And that is really all the story save for the moment Jurgen paused
on his way home. For Koshchei (if it, indeed, was Koshchei) had
quitted Jurgen just as they approached Bellegarde: and as the
pawnbroker walked on alone in the pleasant April evening one called
to him from the terrace. Even in the dusk he knew this was the
Countess Dorothy.
"May I speak with you a moment?" says she.
"Very willingly, madame." And Jurgen ascended from the highway to
the terrace.
"I thought it would be near your supper hour. So I was waiting here
until you passed. You conceive, it is not quite convenient for me to
seek you out at the shop."
"Why, no, madame. There is a prejudice," said Jurgen, soberly. And
he waited.
He saw that Madame Dorothy was perfectly composed, yet anxious to
speed the affair. "You must know," said she, "that my husband's
birthday approaches, and I wish to surprise him with a gift. It is
therefore necessary that I raise some money without troubling him.
How much--abominable usurer!--could you advance me upon this
necklace?"
Jurgen turned it in his hand. It was a handsome piece of jewelry,
familiar to him as formerly the property of Heitman Michael's
mother. Jurgen named a sum.
"But that," the Countess says, "is not a fraction of its worth!"
"Times are very hard, madame. Of course, if you cared to sell
outright I could deal more generously."
"Old monster, I could not do that. It would not be convenient." She
hesitated here. "It would not be explicable."
"As to that, madame, I could make you an imitation in paste which
nobody could distinguish from the original, I can amply understand
that you desire to veil from your husband any sacrifices that are
entailed by your affection."
"It is my affection for him," said the Countess quickly.
"I alluded to your affection for him," said Jurgen--"naturally."
Then Countess Dorothy named a price for the necklace. "For it is
necessary I have that much, and not a penny less." And Jurgen shook
his head dubiously, and vowed that ladies were unconscionable
bargainers: but Jurgen agreed to what she asked, because the
necklace was worth almost as much again. Then Jurgen suggested that
the business could be most conveniently concluded through an
emissary.
"If Messire de Nérac, for example, could have matters explained to
him, and could manage to visit me tomorrow, I am sure we could carry
through this amiable imposture without any annoyance whatever to
Heitman Michael," says Jurgen, smoothly.
"Nérac will come then," says the Countess. "And you may give him the
money, precisely as though it were for him."
"But certainly, madame. A very estimable young nobleman, that! and
it is a pity his debts are so large. I heard that he had lost
heavily at dice within the last month; and I grieved, madame."
"He has promised me when these debts are settled to play no
more--But again what am I saying! I mean, Master Inquisitive, that I
take considerable interest in the welfare of Messire de Nérac: and
so I have sometimes chided him on his wild courses. And that is all
I mean."
"Precisely, madame. And so Messire de Nérac will come to me to-morrow
for the money: and there is no more to say."
Jurgen paused. The moon was risen now. These two sat together upon a
bench of carved stone near the balustrade: and before them, upon the
other side of the highway, were luminous valleys and tree-tops.
Fleetingly Jurgen recollected the boy and girl who had once sat in
this place, and had talked of all the splendid things which Jurgen
was to do, and of the happy life that was to be theirs together.
Then he regarded the composed and handsome woman beside him, and he
considered that the money to pay her latest lover's debts had been
assured with a suitable respect for appearances.
"Come, but this is a gallant lady, who would defy the almanac,"
reflected Jurgen. "Even so, thirty-eight is an undeniable and
somewhat autumnal figure, and I suspect young Nérac is bleeding
his elderly mistress. Well, but at his age nobody has a conscience.
Yes, and Madame Dorothy is handsome still; and still my pulse is
playing me queer tricks, because she is near me, and my voice has
not the intonation I intend, because she is near me; and still I am
three-quarters in love with her. Yes, in the light of such cursed
folly as even now possesses me, I have good reason to give thanks
for the regained infirmities of age. Yet living seems to me a
wasteful and inequitable process, for this is a poor outcome for
the boy and girl that I remember. And weighing this outcome, I am
tempted to weep and to talk romantically, even now."
But he did not. For really, weeping was not requisite. Jurgen was
making his fair profit out of the Countess's folly, and it was
merely his duty to see that this little business transaction was
managed without any scandal.
"So there is nothing more to say," observed Jurgen, as he rose in
the moonlight, "save that I shall always be delighted to serve you,
madame, and I may reasonably boast that I have earned a reputation
for fair dealing."
And he thought: "In effect, since certainly as she grows older she
will need yet more money for her lovers, I am offering to pimp for
her." Then Jurgen shrugged. "That is one side of the affair. The
other is that I transact my legitimate business,--I, who am that
which the years have made of me."
Thus it was that Jurgen quitted the Countess Dorothy, whom, as you
have heard, this pawnbroker had loved in his first youth under the
name of Heart's Desire; and whom in the youth that was loaned him by
Mother Sereda he had loved as Queen Helen, the delight of gods and
men. For Jurgen was quitting Madame Dorothy after the simplest of
business transactions, which consumed only a moment, and did not
actually count one way or the other.
And after this moment which did not count, the pawnbroker resumed
his journey, and so came presently to his home. He peeped through
the window. And there in a snug room, with supper laid, sat Dame
Lisa about some sewing, and evidently in a quite amiable frame of
mind.
Then terror smote the Jurgen who had faced sorcerers and gods and
devils intrepidly. "For I forgot about the butter!"
But immediately afterward he recollected that, now, not even what
Lisa had said to him in the cave was real. Neither he nor Lisa, now,
had ever been in the cave, and probably there was no longer any such
place, and now there never had been any such place. It was rather
confusing.
"Ah, but I must remember carefully," said Jurgen, "that I have not
seen Lisa since breakfast, this morning. Nothing whatever has
happened. There has been no requirement laid upon me, after all, to
do the manly thing. So I retain my wife, such as she is, poor dear!
I retain my home. I retain my shop and a fair line of business. Yes,
Koshchei--if it was really Koshchei--has dealt with me very justly.
And probably his methods are everything they should be; certainly I
cannot go so far as to say that they are wrong: but still, at the
same time--!"
Then Jurgen sighed, and entered his snug home. Thus it was in the
old days.