They kissed. Then each of them was conveyed to an appropriate doom.
And tears were in the eyes of Jurgen, who was not used to weep: and
he thought not at all of what was to befall him, but only of this
and that small trivial thing which would have pleased his Chloris
had Jurgen done it, and which for one reason or another Jurgen had
left undone.
"I was not ever unkind to her, says she! ah, but I might have been
so much kinder. And now I shall not ever see her any more, nor ever
any more may I awaken delight and admiration in those bright tender
eyes which saw no fault in me! Well, but it is a comfort surely that
she does not know how I devoted the last night she was to live to
teaching mathematics."
And then Jurgen wondered how he would be despatched into the Hell of
his fathers? And when the Philistines showed him in what manner they
proposed to inflict their sentence he wondered at his own
obtuseness.
"For I might have surmised this would be the way of it," said
Jurgen. "And yet as always there is a simplicity in the methods of
the Philistines which is unimaginable by really clever fellows. And
as always, too, these methods are unfair to us clever fellows. Well,
I am willing to taste any drink once: but this is a very horrible
device, none the less; and I wonder if I have the pluck to endure
it?"
Then as he stood considering this matter, a man-at-arms came
hurrying. He brought with him three great rolled parchments, with
seals and ribbons and everything in order: and these were Jurgen's
pardon and Jurgen's nomination as Poet Laureate of Philistia and
Jurgen's appointment as Mathematician Royal.
The man-at-arms brought also a letter from Queen Dolores, and this
Jurgen read with a frown.
"Do you consider now what fun it would be to hood-wink everybody by
pretending to conform to our laws!" said this letter, and it said
nothing more: Dolores was really a wise woman. Yet there was a
postscript. "For we could be so happy!" said the postscript.
And Jurgen looked toward the Woods, where men were sawing up a great
oak-tree. And Jurgen gave a fine laugh, and with fine deliberateness
he tore up the Queen's letter into little strips. Then statelily he
took the parchments, and found they were so tough he could not tear
them. This was uncommonly awkward, for Jurgen's ill-advised attempt
to tear the parchments impaired the dignity of his magnanimous
self-sacrifice: he even suspected one of the guards of smiling. So
there was nothing for it but presently to give up that futile tugging
and jerking, and to compromise by crumpling these parchments.
"This is my answer," said Jurgen heroically, and with some
admiration of himself, but still a little dashed by the uncalled-for
toughness of the parchments.
Then Jurgen cried farewell to fallen Leukê; and scornfully he cried
farewell to the Philistines and to their devices. Then he submitted
to their devices. Thus, it was without making any special protest
about it that Jurgen was relegated to limbo, and was despatched to
the Hell of his fathers, two days before Christmas.
34.