of Koshchei who made some things as they are. Do you think upon that! So the Philistines do that which seems expected. And the people of Leukê were created after the image of Koshchei who made yet other things as they are: therefore do the people of Leukê do that which is customary, adhering to classical tradition. Do you think upon that also! Then do you pick your side in this war, remembering that you side with stupidity either way. And when that happens which will happen, do you remember how Silenus foretold to you precisely what would happen, a long while before it happened, because Silenus was so old and so wise and so very disreputably drunk, and so very, very sleepy."

"Yes, certainly, Silenus: but how will this war end?"

"Dullness will conquer dullness: and it will not matter."

"Ah, yes! but what will become, in all this fighting, of Jurgen?"

"That will not matter either," said Silenus, comfortably. "Nobody will bother about you." And with that he closed his horrible bleared eyes and went to sleep.

So Jurgen left the old tippler, and started to leave the forest also. "For undoubtedly all the people in Leukê are resolute to do that which is customary," reflected Jurgen, "for the unarguable reason it is their custom, and has always been their custom. And they will desist from these practises when the cat eats acorns, but not before. So it is the part of wisdom to inquire no further into the matter. For after all, these people may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say they are wrong." Jurgen shrugged. "But still, at the same time--!"

Now in returning to his cabin Jurgen heard a frightful sort of yowling and screeching as of mad people.

"Hail, daughter of various-formed Protogonus, thou that takest joy in mountains and battles and in the beating of the drum! Hail, thou deceitful saviour, mother of all gods, that comest now, pleased with long wanderings, to be propitious to us!"

But the uproar was becoming so increasingly unpleasant that Jurgen at this point withdrew into a thicket: and thence he witnessed the passing through the Woods of a notable procession. There were features connected with this procession sufficiently unusual to cause Jurgen to vow that the desiderated moment wherein he walked unhurt from the forest would mark the termination of his last visit thereto. Then amazement tripped up the heels of terror: for now passed Mother Sereda, or, as Anaïtis had called her, Æsred. To-day, in place of a towel about her head, she wore a species of crown, shaped like a circlet of crumbling towers: she carried a large key, and her chariot was drawn by two lions. She was attended by howling persons, with shaved heads: and it was apparent that these persons had parted with possessions which Jurgen valued.

"This is undoubtedly," said he, "a most unwholesome forest."

Jurgen inquired about this procession, later, and from Chloris he got information which surprised him.

"And these are the beings who I had thought were poetic ornaments of speech! But what is the old lady doing in such high company?"

He described Mother Sereda, and Chloris told him who this was. Now Jurgen shook his sleek black head.

"Behold another mystery! Yet after all, it is no concern of mine if the old lady elects for an additional anagram. I should be the last person to criticize her, inasmuch as to me she has been more than generous. Well, I shall preserve her friendship by the infallible recipe of keeping out of her way. Oh, but I shall certainly keep out of her way now that I have perceived what is done to the men who serve her."

And after that Jurgen and Chloris lived very pleasantly together, though Jurgen began to find his Hamadryad a trifle unperceptive, if not actually obtuse.

"She does not understand me, and she does not always treat my superior wisdom quite respectfully. That is unfair, but it seems to be an unavoidable feature of married life. Besides, if any woman had ever understood me she would, in self-protection, have refused to marry me. In any case, Chloris is a dear brown plump delicious partridge of a darling: and cleverness in women is, after all, a virtue misplaced."

And Jurgen did not return into the Woods, nor did he go down into the city. Neither the People of the Field nor of the Wood, of course, ever went within city gates. "But I would think that you would like to see the fine sights of Pseudopolis," says Chloris,--"and that fine Queen of theirs," she added, almost as though she spoke without premeditation.

"Woman dear," says Jurgen, "I do not wish to appear boastful. But in Eubonia, now! well, really some day we must return to my kingdom, and you shall inspect for yourself a dozen or two of my cities--Ziph and Eglington and Poissieux and Gazden and Bäremburg, at all events. And then you will concede with me that this little village of Pseudopolis, while well enough in its way--!" And Jurgen shrugged. "But as for saying more!"

"Sometimes," said Chloris, "I wonder if there is any such place as your fine kingdom of Eubonia: for certainly it grows larger and more splendid every time you talk of it."

"Now can it be," asks Jurgen, more hurt than angry, "that you suspect me of uncandid dealing and, in short, of being an impostor!"

"Why, what does it matter? You are Jurgen," she answered, happily.

And the man was moved as she smiled at him across the glowing queer embroidery-work at which Chloris seemed to labor interminably: he was conscious of a tenderness for her which was oddly remorseful: and it appeared to him that if he had known lovelier women he had certainly found nowhere anyone more lovable than was this plump and busy and sunny-tempered little wife of his.

"My dear, I do not care to see Queen Helen again, and that is a fact. I am contented here, with a wife befitting my station, suited to my endowments, and infinitely excelling my deserts."

"And do you think of that tow-headed bean-pole very often, King Jurgen?"

"That is unfair, and you wrong me, Chloris, with these unmerited suspicions. It pains me to reflect, my dear, that you esteem the tie between us so lightly you can consider me capable of breaking it even in thought."

"To talk of fairness is all very well, but it is no answer to a plain question."

Jurgen looked full at her; and he laughed. "You women are so unscrupulously practical. My dear, I have seen Queen Helen face to face. But it is you whom I love as a man customarily loves a woman."

"That is not saying much."

"No: for I endeavor to speak in consonance with my importance. You forget that I have also seen Achilles."

"But you admired Achilles! You told me so yourself."

"I admired the perfections of Achilles, but I cordially dislike the man who possesses them. Therefore I shall keep away from both the King and Queen of Pseudopolis."

"Yet you will not go into the Woods, either, Jurgen--"

"Not after what I have witnessed there," said Jurgen, with an exaggerated shudder that was not very much exaggerated.

Now Chloris laughed, and quitted her queer embroidery in order to rumple up his hair. "And you find the People of the Field so insufferably stupid, and so uninterested by your Zorobasiuses and Ptolemopiters and so on, that you keep away from them also. O foolish man of mine, you are determined to be neither fish nor beast nor poultry and nowhere will you ever consent to be happy."

"It was not I who determined my nature, Chloris: and as for being happy, I make no complaint. Indeed, I have nothing to complain of, nowadays. So I am very well contented by my dear wife and by my manner of living in Leukê," said Jurgen, with a sigh.

29.

Concerning Horvendile's Nonsense

It was on a bright and tranquil day in November, at the period which the People of the Field called the summer of Alcyonê, that Jurgen went down from the forest; and after skirting the moats of Pseudopolis, and avoiding a meeting with any of the town's dispiritingly glorious inhabitants, Jurgen came to the seashore.

Chloris had suggested his doing this, in order that she could have a chance to straighten things in his cabin while she was tidying her tree for the winter, and could so make one day's work serve for two. For the dryad of an oak-tree has large responsibilities, what with the care of so many dead leaves all winter, and the acorns being blown from their places and littering up the ground everywhere, and the bark cracking until it looks positively disreputable: and Jurgen was at any such work less a help than a hindrance. So Chloris gave him a parcel of lunch and a perfunctory kiss, and told him to go down to the seashore and get inspired and make up a pretty poem about her. "And do you be back in time for an early supper, Jurgen," says she, "but not a minute before."

Thus it befell that Jurgen reflectively ate his lunch in solitude, and regarded the Euxine. The sun was high, and the queer shadow that followed Jurgen was huddled into shapelessness.

"This is indeed an inspiring spectacle," Jurgen reflected. "How puny seems the race of man, in contrast with this mighty sea, which now spreads before me like, as So-and-so has very strikingly observed, a something or other under such and such conditions!" Then Jurgen shrugged. "Really, now I think of it, though, there is no call for me to be suffused with the traditional emotions. It looks like a great deal of water, and like nothing else in particular. And I cannot but consider the water is behaving rather futilely."

So he sat in drowsy contemplation of the sea. Far out a shadow would form on the water, like the shadow of a broadish plank, scudding shoreward, and lengthening and darkening as it approached. Presently it would be some hundred feet in length, and would assume a hard smooth darkness, like that of green stone: this was the under side of the wave. Then the top of it would curdle, the southern end of the wave would collapse, and with exceeding swiftness this white feathery falling would plunge and scamper and bluster northward, the full length of the wave. It would be neater and more workmanlike to have each wave tumble down as a whole. From the smacking and the splashing, what looked like boiling milk would thrust out over the brown sleek sands: and as the mess spread it would thin to a reticulated whiteness, like lace, and then to the appearance of smoke sprays clinging to the sands. Plainly the tide was coming in.

Or perhaps it was going out. Jurgen's notions as to such phenomena were vague. But, either way, the sea was stirring up a large commotion and a rather pleasant and invigorating odor.

And then all this would happen once more: and then it would happen yet again. It had happened a number of hundred of times since Jurgen first sat down to eat his lunch: and what was gained by it? The sea was behaving stupidly. There was no sense in this continual sloshing and spanking and scrabbling and spluttering.

Thus Jurgen, as he nodded over the remnants of his lunch.

"Sheer waste of energy, I am compelled to call it," said Jurgen, aloud, just as he noticed there were two other men on this long beach.

One came from the north, one from the south, so that they met not far from where Jurgen was sitting: and by an incredible coincidence Jurgen had known both of these men in his first youth. So he hailed them, and they recognized him at once. One of these travellers was the Horvendile who had been secretary to Count Emmerick when Jurgen was a lad: and the other was Perion de la Forêt, that outlaw who had come to Bellegarde very long ago disguised as the Vicomte de Puysange. And all three of these old acquaintances had kept their youth surprisingly.

Now Horvendile and Perion marveled at the fine shirt which Jurgen was wearing.

"Why, you must know," he said, modestly, "that I have lately become King of Eubonia, and must dress according to my station."

So they said they had always expected some such high honor to befall him, and then the three of them fell to talking. And Perion told how he had come through Pseudopolis, on his way to King Theodoret at Lacre Kai, and how in the market-place at Pseudopolis he had seen Queen Helen. "She is a very lovely lady," said Perion, "and I marvelled over her resemblance to Count Emmerick's fair sister, whom we all remember."

"I noticed that at once," said Horvendile, and he smiled strangely, "when I, too, passed through the city."

"Why, but nobody could fail to notice it," said Jurgen.

"It is not, of course, that I consider her to be as lovely as Dame Melicent," continued Perion, "since, as I have contended in all quarters of the world, there has never lived, and will never live, any woman so beautiful as Melicent. But you gentlemen appear surprised by what seems to me a very simple statement. Your air, in fine, is one that forces me to point out it is a statement I can permit nobody to deny." And Perion's honest eyes had narrowed unpleasantly, and his sun-browned countenance was uncomfortably stern.

"Dear sir," said Jurgen, hastily, "it was merely that it appeared to me the lady whom they call Queen Helen hereabouts is quite evidently Count Emmerick's sister Dorothy la Désirée."

"Whereas I recognized her at once," says Horvendile, "as Count Emmerick's third sister, La Beale Ettarre."

And now they stared at one another, for it was certain that these three sisters were not particularly alike.

"Putting aside any question of eyesight," observes Perion, "it is indisputable that the language of both of you is distorted. For one of you says this is Madame Dorothy, and the other says this is Madame Ettarre: whereas everybody knows that this Queen Helen, whomever she may resemble, cannot possibly be anybody else save Queen Helen."

"To you, who are always the same person," replied Jurgen, "that may sound reasonable. For my part, I am several people: and I detect no incongruity in other persons' resembling me."

"There would be no incongruity anywhere," suggested Horvendile, "if Queen Helen were the woman whom we had loved in vain. For the woman whom when we were young we loved in vain is the one woman that we can never see quite clearly, whatever happens. So we might easily, I suppose, confuse her with some other woman."

"But Melicent is the lady whom I have loved in vain," said Perion, "and I care nothing whatever about Queen Helen. Why should I? What do you mean now, Horvendile, by your hints that I have faltered in my constancy to Dame Melicent since I saw Queen Helen? I do not like such hints."

"No less, it is Ettarre whom I love, and have loved not quite in vain, and have loved unfalteringly," says Horvendile, with his quiet smile: "and I am certain that it was Ettarre whom I beheld when I looked upon Queen Helen."

"I may confess," says Jurgen, clearing his throat, "that I have always regarded Madame Dorothy with peculiar respect and admiration. For the rest, I am married. Even so, I think that Madame Dorothy is Queen Helen."

Then they fell to debating this mystery. And presently Perion said the one way out was to leave the matter to Queen Helen. "She at all events must know who she is. So do one of you go back into the city, and embrace her knees as is the custom of this country when one implores a favor of the King or the Queen: and do you then ask her fairly."

"Not I," says Jurgen. "I am upon terms of some intimacy with a hamadryad just at present. I am content with my Hamadryad. And I intend never to venture into the presence of Queen Helen any more, in order to preserve my contentment."

"Why, but I cannot go," says Perion, "because Dame Melicent has a little mole upon her left cheek. And Queen Helen's cheek is flawless. You understand, of course, that I am certain this mole immeasurably enhances the beauty of Dame Melicent," he added, loyally. "None the less, I mean to hold no further traffic with Queen Helen."

"Now my reason for not going is this," said Horvendile:--"that if I attempted to embrace the knees of Ettarre, whom people hereabouts call Helen, she would instantly vanish. Other matters apart, I do not wish to bring any such misfortune upon the Island of Leukê."

"But that," said Perion, "is nonsense."

"Of course it is," said Horvendile. "That is probably why it happens."

So none of them would go. And each of them clung, none the less, to his own opinion about Queen Helen. And presently Perion said they were wasting both time and words. Then Perion bade the two farewell, and Perion continued southward, toward Lacre Kai. And as he went he sang a song in honor of Dame Melicent, whom he celebrated as Heart o' My Heart: and the two who heard him agreed that Perion de la Forêt was probably the worst poet in the world.

"Nevertheless, there goes a very chivalrous and worthy gentleman," said Horvendile, "intent to play out the remainder of his romance. I wonder if the Author gets much pleasure from these simple characters? At least they must be easy to handle."

"I cultivate a judicious amount of gallantry," says Jurgen: "I do not any longer aspire to be chivalrous. And indeed, Horvendile, it seems to me indisputable that each one of us is the hero in his own romance, and cannot understand any other person's romance, but misinterprets everything therein, very much as we three have fallen out in the simple matter of a woman's face."

Now young Horvendile meditatively stroked his own curly and reddish hair, brushing it away from his ears with his left hand, as he sat there staring meditatively at nothing in particular.

"I would put it, Jurgen, that we three have met like characters out of three separate romances which the Author has composed in different styles."

"That also," Jurgen submitted, "would be nonsense."

"Ah, but perhaps the Author very often perpetrates nonsense. Come Jurgen, you who are King of Eubonia!" says Horvendile, with his wide-set eyes a-twinkle; "what is there in you or me to attest that our Author has not composed our romances with his tongue in his cheek?"

"Messire Horvendile, if you are attempting to joke about Koshchei who made all things as they are, I warn you I do not consider that sort of humor very wholesome. Without being prudish, I believe in common-sense: and I would vastly prefer to have you talk about something else."

Horvendile was still smiling. "You look some day to come to Koshchei, as you call the Author. That is easily said, and sounds excellently. Ah, but how will you recognize Koshchei? and how do you know you have not already passed by Koshchei in some street or meadow? Come now, King Jurgen," said Horvendile, and still his young face wore an impish smile; "come tell me, how do you know that I am not Koshchei who made all things as they are?"

"Be off with you!" says Jurgen; "you would never have had the wit to invent a Jurgen. Something else is troubling me: I have just recollected that the young Perion who left us only a moment since, grew to be rich and gray-headed and famous, and took Dame Melicent from her pagan husband, and married her himself: and that all this happened long years ago. So our recent talk with young Perion seems very improbable."

"Why, but do you not remember, too, that I ran away in the night when Maugis d'Aigremont stormed Storisende? and was never heard of any more? and that all this, too, took place a long, long while ago? Yet we have met as three fine young fellows, here on the beach of fabulous Leukê. I put it to you fairly, King Jurgen: now how could this conceivably have come about unless the Author sometimes composes nonsense?"

"Truly the way that you express it, Horvendile, the thing does seem a little strange; and I can think of no explanation rendering it plausible."

"Again, see now, King Jurgen of Eubonia, how you underrate the Author's ability. This is one of the romancer's most venerable devices that is being practised. See for yourself!" And suddenly Horvendile pushed Jurgen so that Jurgen tumbled over in the warm sand.

Then Jurgen arose, gaping and stretching himself. "That was a very foolish dream I had, napping here in the sun. For it was certainly a dream. Otherwise, they would have left footprints, these young fellows who have gone the way of youth so long ago. And it was a dream that had no sense in it. But indeed it would be strange if that were the whole point of it, and if living, too, were such a dream, as that queer Horvendile would have me think."

Jurgen snapped his fingers.

"Well, and what in common fairness could he or anyone else expect me to do about it! That is the answer I fling at you, you Horvendile whom I made up in a dream. And I disown you as the most futile of my inventions. So be off with you! and a good riddance, too, for I never held with upsetting people."

Then Jurgen dusted himself, and trudged home to an early supper with the Hamadryad who contented him.

30.

Economics of King Jurgen

Now Jurgen's curious dream put notions into the restless head of Jurgen. So mighty became his curiosity that he went shuddering into the abhorred Woods, and passed over Coalisnacoan (which is the Ferry of Dogs), and did all such detestable things as were necessary to placate Phobetor. Then Jurgen tricked Phobetor by an indescribable device, wherein surprising use was made of a cheese and three beetles and a gimlet, and so cheated Phobetor out of a gray magic. And that night while Pseudopolis slept King Jurgen came down into this city of gold and ivory.

Jurgen went with distaste among the broad-browed and great-limbed monarchs of Pseudopolis, for they reminded him of things that he had long ago put aside, and they made him feel unpleasantly ignoble and insignificant. That was his real reason for avoiding the city.

Now he passed between unlighted and silent palaces, walking in deserted streets where the moon made ominous shadows. Here was the house of Ajax Telamon who reigned in sea-girt Salamis, here that of god-like Philoctetês: much-counseling Odysseus dwelt just across the way, and the corner residence was fair-haired Agamemnon's: in the moonlight Jurgen easily made out these names engraved upon the bronze shield that hung beside each doorway. To every side of him slept the heroes of old song while Jurgen skulked under their windows.

He remembered how incuriously--not even scornfully--these people had overlooked him on that disastrous afternoon when he had ventured into Pseudopolis by daylight. And a spiteful little gust of rage possessed him, and Jurgen shook his fist at the big silent palaces.

"Yah!" he snarled: for he did not know at all what it was that he desired to say to those great stupid heroes who did not care what he said, but he knew that he hated them. Then Jurgen became aware of himself growling there like a kicked cur who is afraid to bite, and he began to laugh at this Jurgen.

"Your pardon, gentlemen of Greece," says he, with a wide ceremonious bow, "and I think the information I wished to convey was that I am a monstrous clever fellow."

Jurgen went into the largest palace, and crept stealthily by the bedroom of Achilles, King of Men, treading a-tip-toe; and so came at last into a little room panelled with cedar-wood where slept Queen Helen. She was smiling in her sleep when he had lighted his lamp, with due observance of the gray magic. She was infinitely beautiful, this young Dorothy whom people hereabouts through some odd error called Helen.

For Jurgen saw very well that this was Count Emmerick's sister Dorothy la Désirée, whom Jurgen had vainly loved in the days when Jurgen was young alike in body and heart. Just once he had won back to her, in the garden between dawn and sunrise: but he was then a time-battered burgher whom Dorothy did not recognise. Now he returned to her a king, less admirable it might be than some of the many other kings without realms who slept now in Pseudopolis, but still very fine in his borrowed youth, and above all, armored by a gray magic: so that improbabilities were possible. And Jurgen's eyes were furtive, and he passed his tongue across his upper lip from one corner to the other, and his hand went out toward the robe of violet-colored wool which covered the sleeping girl, for he stood ready to awaken Dorothy la Désirée in the way he often awoke Chloris.

But a queer thought held him. Nothing, he recollected, had shown the power to hurt him very deeply since he had lost this young Dorothy. And to affairs which threatened to result unpleasantly, he had always managed to impart an agreeable turn, since then, by virtue of preserving a cool heart. What if by some misfortune he were to get back his real youth? and were to become again the flustered boy who blundered from stammering rapture to wild misery, and back again, at the least word or gesture of a gold-haired girl?

"Thank you, no!" says Jurgen. "The boy was more admirable than I, who am by way of being not wholly admirable. But then he had a wretched time of it, by and large. Thus it may be that my real youth lies sleeping here: and for no consideration would I re-awaken it."

And yet tears came into his eyes, for no reason at all. And it seemed to him that the sleeping woman, here at his disposal, was not the young Dorothy whom he had seen in the garden between dawn and sunrise, although the two were curiously alike; and that of the two this woman here was, somehow, infinitely the lovelier.

"Lady, if you indeed be the Swan's daughter, long and long ago there was a child that was ill. And his illness turned to a fever, and in his fever he arose from his bed one night, saying that he must set out for Troy, because of his love for Queen Helen. I was once that child. I remember how strange it seemed to me I should be talking such nonsense: I remember how the warm room smelt of drugs: and I remember how I pitied the trouble in my nurse's face, drawn and old in the yellow lamplight. For she loved me, and she did not understand: and she pleaded with me to be a good boy and not to worry my sleeping parents. But I perceive now that I was not talking nonsense."

He paused, considering the riddle: and his fingers fretted with the robe of violet-colored wool beneath which lay Queen Helen. "Yours is that beauty of which men know by fabulous report alone, and which they may not ever find, nor ever win to, quite. And for that beauty I have hungered always, even in childhood. Toward that beauty I have struggled always, but not quite whole-heartedly. That night forecast my life. I have hungered for you: and"--Jurgen smiled here--"and I have always stayed a passably good boy, lest I should beyond reason disturb my family. For to do that, I thought, would not be fair: and still I believe for me to have done that would have been unfair."

He grimaced at this point: for Jurgen was finding his scruples inconveniently numerous.

"And now I think that what I do to-night is not quite fair to Chloris. And I do not know what thing it is that I desire, and the will of Jurgen is a feather in the wind. But I know that I would like to love somebody as Chloris loves me, and as so many women have loved me. And I know that it is you who have prevented this, Queen Helen, at every moment of my life since the disastrous moment when I first seemed to find your loveliness in the face of Madame Dorothy. It is the memory of your beauty, as I then saw it mirrored in the face of a jill-flirt, which has enfeebled me for such honest love as other men give women: and I envy these other men. For Jurgen has loved nothing--not even you, not even Jurgen!--quite whole-heartedly. Well, what if I took vengeance now upon this thieving comeliness, upon this robber that strips life of joy and sorrow?"

Jurgen stood at Queen Helen's bedside, watching her, for a long while. He had shifted into a less fanciful mood: and the shadow that followed him was ugly and hulking and wavering upon the cedarn wall of Queen Helen's sleeping-chamber.

"Mine is a magic which does not fail," old Phobetor had said, while his attendants raised his eyelids so that he could see King Jurgen.

Now Jurgen remembered this. And reflectively he drew back the robe of violet-colored wool, a little way. The breast of Queen Helen lay bare. And she did not move at all, but she smiled in her sleep.

Never had Jurgen imagined that any woman could be so beautiful nor so desirable as this woman, or that he could ever know such rapture. So Jurgen paused.

"Because," said Jurgen now, "it may be this woman has some fault: it may be there is some fleck in her beauty somewhere. And sooner than know that, I would prefer to retain my unreasonable dreams, and this longing which is unfed and hopeless, and the memory of to-night. Besides, if she were perfect in everything, how could I live any longer, who would have no more to desire? No, I would be betraying my own interests, either way; and injustice is always despicable."

So Jurgen sighed and gently replaced the robe of violet-colored wool, and he returned to his Hamadryad.

"And now that I think of it, too," reflected Jurgen, "I am behaving rather nobly. Yes, it is questionless that I have to-night evinced a certain delicacy of feeling which merits appreciation, at all events by King Achilles."

31.

The Fall of Pseudopolis

So Jurgen abode in Leukê, and complied with the customs of that country; and what with one thing and another, he and Chloris made the time pass pleasantly enough, until the winter solstice was at hand. Now Pseudopolis, as has been said, was at war with Philistia: so it befell that at this season Leukê was invaded by an army of Philistines, led by their Queen Dolores, a woman who was wise but not entirely reliable. They came from the coast, a terrible army insanely clad in such garments as had been commanded by Ageus, a god of theirs; and chaunting psalms in honor of their god Vel-Tyno, who had inspired this crusade: thus they swept down upon Pseudopolis, and encamped before the city.

These Philistines fought in this campaign by casting before them a more horrible form of Greek fire, which consumed whatever was not gray-colored. For that color alone was now favored by their god Vel-Tyno. "And all other colors," his oracles had decreed, "are forevermore abominable, until I say otherwise."

So the forces of Philistia were marshalled in the plain before Pseudopolis, and Queen Dolores spoke to her troops. And smilingly she said:--

"Whenever you come to blows with the enemy he will be beaten. No mercy will be shown, no prisoners taken. As the Philistines under Libnah and Goliath and Gershon, and a many other tall captains, made for themselves a name which is still mighty in traditions and legend, even thus to-day may the name of Realist be so fixed in Pseudopolis, by your deeds to-day, that no one shall ever dare again even to look askance at a Philistine. Open the door for Realism, once for all!"

Meanwhile within the city Achilles, King of Men, addressed his army:--

"The eyes of all the world will be upon you, because you are in some especial sense the soldiers of Romance. Let it be your pride, therefore, to show all men everywhere, not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you are, keeping yourselves fit and straight in everything, and pure and clean through and through. Let us set ourselves a standard so high that it will be a glory to live up to it, and then let us live up to it, and add a new laurel to the crown of Pseudopolis. May the Gods of Old keep you and guide you!"

Then said Thersitês, in his beard: "Certainly Pelidês has learned from history with what weapon a strong man discomfits the Philistines."

But the other kings applauded, and the trumpet was sounded, and the battle was joined. And that day the forces of Philistia were everywhere triumphant. But they report a queer thing happened: and it was that when the Philistines shouted in their triumph, Achilles and all they who served him rose from the ground like gleaming clouds and passed above the heads of the Philistines, deriding them.

Thus was Pseudopolis left empty, so that the Philistines entered thereinto without any opposition. They defiled this city of blasphemous colors, then burned it as a sacrifice to their god Vel-Tyno, because the color of ashes is gray.

Then the Philistines erected lithoi (which were not unlike may-poles), and began to celebrate their religious rites.

* * * * *

So it was reported: but Jurgen witnessed none of these events.

"Let them fight it out," said Jurgen: "it is not my affair. I agree with Silenus: dullness will conquer dullness, and it will not matter. But do you, woman dear, take shelter with your kindred in the unconquerable Woods, for there is no telling what damage the Philistines may do hereabouts."

"Will you go with me, Jurgen?"

"My dear, you know very well that it is impossible for me ever again to go into the Woods, after the trick I played upon Phobetor."

"And if only you had kept your head about that bean-pole of a Helen, in her yellow wig--for I have not a doubt that every strand of it is false, and at all events this is not a time to be arguing about it, Jurgen,--why, then you would never have meddled with Uncle Phobetor! It simply shows you!"

"Yes," said Jurgen.

"Still, I do not know. If you come with me into the Woods, Uncle Phobetor in his impetuous way will quite certainly turn you into a boar-pig, because he has always done that to the people who irritated him--"

"I seem to recognise that reason."

"--But give me time, and I can get around Uncle Phobetor, just as I have always done, and he will turn you back."

"No," says Jurgen, obstinately, "I do not wish to be turned into a boar-pig."

"Now, Jurgen, let us be sensible about this! Of course, it is a little humiliating. But I will take the very best of care of you, and feed you with my own acorns, and it will be a purely temporary arrangement. And to be a pig for a week or two, or even for a month, is infinitely better for a poet than being captured by the Philistines."

"How do I know that?" says Jurgen.

"--For it is not, after all, as if Uncle Phobetor's heart were not in the right place. It is just his way. And besides, you must remember what you did with that gimlet!"

Said Jurgen: "All this is hardly to the purpose. You forget I have seen the hapless swine of Phobetor, and I know how he ameliorates the natural ferocity of his boar-pigs. No, I am Jurgen. So I remain. I will face the Philistines and whatever they may possibly do to me, rather than suffer that which Phobetor will quite certainly do to me."

"Then I stay too," said Chloris.

"No, woman dear--!"

"But do you not understand?" says Chloris, a little pale, as he saw now. "Since the life of a hamadryad is linked with the life of her tree, nobody can harm me so long as my tree lives: and if they cut down my tree I shall die, wherever I may happen to be."

"I had forgotten that." He was really troubled now.

"--And you can see for yourself, Jurgen, it is quite out of the question for me to be carrying that great oak anywhere, and I wonder at your talking such nonsense."

"Indeed, my dear," says Jurgen, "we are very neatly trapped. Well, nobody can live longer in peace than his neighbor chooses. Nevertheless, it is not fair."

As he spoke the Philistines came forth from the burning city. Again the trumpet sounded, and the Philistines advanced in their order of battle.

32.

Sundry Devices of the Philistines

Meanwhile the People of the Field had watched Pseudopolis burn, and had wondered what would befall them. They had not long to wonder, for next day the Fields were occupied, without any resistance by the inhabitants.

"The People of the Field," said they, "have never fought, and for them to begin now would be a very unheard-of thing indeed."

So the Fields were captured by the Philistines, and Chloris and Jurgen and all the People of the Field were judged summarily. They were declared to be obsolete illusions, whose merited doom was to be relegated to limbo. To Jurgen this appeared unreasonable.

"For I am no illusion," he asserted. "I am manifestly flesh and blood, and in addition, I am the high King of Eubonia, and no less. Why, in disputing these facts you contest circumstances that are so well known hereabouts as to rank among mathematical certainties. And that makes you look foolish, as I tell you for your own good."

This vexed the leaders of the Philistines, as it always vexes people to be told anything for their own good. "We would have you know," said they, "that we are not mathematicians; and that moreover, we have no kings in Philistia, where all must do what seems to be expected of them, and have no other law."

"How then can you be the leaders of Philistia?"

"Why, it is expected that women and priests should behave unaccountably. Therefore all we who are women or priests do what we will in Philistia, and the men there obey us. And it is we, the priests of Philistia, who do not think you can possibly have any flesh and blood under a shirt which we recognize to be a conventional figure of speech. It does not stand to reason. And certainly you could not ever prove such a thing by mathematics; and to say so is nonsense."

"But I can prove it by mathematics, quite irrefutably. I can prove anything you require of me by whatever means you may prefer," said Jurgen, modestly, "for the simple reason that I am a monstrous clever fellow."

Then spoke the wise Queen Dolores, saying: "I have studied mathematics. I will question this young man, in my tent to-night, and in the morning I will report the truth as to his claims. Are you content to endure this interrogatory, my spruce young fellow who wear the shirt of a king?"

Jurgen looked full upon her: she was lovely as a hawk is lovely: and of all that Jurgen saw Jurgen approved. He assumed the rest to be in keeping: and deduced that Dolores was a fine woman.

"Madame and Queen," said Jurgen, "I am content. And I can promise to deal fairly with you."

So that evening Jurgen was conducted into the purple tent of Queen Dolores of Philistia. It was quite dark there, and Jurgen went in alone, and wondering what would happen next: but this scented darkness he found of excellent augury, if only because it prevented his shadow from following him.

"Now, you who claim to be flesh and blood, and King of Eubonia, too," says the voice of Queen Dolores, "what is this nonsense you were talking about proving any such claims by mathematics?"

"Well, but my mathematics," replied Jurgen, "are Praxagorean."

"What, do you mean Praxagoras of Cos?"

"As if," scoffed Jurgen, "anybody had ever heard of any other Praxagoras!"

"But he, as I recall, belonged to the medical school of the Dogmatici," observed the wise Queen Dolores, "and was particularly celebrated for his researches in anatomy. Was he, then, also a mathematician?"

"The two are not incongruous, madame, as I would be delighted to demonstrate."

"Oh, nobody said that! For, indeed, it does seem to me I have heard of this Praxagorean system of mathematics, though, I confess, I have never studied it."

"Our school, madame, postulates, first of all, that since the science of mathematics is an abstract science, it is best inculcated by some concrete example."

Said the Queen: "But that sounds rather complicated."

"It occasionally leads to complications," Jurgen admitted, "through a choice of the wrong example. But the axiom is no less true."

"Come, then, and sit next to me on this couch if you can find it in the dark; and do you explain to me what you mean."

"Why, madame, by a concrete example I mean one that is perceptible to any of the senses--as to sight or hearing, or touch--"

"Oh, oh!" said the Queen, "now I perceive what you mean by a concrete example. And grasping this, I can understand that complications must of course arise from a choice of the wrong example."

"Well, then, madame, it is first necessary to implant in you, by the force of example, a lively sense of the peculiar character, and virtues and properties, of each of the numbers upon which is based the whole science of Praxagorean mathematics. For in order to convince you thoroughly, we must start far down, at the beginning of all things."

"I see," said the Queen, "or rather, in this darkness I cannot see at all, but I perceive your point. Your opening interests me: and you may go on."

"Now ONE, or the monad," says Jurgen, "is the principle and the end of all: it reveals the sublime knot which binds together the chain of causes: it is the symbol of identity, of equality, of existence, of conservation, and of general harmony." And Jurgen emphasized these characteristics vigorously. "In brief, ONE is a symbol of the union of things: it introduces that generating virtue which is the cause of all combinations: and consequently ONE is a good principle."

"Ah, ah!" said Queen Dolores, "I heartily admire a good principle. But what has become of your concrete example?"

"It is ready for you, madame: there is but ONE Jurgen."

"Oh, I assure you, I am not yet convinced of that. Still, the audacity of your example will help me to remember ONE, whether or not you prove to be really unique."

"Now, TWO, or the dyad, the origin of contrasts--"

Jurgen went on penetratingly to demonstrate that TWO was a symbol of diversity and of restlessness and of disorder, ending in collapse and separation: and was accordingly an evil principle. Thus was the life of every man made wretched by the struggle between his TWO components, his soul and his body; and thus was the rapture of expectant parents considerably abated by the advent of TWINS.

THREE, or the triad, however, since everything was composed of three substances, contained the most sublime mysteries, which Jurgen duly communicated. We must remember, he pointed out, that Zeus carried a TRIPLE thunderbolt, and Poseidon a TRIDENT, whereas Adês was guarded by a dog with THREE heads: this in addition to the omnipotent brothers themselves being a TRIO.

Thus Jurgen continued to impart the Praxagorean significance of each digit separately: and by and by the Queen was declaring his flow of wisdom was superhuman.

"Ah, but, madame, not even the wisdom of a king is without limit. EIGHT, I repeat, then, is appropriately the number of the Beatitudes. And NINE, or the ennead, also, being the multiple of THREE, should be regarded as sacred--"

The Queen attended docilely to his demonstration of the peculiar properties of NINE. And when he had ended she confessed that beyond doubt NINE should be regarded as miraculous. But she repudiated his analogues as to the muses, the lives of a cat, and how many tailors made a man.

"Rather, I shall remember always," she declared, "that King Jurgen of Eubonia is a NINE days' wonder."

"Well, madame," said Jurgen, with a sigh, "now that we have reached NINE, I regret to say we have exhausted the digits."

"Oh, what a pity!" cried Queen Dolores. "Nevertheless, I will concede the only illustration I disputed; there is but ONE Jurgen: and certainly this Praxagorean system of mathematics is a fascinating study." And promptly she commenced to plan Jurgen's return with her into Philistia, so that she might perfect herself in the higher branches of mathematics. "For you must teach me calculus and geometry and all other sciences in which these digits are employed. We can arrange some compromise with the priests. That is always possible with the priests of Philistia, and indeed the priests of Sesphra can be made to help anybody in anything. And as for your Hamadryad, I will attend to her myself."

"But, no," says Jurgen, "I am ready enough in all conscience to compromise elsewhere: but to compound with the forces of Philistia is the one thing I cannot do."

"Do you mean that, King Jurgen?" The Queen was astounded.

"I mean it, my dear, as I mean nothing else. You are in many ways an admirable people, and you are in all ways a formidable people. So I admire, I dread, I avoid, and at the very last pinch I defy. For you are not my people, and willy-nilly my gorge rises against your laws, as equally insane and abhorrent. Mind you, though, I assert nothing. You may be right in attributing wisdom to these laws; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say you are wrong: but still, at the same time--! That is the way I feel about it. So I, who compromise with everything else, can make no compromise with Philistia. No, my adored Dolores, it is not a virtue, rather it is an instinct with me, and I have no choice."

Even Dolores, who was Queen of all the Philistines, could perceive that this man spoke truthfully. "I am sorry," says she, with real regret, "for you could be much run after in Philistia."

"Yes," said Jurgen, "as an instructor in mathematics."

"But, no, King Jurgen, not only in mathematics," said Dolores, reasonably. "There is poetry, for instance! For they tell me you are a poet, and a great many of my people take poetry quite seriously, I believe. Of course, I do not have much time for reading, myself. So you can be the Poet Laureate of Philistia, on any salary you like. And you can teach us all your ideas by writing beautiful poems about them. And you and I can be very happy together."

"Teach, teach! there speaks Philistia, and very temptingly, too, through an adorable mouth, that would bribe me with praise and fine food and soft days forever. It is a thing that happens rather often, though. And I can but repeat that art is not a branch of pedagogy!"

"Really I am heartily sorry. For apart from mathematics, I like you, King Jurgen, just as a person."

"I, too, am sorry, Dolores. For I confess to a weakness for the women of Philistia."

"Certainly you have given me no cause to suspect you of any weakness in that quarter," observed Dolores, "in the long while you have been alone with me, and have talked so wisely and have reasoned so deeply. I am afraid that after to-night I shall find all other men more or less superficial. Heigho! and I shall probably weep my eyes out to-morrow when you are relegated to limbo. For that is what the priests will do with you, King Jurgen, on one plea or another, if you do not conform to the laws of Philistia."

"And that one compromise I cannot make! Ah, but even now I have a plan wherewith to escape your priests: and failing that, I possess a cantrap to fall back upon in my hour of direst need. My private affairs are thus not yet in a hopeless or even in a dejected condition. This fact now urges me to observe that TEN, or the decade, is the measure of all, since it contains all the numeric relations and harmonies--"