The tale tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen could see no one.
But the cave stretched straight forward, and downward, and at the
far end was a glow of light. Jurgen went on and on, and so came
presently to a centaur: and this surprised him not a little, because
Jurgen knew that centaurs were imaginary creatures.
Certainly they were curious to look at: for here was the body of a
fine bay horse, and rising from its shoulders, the sun-burnt body of
a young fellow who regarded Jurgen with grave and not unfriendly
eyes. The Centaur was lying beside a fire of cedar and juniper wood:
near him was a platter containing a liquid with which he was
anointing his hoofs. This stuff, as the Centaur rubbed it in with
his fingers, turned the appearance of his hoofs to gold.
"Hail, friend," says Jurgen, "if you be the work of God."
"Your protasis is not good Greek," observed the Centaur, "because in
Hellas we did not make such reservations. Besides, it is not so much
my origin as my destination which concerns you."
"Well, friend, and whither are you going?"
"To the garden between dawn and sunrise, Jurgen."
"Surely, now, but that is a fine name for a garden! and it is a
place I would take joy to be seeing."
"Up upon my back, Jurgen, and I will take you thither," says the
Centaur, and heaved to his feet. Then said the Centaur, when the
pawnbroker hesitated: "Because, as you must understand, there is no
other way. For this garden does not exist, and never did exist, in
what men humorously called real life; so that of course only
imaginary creatures such as I can enter it."
"That sounds very reasonable," Jurgen estimated: "but as it happens,
I am looking for my wife, whom I suspect to have been carried off by
a devil, poor fellow!"
And Jurgen began to explain to the Centaur what had befallen.
The Centaur laughed. "It may be for that reason I am here. There is,
in any event, only one remedy in this matter. Above all devils--and
above all gods, they tell me, but certainly above all centaurs--is
the power of Koshchei the Deathless, who made things as they are."
"It is not always wholesome," Jurgen submitted, "to speak of
Koshchei. It seems especially undesirable in a dark place like
this."
"None the less, I suspect it is to him you must go for justice."
"I would prefer not doing that," said Jurgen, with unaffected
candor.
"You have my sympathy: but there is no question of preference where
Koshchei is concerned. Do you think, for example, that I am frowzing
in this underground place by my own choice? and knew your name by
accident?"
Jurgen was frightened, a little. "Well, well! but it is usually the
deuce and all, this doing of the manly thing. How, then, can I come
to Koshchei?"
"Roundabout," says the Centaur. "There is never any other way."
"And is the road to this garden roundabout?"
"Oh, very much so, inasmuch as it circumvents both destiny and
common-sense."
"Needs must, then," says Jurgen: "at all events, I am willing to
taste any drink once."
"You will be chilled, though, traveling as you are. For you and I
are going a queer way, in search of justice, over the grave of a
dream and through the malice of time. So you had best put on this
shirt above your other clothing."
"Indeed it is a fine snug shining garment, with curious figures on
it. I accept such raiment gladly. And whom shall I be thanking for
his kindness, now?"
"My name," said the Centaur, "is Nessus."
"Well, then, friend Nessus, I am at your service."
And in a trice Jurgen was on the Centaur's back, and the two of them
had somehow come out of the cave, and were crossing Amneran Heath.
So they passed into a wooded place, where the light of sunset yet
lingered, rather unaccountably. Now the Centaur went westward. And
now about the pawnbroker's shoulders and upon his breast and over
his lean arms glittered like a rainbow the many-colored shirt of
Nessus.
For a while they went through the woods, which were composed of big
trees standing a goodish distance from one another, with the
Centaur's gilded hoofs rustling and sinking in a thick carpet of
dead leaves, all gray and brown, in level stretches that were
unbroken by any undergrowth. And then they came to a white roadway
that extended due west, and so were done with the woods. Now
happened an incredible thing in which Jurgen would never have
believed had he not seen it with his own eyes: for now the Centaur
went so fast that he gained a little by a little upon the sun, thus
causing it to rise in the west a little by a little; and these two
sped westward in the glory of a departed sunset. The sun fell full
in Jurgen's face as he rode straight toward the west, so that he
blinked and closed his eyes, and looked first toward this side, then
the other. Thus it was that the country about him, and the persons
they were passing, were seen by him in quick bright flashes, like
pictures suddenly transmuted into other pictures; and all his
memories of this shining highway were, in consequence, always
confused and incoherent.
He wondered that there seemed to be so many young women along the
road to the garden. Here was a slim girl in white teasing a great
brown and yellow dog that leaped about her clumsily; here a girl sat
in the branches of a twisted and gnarled tree, and back of her was a
broad muddied river, copper-colored in the sun; and here shone the
fair head of a tall girl on horseback, who seemed to wait for
someone: in fine, the girls along the way were numberless, and
Jurgen thought he recollected one or two of them.
But the Centaur went so swiftly that Jurgen could not be sure.
3.