"Phew!" said Koshchei, in the ensuing silence: "you had better stay
overnight, in any event. I really think, friend, you will be more
comfortable, just now at least, in this quiet cave."
But Jurgen had taken up his hat. "No, I dare say I, too, had better
be going," says Jurgen. "I thank you very heartily for your intended
kindness, sir, still I do not know but it is better as it is. And is
there anything"--Jurgen coughed delicately--"and is there anything
to pay, sir?"
"Oh, just a trifle, first of all, for a year's maintenance of Dame
Lisa. You see, Jurgen, that is an almighty fine shirt you are
wearing: it rather appeals to me; and I fancy, from something your
wife let drop just now, it did not impress her as being quite suited
to you. So, in the interest of domesticity, suppose you ransom Dame
Lisa with that fine shirt of yours?"
"Why, willingly," said Jurgen, and he took off the shirt of Nessus.
"You have worn this for some time, I understand," said Koshchei,
meditatively: "and did you ever notice any inconvenience in wearing
this garment?"
"Not that I could detect, Prince; it fitted me, and seemed to
impress everybody most favorably."
"There!" said Koshchei; "that is what I have always contended. To
the strong man, and to wholesome matter of fact people generally, it
is a fatal irritant; but persons like you can wear the shirt of
Nessus very comfortably for a long, long while, and be generally
admired; and you end by exchanging it for your wife's society. But
now, Jurgen, about yourself. You probably noticed that my door was
marked Keep Out. One must have rules, you know. Often it is a
nuisance, but still rules are rules; and so I must tell you, Jurgen,
it is not permitted any person to leave my presence unmaimed, if not
actually annihilated. One really must have rules, you know."
"You would chop off an arm? or a hand? or a whole finger? Come now,
Prince, you must be joking!"
Koshchei the Deathless was very grave as he sat there, in meditation,
drumming with his long jet-black fingers upon the table-top that was
curiously inlaid with thirty pieces of silver. In the lamplight his
sharp nails glittered like flame points, and the color suddenly
withdrew from his eyes, so that they showed like small white eggs.
"But, man, how strange you are!" said Koshchei, presently; and life
flowed back into his eyes, and Jurgen ventured the liberty of
breathing. "Inside, I mean. Why, there is hardly anything left. Now
rules are rules, of course; but you, who are the remnant of a poet,
may depart unhindered whenever you will, and I shall take nothing
from you. For really it is necessary to draw the line somewhere."
Jurgen meditated this clemency; and with a sick heart he seemed to
understand. "Yes; that is probably the truth; for I have not
retained the faith, nor the desire, nor the vision. Yes, that is
probably the truth. Well, at all events, Prince, I very unfeignedly
admired each of the ladies to whom you were friendly enough to
present me, and I was greatly flattered by their offers. More than
generous I thought them. But it really would not do for me to take
up with any one of them now. For Lisa is my wife, you see. A great
deal has passed between us, sir, in the last ten years--And I have
been a sore disappointment to her, in many ways--And I am used to
her--"
Then Jurgen considered, and regarded the black gentleman with
mingled envy and commiseration. "Why, no, you probably would not
understand, sir, on account of your not being, I suppose, a married
person. But I can assure you it is always pretty much like that."
"I lack grounds to dispute your aphorism," observed Koshchei,
"inasmuch as matrimony was certainly not included in my doom. None
the less, to a by-stander, the conduct of you both appears
remarkable. I could not understand, for example, just how your wife
proposed to have you keep out of her sight forever and still have
supper with her to-night; nor why she should desire to sup with such
a reprobate as she described with unbridled pungency and
disapproval."
"Ah, but again, it is always pretty much like that, sir. And the
truth of it, Prince, is a great symbol. The truth of it is, we have
lived together so long that my wife has become rather foolishly fond
of me. So she is not, as one might say, quite reasonable about me.
No, sir; it is the fashion of women to discard civility toward those
for whom they suffer most willingly; and whom a woman loveth she
chasteneth, after a good precedent."
"But her talking, Jurgen, has nowhere any precedent. Why, it deafens,
it appals, it submerges you in an uproarious sea of fault-finding; and
in a word, you might as profitably oppose a hurricane. Yet you want her
back! Now assuredly, Jurgen, I do not think very highly of your wisdom,
but by your bravery I am astounded."
"Ah, Prince, it is because I can perceive that all women are poets,
though the medium they work in is not always ink. So the moment Lisa
is set free from what, in a manner of speaking, sir, inconsiderate
persons might, in their unthinking way, refer to as the terrors of
an underground establishment that I do not for an instant doubt to
be conducted after a system which furthers the true interests of
everybody, and so reflects vast credit upon its officials, if you
will pardon my frankness"--and Jurgen smiled ingratiatingly,--"why,
at that moment Lisa's thoughts take form in very much the high
denunciatory style of Jeremiah and Amos, who were remarkably fine
poets. Her concluding observations as to the Countess, in
particular, I consider to have been an example of sustained
invective such as one rarely encounters in this degenerate age.
Well, her next essay in creative composition is my supper, which
will be an equally spirited impromptu. To-morrow she will darn and
sew me an epic; and her desserts will continue to be in the richest
lyric vein. Such, sir, are the poems of Lisa, all addressed to me,
who came so near to gallivanting with mere queens!"
"What, can it be that you are remorseful?" said Koshchei.
"Oh, Prince, when I consider steadfastly the depth and the intensity
of that devotion which, for so many years, has tended me, and has
endured the society of that person whom I peculiarly know to be the
most tedious and irritating of companions, I stand aghast, before a
miracle. And I cry, Oh, certainly a goddess! and I can think of no
queen who is fairly mentionable in the same breath. Hah, all we
poets write a deal about love: but none of us may grasp the word's
full meaning until he reflects that this is a passion mighty enough
to induce a woman to put up with him."
"Even so, it does not seem to induce quite thorough confidence.
Jurgen, I was grieved to see that Dame Lisa evidently suspects you
of running after some other woman in your wife's absence."
"Think upon that now! And you saw for yourself how little the
handsomest of women could tempt me. Yet even Lisa's absurd notion I
can comprehend and pardon. And again, you probably would not
understand my overlooking such a thing, sir, on account of your not
being a married person. Nevertheless, my forgiveness also is a great
symbol."
Then Jurgen sighed and he shook hands, very circumspectly, with
Koshchei, who made things as they are; and Jurgen started out of the
office.
"But I will bear you company a part of the way," says Koshchei.
So Koshchei removed his dressing-gown, and he put on the fine laced
coat which was hung over the back of a strange looking chair with
three legs, each of a different metal; the shirt of Nessus Koshchei
folded and put aside, saying that some day he might be able to use
it somehow. And Koshchei paused before the blackboard and he
scratched his head reflectively. Jurgen saw that this board was
nearly covered with figures which had not yet been added up; and
this blackboard seemed to him the most frightful thing he had faced
anywhere.
Then Koshchei came out of the cave with Jurgen, and Koshchei walked
with Jurgen across Amneran Heath, and through Morven, in the late
evening. And Koshchei talked as they went; and a queer thing Jurgen
noticed, and it was that the moon was sinking in the east, as though
the time were getting earlier and earlier. But Jurgen did not
presume to criticize this, in the presence of Koshchei, who made
things as they are.
"And I manage affairs as best I can, Jurgen. But they get in a
fearful muddle sometimes. Eh, sirs, I have no competent assistants.
I have to look out for everything, absolutely everything! And of
course, while in a sort of way I am infallible, mistakes will occur
every now and then in the actual working out of plans that in the
abstract are right enough. So it really does please me to hear
anybody putting in a kind word for things as they are, because,
between ourselves, there is a deal of dissatisfaction about. And I
was honestly delighted, just now, to hear you speaking up for evil
in the face of that rapscallion monk. So I give you thanks and many
thanks, Jurgen, for your kind word."
"'Just now!'" thinks Jurgen. He perceived that they had passed the
Cistercian Abbey, and were approaching Bellegarde. And it was as in
a dream that Jurgen was speaking, _"Who are you, and why do you
thank me?"_ asks Jurgen.
_"My name is no great matter. But you have a kind heart, Jurgen.
May your life lie free from care."_
_"Save us from hurt and harm, friend, but I am already married_--"
Then resolutely Jurgen put aside the spell that was befogging him.
"See here, Prince, are you beginning all over again? For I really
cannot stand any more of your benevolences."
Koshchei smiled. "No, Jurgen, I am not beginning all over again. For
now I have never begun, and now there is no word of truth in
anything which you remember of the year just past. Now none of these
things has ever happened."
"But how can that be, Prince?"
"Why should I tell you, Jurgen? Let it suffice that what I will, not
only happens, but has already happened, beyond the ancientest memory
of man and his mother. How otherwise could I be Koshchei? And so
farewell to you, poor Jurgen, to whom nothing in particular has
happened now. It is not justice I am giving you, but something
infinitely more acceptable to you and all your kind."
"But, to be sure!" says Jurgen. "I fancy that nobody anywhere cares
much for justice. So farewell to you, Prince. And at our parting I
ask no more questions of you, for I perceive it is scant comfort a
man gets from questioning Koshchei, who made things as they are. But
I am wondering what pleasure you get out of it all?"
"Eh, sirs," says Koshchei, with not the most candid of smiles, "I
contemplate the spectacle with appropriate emotions."
And so speaking, Koshchei quitted Jurgen forever.
"Yet how may I be sure," thought Jurgen, instantly, "that this black
gentleman was really Koshchei? He said he was? Why, yes; and
Horvendile to all intents told me that Horvendile was Koshchei. Aha,
and what else did Horvendile say!--'This is one of the romancer's
most venerable devices that is being practised.' Why, but there was
Smoit of Glathion, also, so that this is the third time I have been
fobbed off with the explanation I was dreaming! and left with no
proof, one way or the other."
Thus Jurgen, indignantly, and then he laughed. "Why, but, of course!
I may have talked face to face with Koshchei, who made all things as
they are; and again, I may not have. That is the whole point of
it--the cream, as one might say, of the jest--that I cannot ever be
sure. Well!"--and Jurgen shrugged here--"well, and what could I be
expected to do about it?"
50.