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.