Thus Jurgen stood again upon Amneran Heath. And again it was
Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather more than likely to
happen: and the low moon was bright, so that the shadow of Jurgen
was long and thin. And Jurgen searched for the gold cross that he
had worn through motives of sentiment, but he could not find it, nor
did he ever recover it: but barberry bushes and the thorns of
barberry bushes he found in great plenty as he searched vainly. All
the while that he searched, the shirt of Nessus glittered in the
moonlight, and the shadow of Jurgen streamed long and thin, and
every movement that was made by Jurgen the shadow parodied. And as
always, it was the shadow of a lean woman, with her head wrapped in
a towel.
Now Jurgen regarded this shadow, and to Jurgen it was abhorrent.
"Oh, Mother Sereda," says he, "for a whole year your shadow has
dogged me. Many lands we have visited, and many sights we have seen:
and at the end all that we have done is a tale that is told: and it
is a tale that does not matter. So I stand where I stood at the
beginning of my foiled journeying. The gift you gave me has availed
me nothing: and I do not care whether I be young or old: and I have
lost all that remained to me of my mother and of my mother's love,
and I have betrayed my mother's pride in me, and I am weary."
Now a little whispering gathered upon the ground, as though dead
leaves were moving there: and the whispering augmented (because this
was upon Walburga's Eve, when almost anything is rather more than
likely to happen), and the whispering became the ghost of a voice.
"You flattered me very cunningly, Jurgen, for you are a monstrous
clever fellow." This it was that the voice said drily.
"A number of people might say that with tolerable justice," Jurgen
declared: "and yet I guess who speaks. As for flattering you,
godmother, I was only joking that day in Glathion: in fact, I was
careful to explain as much, the moment I noticed your shadow seemed
interested in my idle remarks and was writing them all down in a
notebook. Oh, no, I can assure you I trafficked quite honestly, and
have dealt fairly everywhere. For the rest, I really am very clever:
it would be foolish of me to deny it."
"Vain fool!" said the voice of Mother Sereda.
Jurgen replied: "It may be that I am vain. But it is certain that I
am clever. And even more certain is the fact that I am weary. For,
look you, in the tinsel of my borrowed youth I have gone romancing
through the world; and into lands unvisited by other men have I
ventured, playing at spillikins with women and gear and with the
welfare of kingdoms; and into Hell have I fallen, and into Heaven
have I climbed, and into the place of the Lord God Himself have I
crept stealthily: and nowhere have I found what I desired. Nor do I
know what my desire is, even now. But I know that it is not possible
for me to become young again, whatever I may appear to others."
"Indeed, Jurgen, youth has passed out of your heart, beyond the
reach of Léshy: and the nearest you can come to regaining youth is
to behave childishly."
"O godmother, but do give rein to your better instincts and all that
sort of thing, and speak with me more candidly! Come now, dear lady,
there should be no secrets between you and me. In Leukê you were
reported to be Cybelê, the great Res Dea, the mistress of every
tangible thing. In Cocaigne they spoke of you as Æsred. And at
Cameliard Merlin called you Adères, dark Mother of the Little Gods.
Well, but at your home in the forest, where I first had the honor of
making your acquaintance, godmother, you told me you were Sereda,
who takes the color out of things, and controls all Wednesdays. Now
these anagrams bewilder me, and I desire to know you frankly for
what you are."
"It may be that I am all these. Meanwhile I bleach, and sooner or
later I bleach everything. It may be that some day, Jurgen, I shall
even take the color out of a fool's conception of himself."
"Yes, yes! but just between ourselves, godmother, is it not this
shadow of you that prevents my entering, quite, into the appropriate
emotion, the spirit of the occasion, as one might say, and robs my
life of the zest which other persons apparently get out of living?
Come now, you know it is! Well, and for my part, godmother, I love a
jest as well as any man breathing, but I do prefer to have it
intelligible."
"Now, let me tell you something plainly, Jurgen!" Mother Sereda
cleared her invisible throat, and began to speak rather indignantly.
* * * * *
"Well, godmother, if you will pardon my frankness, I do not think it
is quite nice to talk about such things, and certainly not with so
much candor. However, dismissing these considerations of delicacy,
let us revert to my original question. You have given me youth and
all the appurtenances of youth: and therewith you have given, too,
in your joking way--which nobody appreciates more heartily than
I,--a shadow that renders all things not quite satisfactory, not
wholly to be trusted, not to be met with frankness. Now--as you
understand, I hope,--I concede the jest, I do not for a moment deny
it is a master-stroke of humor. But, after all, just what exactly is
the point of it? What does it mean?"
"It may be that there is no meaning anywhere. Could you face that
interpretation, Jurgen?"
"No," said Jurgen: "I have faced god and devil, but that I will not
face."
"No more would I who have so many names face that. You jested with
me. So I jest with you. Probably Koshchei jests with all of us. And
he, no doubt--even Koshchei who made things as they are,--is in turn
the butt of some larger jest."
"He may be, certainly," said Jurgen: "yet, on the other hand--"
"About these matters I do not know. How should I? But I think that
all of us take part in a moving and a shifting and a reasoned using
of the things which are Koshchei's, a using such as we do not
comprehend, and are not fit to comprehend."
"That is possible," said Jurgen: "but, none the less--!"
"It is as a chessboard whereon the pieces move diversely: the
knights leaping sidewise, and the bishops darting obliquely, and the
rooks charging straightforward, and the pawns laboriously hobbling
from square to square, each at the player's will. There is no
discernible order, all to the onlooker is manifestly in confusion:
but to the player there is a meaning in the disposition of the
pieces."
"I do not deny it: still, one must grant--"
"And I think it is as though each of the pieces, even the pawns, had
a chessboard of his own which moves as he is moved, and whereupon he
moves the pieces to suit his will, in the very moment wherein he is
moved willy-nilly."
"You may be right: yet, even so--"
"And Koshchei who directs this infinite moving of puppets may well
be the futile harried king in some yet larger game."
"Now, certainly I cannot contradict you: but, at the same time--!"
"So goes this criss-cross multitudinous moving as far as thought can
reach: and beyond that the moving goes. All moves. All moves
uncomprehendingly, and to the sound of laughter. For all moves in
consonance with a higher power that understands the meaning of the
movement. And each moves the pieces before him in consonance with
his ability. So the game is endless and ruthless: and there is
merriment overhead, but it is very far away."
"Nobody is more willing to concede that these are handsome fancies,
Mother Sereda. But they make my head ache. Moreover, two people are
needed to play chess, and your hypothesis does not provide anybody
with an antagonist. Lastly, and above all, how do I know there is a
word of truth in your high-sounding fancies?"
"How can any of us know anything? And what is Jurgen, that his
knowing or his not knowing should matter to anybody?"
Jurgen slapped his hands together. "Hah, Mother Sereda!" says he,
"but now I have you. It is that, precisely that damnable question,
which your shadow has been whispering to me from the beginning of
our companionship. And I am through with you. I will have no more of
your gifts, which are purchased at the cost of hearing that whisper.
I am resolved henceforward to be as other persons, and to believe
implicitly in my own importance."
"But have you any reason to blame me? I restored to you your youth.
And when, just at the passing of that replevined Wednesday which I
loaned, you rebuked the Countess Dorothy very edifyingly, I was
pleased to find a man so chaste: and therefore I continued my grant
of youth--"
"Ah, yes!" said Jurgen: "then that was the way of it! You were
pleased, just in the nick of time, by my virtuous rebuke of the
woman who tempted me. Yes, to be sure. Well, well! come now, you
know, that is very gratifying."
"None the less your chastity, however unusual, has proved a barren
virtue. For what have you made of a year of youth? Why, each thing
that every man of forty-odd by ordinary regrets having done, you
have done again, only more swiftly, compressing the follies of a
quarter of a century into the space of one year. You have sought
bodily pleasures. You have made jests. You have asked many idle
questions. And you have doubted all things, including Jurgen. In the
face of your memories, in the face of what you probably considered
cordial repentance, you have made of your second youth just nothing.
Each thing that every man of forty-odd regrets having done, you have
done again."
"Yes: it is undeniable that I re-married," said Jurgen. "Indeed, now
I think of it, there was Anaïtis and Chloris and Florimel, so that I
have married thrice in one year. But I am largely the victim of
heredity, you must remember, since it was without consulting me that
Smoit of Glathion perpetuated his characteristics."
"Your marriages I do not criticize, for each was in accordance with
the custom of the country: the law is always respectable; and
matrimony is an honorable estate, and has a steadying influence, in
all climes. It is true my shadow reports several other affairs--"
"Oh, godmother, and what is this you are telling me!"
"There was a Yolande and a Guenevere"--the voice of Mother Sereda
appeared to read from a memorandum,--"and a Sylvia, who was your own
step-grandmother, and a Stella, who was a yogini, whatever that may
be; and a Phyllis and a Dolores, who were the queens of Hell and
Philistia severally. Moreover, you visited the Queen of Pseudopolis
in circumstances which could not but have been unfavorably viewed by
her husband. Oh, yes, you have committed follies with divers women."
"Follies, it may be, but no crimes, not even a misdemeanor. Look
you, Mother Sereda, does your shadow report in all this year one
single instance of misconduct with a woman?" says Jurgen, sternly.
"No, dearie, as I joyfully concede. The very worst reported is that
matters were sometimes assuming a more or less suspicious turn when
you happened to put out the light. And, of course, shadows cannot
exist in absolute darkness."
"See now," said Jurgen, "what a thing it is to be careful! Careful,
I mean, in one's avoidance of even an appearance of evil. In what
other young man of twenty-one may you look to find such continence?
And yet you grumble!"
"I do not complain because you have lived chastely. That pleases me,
and is the single reason you have been spared this long."
"Oh, godmother, and whatever are you telling me!"
"Yes, dearie, had you once sinned with a woman in the youth I gave,
you would have been punished instantly and very terribly. For I was
always a great believer in chastity, and in the old days I used to
insure the chastity of all my priests in the only way that is
infallible."
"In fact, I noticed something of the sort as you passed in Leukê."
"And over and over again I have been angered by my shadow's reports,
and was about to punish you, my poor dearie, when I would remember
that you held fast to the rarest of all virtues in a man, and that
my shadow reported no irregularities with women. And that would
please me, I acknowledge: so I would let matters run on a while
longer. But it is a shiftless business, dearie, for you are making
nothing of the youth I restored to you. And had you a thousand lives
the result would be the same."
"Nevertheless, I am a monstrous clever fellow." Jurgen chuckled
here.
"You are, instead, a palterer; and your life, apart from that fine
song you made about me, is sheer waste."
"Ah, if you come to that, there was a brown man in the Druid forest,
who showed me a very curious spectacle, last June. And I am not apt
to lose the memory of what he showed me, whatever you may say, and
whatever I may have said to him."
"This and a many other curious spectacles you have seen and have
made nothing of, in the false youth I gave you. And therefore my
shadow was angry that in the revelation of so much futile trifling I
did not take away the youth I gave--as I have half a mind to do,
even now, I warn you, dearie, for there is really no putting up with
you. But I spared you because of my shadow's grudging reports as to
your continence, which is a virtue that we of the Léshy peculiarly
revere."
Now Jurgen considered. "Eh?--then it is within your ability to make
me old again, or rather, an excellently preserved person of forty-odd,
or say, thirty-nine, by the calendar, but not looking it by a long
shot? Such threats are easily voiced. But how can I know that you are
speaking the truth?"
"How can any of us know anything? And what is Jurgen, that his
knowing or his not knowing should matter to anybody?"
"Ah, godmother, and must you still be mumbling that! Come now,
forget you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and
ancient privilege of kinship by calling me harsh names, but it is in
the face of this plain fact: I got from you what never man has got
before. I am a monstrous clever fellow, say what you will: for
already I have cajoled you out of a year of youth, a year wherein I
have neither builded nor robbed any churches, but have had upon the
whole a very pleasant time. Ah, you may murmur platitudes and
threats and axioms and anything else which happens to appeal to you:
the fact remains that I got what I wanted. Yes, I cajoled you very
neatly into giving me eternal youth. For, of course, poor dear, you
are now powerless to take it back: and so I shall retain, in spite
of you, the most desirable possession in life."
"I gave, in honor of your chastity, which is the one commendable
trait that you possess--"
"My chastity, I grant you, is remarkable. Nevertheless, you really
gave because I was the cleverer."
"--And what I give I can retract at will!"
"Come, come, you know very well you can do nothing of the sort. I
refer you to Sævius Nicanor. None of the Léshy can ever take back
the priceless gift of youth. That is explicitly proved, in the
Appendix."
"Now, but I am becoming angry--"
"To the contrary, as I perceive with real regret, you are becoming
ridiculous, since you dispute the authority of Sævius Nicanor."
"--And I will show you--oh, but I will show you, you jackanapes!"
"Ah, but come now! keep your temper in hand! All fairly erudite
persons know you cannot do the thing you threaten: and it is
notorious that the weakest wheel of every cart creaks loudest. So do
you cultivate a judicious taciturnity! for really nobody is going to
put up with petulance in an ugly and toothless woman of your age, as
I tell you for your own good."
It always vexes people to be told anything for their own good. So
what followed happened quickly. A fleece of cloud slipped over the
moon. The night seemed bitterly cold, for the space of a heart-beat,
and then matters were comfortable enough. The moon emerged in its
full glory, and there in front of Jurgen was the proper shadow of
Jurgen. He dazedly regarded his hands, and they were the hands of an
elderly person. He felt the calves of his legs, and they were
shrunken. He patted himself centrally, and underneath the shirt of
Nessus the paunch of Jurgen was of impressive dimension. In other
respects he had abated.
"Then, too, I have forgotten something very suddenly," reflected
Jurgen. "It was something I wanted to forget. Ah, yes! but what was
it that I wanted to forget? Why, there was a brown man--with
something unusual about his feet--He talked nonsense and behaved
idiotically in a Druid forest--He was probably insane. No, I do not
remember what it was that I have forgotten: but I am sure it has
gnawed away in the back of my mind, like a small ruinous maggot: and
that, after all, it was of no importance."
Aloud he wailed, in his most moving tones: "Oh, Mother Sereda, I did
not mean to anger you. It was not fair to snap me up on a
thoughtless word! Have mercy upon me, Mother Sereda, for I would
never have alluded to your being so old and plain-looking if I had
known you were so vain!"
But Mother Sereda did not appear to be softened by this form of
entreaty, for nothing happened.
"Well, then, thank goodness, that is over!" says Jurgen, to himself.
"Of course, she may be listening still, and it is dangerous jesting
with the Léshy: but really they do not seem to be very intelligent.
Otherwise this irritable maunderer would have known that, everything
else apart, I am heartily tired of the responsibilities of youth
under any such constant surveillance. Now all is changed: there is
no call to avoid a suspicion of wrong doing by transacting all
philosophical investigations in the dark: and I am no longer
distrustful of lamps or candles, or even of sunlight. Old body, you
are as grateful as old slippers, to a somewhat wearied man: and for
the second time I have tricked Mother Sereda rather neatly. My
knowledge of Lisa, however painfully acquired, is a decided
advantage in dealing with anything that is feminine."
Then Jurgen regarded the black cave. "And that reminds me it still
would be, I suppose, the manly thing to continue my quest for Lisa.
The intimidating part is that if I go into this cave for the third
time I shall almost certainly get her back. By every rule of
tradition the third attempt is invariably successful. I wonder if I
want Lisa back?"
Jurgen meditated: and he shook a grizzled head. "I do not definitely
know. She was an excellent cook. There were pies that I shall always
remember with affection. And she meant well, poor dear! But then if
it was really her head that I sliced off last May--or if her temper
is not any better--Still, it is an interminable nuisance washing
your own dishes: and I appear to have no aptitude whatever for
sewing and darning things. But, to the other hand, Lisa nags so: and
she does not understand me--"
Jurgen shrugged. "See-saw! the argument for and against might run on
indefinitely. Since I have no real preference, I will humor
prejudice by doing the manly thing. For it seems only fair: and
besides, it may fail after all."
Then he went into the cave for the third time.
44.