So again Coth parted with his son in anger, and Jurgen returned
again toward Barathum; and, whether or not it was a coincidence,
Jurgen met precisely the vampire of whom he had inveigled his father
into thinking. She was the most seductively beautiful creature that
it would be possible for Jurgen's father or any other man to
imagine: and her clothes were orange-colored, for a reason
sufficiently well known in Hell, and were embroidered everywhere
with green fig-leaves.
"A good morning to you, madame," says Jurgen, "and whither are you
going?"
"Why, to no place at all, good youth. For this is my vacation,
granted yearly by the Law of Kalki--"
"And who is Kalki, madame?"
"Nobody as yet: but he will come as a stallion. Meanwhile his Law
precedes him, so that I am spending my vacation peacefully in Hell,
with none of my ordinary annoyances to bother me."
"And what, madame, can they be?"
"Why, you must understand that it is little rest a vampire gets on
earth, with so many fine young fellows like yourself going about
everywhere eager to be destroyed."
"But how, madame, did you happen to become a vampire if the life
does not please you? And what is it that they call you?"
"My name, sir," replied the Vampire, sorrowfully, "is Florimel,
because my nature no less than my person was as beautiful as the
flowers of the field and as sweet as the honey which the bees (who
furnish us with such admirable examples of industry) get out of
these flowers. But a sad misfortune changed all this. For I chanced
one day to fall ill and die (which, of course, might happen to
anyone), and as my funeral was leaving the house the cat jumped over
my coffin. That was a terrible misfortune to befall a poor dead girl
so generally respected, and in wide demand as a seamstress; though,
even then, the worst might have been averted had not my sister-in-law
been of what they call a humane disposition and foolishly attached to
the cat. So they did not kill it, and I, of course, became a vampire."
"Yes, I can understand that was inevitable. Still, it seems hardly
fair. I pity you, my dear." And Jurgen sighed.
"I would prefer, sir, that you did not address me thus familiarly,
since you and I have omitted the formality of an introduction; and
in the absence of any joint acquaintances are unlikely ever to meet
properly."
"I have no herald handy, for I travel incognito. However, I am that
Jurgen who recently made himself Emperor of Noumaria, King of
Eubonia, Prince of Cocaigne, and Duke of Logreus; and of whom you
have doubtless heard."
"Why, to be sure!" says she, patting her hair straight. "And who
would have anticipated meeting your highness in such a place!"
"One says 'majesty' to an emperor, my dear. It is a detail, of
course: but in my position one has to be a little exigent."
"I perfectly comprehend, your majesty; and indeed I might have
divined your rank from your lovely clothes. I can but entreat you to
overlook my unintentional breach of etiquette: and I make bold to
add that a kind heart reveals the splendor of its graciousness
through the interest which your majesty has just evinced in my
disastrous history."
"Upon my word," thinks Jurgen, "but in this flow of words I seem to
recognize my father's imagination when in anger."
Then Florimel told Jurgen of her horrible awakening in the grave,
and of what had befallen her hands and feet there, the while that
against her will she fed repugnantly, destroying first her kindred
and then the neighbors. This done, she had arisen.
"For the cattle still lived, and that troubled me. When I had put an
end to this annoyance, I climbed into the church belfry, not alone,
for one went with me of whom I prefer not to talk; and at midnight I
sounded the bell so that all who heard it would sicken and die. And
I wept all the while, because I knew that when everything had been
destroyed which I had known in my first life in the flesh, I would
be compelled to go into new lands, in search of the food which alone
can nourish me, and I was always sincerely attached to my home. So
it was, your majesty, that I forever relinquished my sewing, and
became a lovely peril, a flashing desolation, and an evil which
smites by night, in spite of my abhorrence of irregular hours: and
what I do I dislike extremely, for it is a sad fate to become a
vampire, and still to sympathize with your victims, and particularly
with their poor mothers."
So Jurgen comforted Florimel, and he put his arm around her.
"Come, come!" he said, "but I will see that your vacation passes
pleasantly. And I intend to deal fairly with you, too."
Then he glanced sidewise at his shadow, and whispered a suggestion
which caused Florimel to sigh. "By the terms of my doom," said she,
"at no time during the nine lives of the cat can I refuse. Still, it
is a comfort you are the Emperor of Noumaria and have a kind heart."
"Oh, and a many other possessions, my dear! and I again assure you
that I intend to deal fairly with you."
So Florimel conducted Jurgen, through the changeless twilight of
Barathum, like that of a gray winter afternoon, to a quiet cleft by
the Sea of Blood, which she had fitted out very cosily in imitation
of her girlhood home; and she lighted a candle, and made him welcome
to her cleft. And when Jurgen was about to enter it he saw that his
shadow was following him into the Vampire's home.
"Let us extinguish this candle!" says Jurgen, "for I have seen so
many flames to-day that my eyes are tired."
So Florimel extinguished the candle, with a good-will that delighted
Jurgen. And now they were in utter darkness, and in the dark nobody
can see what is happening. But that Florimel now trusted Jurgen and
his Noumarian claims was evinced by her very first remark.
"I was in the beginning suspicious of your majesty," said Florimel,
"because I had always heard that every emperor carried a magnificent
sceptre, and you then displayed nothing of the sort. But now,
somehow, I do not doubt you any longer. And of what is your majesty
thinking?"
"Why, I was reflecting, my dear," says Jurgen, "that my father
imagines things very satisfactorily."
38.