And for the third time Koshchei waved his hand. Now came to Jurgen a
gold-haired woman, clothed all in white. She was tall, and lovely
and tender to regard: and hers was not the red and white comeliness
of many ladies that were famed for beauty, but rather it had the
even glow of ivory. Her nose was large and high in the bridge, her
flexible mouth was not of the smallest; and yet, whatever other
persons might have said, to Jurgen this woman's countenance was in
all things perfect. And, beholding her, Jurgen kneeled.
He hid his face in her white robe: and he stayed thus, without
speaking, for a long while.
"Lady of my vision," he said, and his voice broke--"there is that in
you which wakes old memories. For now assuredly I believe your
father was not Dom Manuel but that ardent bird which nestled very
long ago in Leda's bosom. And now Troy's sons are all in Adês'
keeping, in the world below; fire has consumed the walls of Troy,
and the years have forgotten her tall conquerors; but still you are
bringing woe on woe to hapless sufferers."
And again his voice broke. For the world seemed cheerless, and like
a house that none has lived in for a great while.
Queen Helen, the delight of gods and men, replied nothing at all,
because there was no need, inasmuch as the man who has once glimpsed
her loveliness is beyond saving, and beyond the desire of being
saved.
"To-night," says Jurgen, "as once through the gray art of Phobetor,
now through the will of Koshchei, it appears that you stand within
arm's reach. Hah, lady, were that possible--and I know very well it
is not possible, whatever my senses may report,--I am not fit to
mate with your perfection. At the bottom of my heart, I no longer
desire perfection. For we who are tax-payers as well as immortal
souls must live by politic evasions and formulae and catchwords that
fret away our lives as moths waste a garment; we fall insensibly to
common-sense as to a drug; and it dulls and kills whatever in us is
rebellious and fine and unreasonable; and so you will find no man of
my years with whom living is not a mechanism which gnaws away time
unprompted. For within this hour I have become again a creature of
use and wont; I am the lackey of prudence and half-measures; and I
have put my dreams upon an allowance. Yet even now I love you more
than I love books and indolence and flattery and the charitable wine
which cheats me into a favorable opinion of myself. What more can an
old poet say? For that reason, lady, I pray you begone, because your
loveliness is a taunt which I find unendurable."
But his voice yearned, because this was Queen Helen, the delight of
gods and men, who regarded him with grave, kind eyes. She seemed to
view, as one appraises the pattern of an unrolled carpet, every
action of Jurgen's life: and she seemed, too, to wonder, without
reproach or trouble, how men could be so foolish, and of their own
accord become so miry.
"Oh, I have failed my vision!" cries Jurgen. "I have failed, and I
know very well that every man must fail: and yet my shame is no less
bitter. For I am transmuted by time's handling! I shudder at the
thought of living day-in and day-out with my vision! And so I will
have none of you for my wife."
Then, trembling, Jurgen raised toward his lips the hand of her who
was the world's darling.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Oh, very long ago I found your
beauty mirrored in a wanton's face! and often in a woman's face I
have found one or another feature wherein she resembled you, and for
the sake of it have lied to that woman glibly. And all my verses, as
I know now, were vain enchantments striving to evoke that hidden
loveliness of which I knew by dim report alone. Oh, all my life was
a foiled quest of you, Queen Helen, and an unsatiated hungering. And
for a while I served my vision, honoring you with clean-handed
deeds. Yes, certainly it should be graved upon my tomb, 'Queen Helen
ruled this earth while it stayed worthy.' But that was very long
ago.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Your beauty has been to me as
a robber that stripped my life of joy and sorrow, and I desire not
ever to dream of your beauty any more. For I have been able to love
nobody. And I know that it is you who have prevented this, Queen
Helen, at every moment of my life since the disastrous moment when I
first seemed to find your loveliness in the face of Madame Dorothy.
It is the memory of your beauty, as I then saw it mirrored in the face
of a jill-flirt, which has enfeebled me for such honest love as other
men give women; and I envy these other men. For Jurgen has loved
nothing--not even you, not even Jurgen!--quite whole-heartedly.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Hereafter I rove no more
a-questing anything; instead, I potter after hearthside comforts,
and play the physician with myself, and strive painstakingly to make
old bones. And no man's notion anywhere seems worth a cup of mulled
wine; and for the sake of no notion would I endanger the routine
which so hideously bores me. For I am transmuted by time's handling;
I have become the lackey of prudence and half-measures; and it does
not seem fair, but there is no help for it. So it is necessary that
I now cry farewell to you, Queen Helen: for I have failed in the
service of my vision, and I deny you utterly!"
Thus he cried farewell to the Swan's daughter: and Queen Helen
vanished as a bright mist passes, not departing swiftly, as had
departed Queen Guenevere and Queen Anaïtis; and Jurgen was alone
with the black gentleman. And to Jurgen the world seemed cheerless,
and like a house that none has lived in for a great while.
48.