Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice Part 21

Shortcomings of Prince Jurgen

Now the happenings just recorded befell on the eve of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist: and thereafter Jurgen abode in Cocaigne, and complied with the customs of that country.

In the palace of Queen Anatis, all manner of pastimes were practised without any cessation. Jurgen, who considered himself to be somewhat of an authority upon such contrivances, was soon astounded by his own innocence. For Anatis showed him whatever was being done in Cocaigne, to this side and to that side, under the direction of Anatis, whom Jurgen found to be a nature myth of doubtful origin connected with the Moon; and who, in consequence, ruled not merely in Cocaigne but furtively swayed the tides of life everywhere the Moon keeps any power over tides. It was the mission of Anatis to divert and turn aside and deflect: in this the jealous Moon abetted her because sunlight makes for straightforwardness. So Anatis and the Moon were staunch allies. These mysteries of their private relations, however, as revealed to Jurgen, are not very nicely repeatable.

"But you dishonored the Moon, Prince Jurgen, denying praise to the day of the Moon. Or so, at least, I have heard."

"I remember doing nothing of the sort. But I remember considering it unjust to devote one paltry day to the Moon's majesty. For night is sacred to the Moon, each night that ever was the friend of lovers,--night, the renewer and begetter of all life."

"Why, indeed, there is something in that argument," says Anatis, dubiously.

"'Something', do you say! why, but to my way of thinking it proves the Moon is precisely seven times more honorable than any of the Leshy. It is merely, my dear, a question of arithmetic."

"Was it for that reason you did not praise Pandelis and her Mondays with the other Leshy?"

"Why, to be sure," said Jurgen, glibly. "I did not find it at all praiseworthy that such an insignificant Leshy as Pandelis should name her day after the Moon: to me it seemed blasphemy." Then Jurgen coughed, and looked sidewise at his shadow. "Had it been Sereda, now, the case would have been different, and the Moon might well have appreciated the delicate compliment."

Anatis appeared relieved. "I shall report your explanation.

Candidly, there were ill things in store for you, Prince Jurgen, because your language was misunderstood. But that which you now say puts quite a different complexion upon matters."

Jurgen laughed, not understanding the mystery, but confident he could always say whatever was required of him.

"Now let us see a little more of Cocaigne!" cries Jurgen.

For Jurgen was greatly interested by the pursuits of Cocaigne, and for a week or ten days partic.i.p.ated therein industriously. Anatis, who reported the Moon's honor to be satisfied, now spared no effort to divert him, and they investigated innumerable pastimes together.

"For all men that live have but a little while to live," said Anatis, "and none knows his fate thereafter. So that a man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan of his body: and yet the body of man is capable of much curious pleasure. As thus and thus," says Anatis. And she revealed devices to her Prince Consort.

For Jurgen found that unknowingly he had in due and proper form espoused Queen Anatis, by partic.i.p.ating in the Breaking of the Veil, which is the marriage ceremony of Cocaigne. His earlier relations with Dame Lisa had, of course, no legal standing in Cocaigne, where the Church is not Christian and the Law is, Do that which seems good to you.

"Well, when in Rome," said Jurgen, "one must be romantic. But certainly this proves that n.o.body ever knows when he is being entrapped into respectability: and never did a fine young fellow marry a high queen with less premeditation."

"Ah, my dear," says Anatis, "you were controlled by the finger of Fate."

"I do not altogether like that figure of speech. It makes one seem too trivial, to be controlled by a mere finger. No, it is not quite complimentary to call what prompted me a finger."

"By the long arm of coincidence, then."

"Much more appropriate, my love," says Jurgen, complacently: "it sounds more dignified, and does not wound my self esteem."

Now this Anatis who was Queen of Cocaigne was a delicious tall dark woman, thinnish, and lovely, and very restless. From the first her new Prince Consort was puzzled by her fervors, and presently was fretted by them. He humbly failed to understand how anyone could be so frantic over Jurgen. It seemed unreasonable. And in her more affectionate moments this nature myth positively frightened him: for transports such as these could not but rouse discomfortable reminiscences of the female spider, who ends such recreations by devouring her partner.

"Thus to be loved is very flattering," he would reflect, "and I again am Jurgen, asking odds of none. But even so, I am mortal. She ought to remember that, in common fairness."

Then the jealousy of Anatis, while equally flattering, was equally out of reason. She suspected everybody, seemed a.s.sured that every bosom cherished a mad pa.s.sion for Jurgen, and that not for a moment could he be trusted. Well, as Jurgen frankly conceded, his conduct toward Stella, that ill-starred yogini of Indawadi, had in point of fact displayed, when viewed from an especial and quite unconscionable point of view, an aspect which, when isolated by persons judging hastily, might, just possibly, appear to approach remotely, in one or two respects, to temporary forgetfulness of Anatis, if indeed there were people anywhere so mentally deficient as to find such forgetfulness conceivable.

But the main thing, the really important feature, which Anatis could not be made to understand, was that she had interrupted her consort in what was, in effect, a philosophical experiment, necessarily attempted in the dark. The muntrus requisite to the sacti sodhana were always performed in darkness: everybody knew that. For the rest, this Stella had a.s.serted so-and-so; in simple equity she was ent.i.tled to a chance to prove her allegations if she could: so Jurgen had proceeded to deal fairly with her. Besides, why keep talking about this Stella, after a vengeance so spectacular and thorough as that to which Anatis had out of hand resorted? why keep reverting to a topic which was repugnant to Jurgen and visibly upset the dearest nature myth in all legend? Was it quite fair to anyone concerned? That was the sensible way in which Jurgen put it.

Still, he became honestly fond of Anatis. Barring her eccentricities when roused to pa.s.sion, she was a generous and kindly creature, although in Jurgen's opinion somewhat narrow-minded.

"My love," he would say to her, "you appear positively unable to keep away from virtuous persons! You are always seeking out the people who endeavor to be upright and straightforward, and you are perpetually laying plans to divert these people. Ah, but why bother about them? What need have you to wear yourself out, and to devote your entire time to such proselitizing, when you might be so much more agreeably employed? You should learn, in justice to yourself as well as to others, to be tolerant of all things; and to acknowledge that in a being of man's mingled nature a strain of respectability is apt to develop every now and then, whatever you might prefer."

But Anatis had high notions as to her mission, and merely told him that he ought not to speak with levity of such matters. "I would be much happier staying at home with you and the children," she would say, "but I feel that it is my duty--"

"And your duty to whom, in heaven's name?"

"Please do not employ such distasteful expressions, Jurgen. It is my duty to the power I serve, my very manifest duty to my creator. But you have no sense of religion, I am afraid; and the reflection is often a considerable grief to me."

"Ah, but, my dear, you are quite certain as to who made you, and for what purpose you were made. You nature myths were created in the Mythopoeic age by the perversity of old heathen nations: and you serve your creator religiously. That is quite as it should be. But I have no such authentic information as to my origin and mission in life, I appear at all events to have no natural talent for being diverted, I do not take to it wholeheartedly, and these are facts we have to face." Now Jurgen put his arm around her. "My dear Anatis, you must not think it mere selfishness on my part. I was born with a something lacking that is requisite for anyone who aspires to be as thoroughly misled as most people: and you will have to love me in spite of it."

"I almost wish I had never seen you as I saw you in that corridor, Jurgen. For I felt drawn toward you then and there. I almost wish I had never seen you at all. I cannot help being fond of you: and yet you laugh at the things I know to be required of me, and sometimes you make me laugh, too."

"But, darling, are you not just the least, littlest, tiniest, very weest trifle bigoted? For instance, I can see that you think I ought to evince more interest in your striking dances, and your strange pleasures, and your surprising caresses, and all your other elaborate diversions. And I do think they do you credit, great credit, and I admire your inventiveness no less than your industry--"

"You have no sense of reverence, Jurgen, you seem to have no sense at all of what is due to one's creator. I suppose you cannot help that: but you might at least remember it troubles me to hear you talk so flippantly of my religion."

"But I do not talk flippantly--"

"Indeed you do, though. And it does not sound at all well, let me tell you."

"--Instead, I but point out that your creed necessitates, upon the whole, an ardor I lack. You, my pet, were created by perversity: and everyone knows it is the part of piety to wors.h.i.+p one's creator in fas.h.i.+ons acceptable to that creator. So, I do not criticize your religious connections, dear, and n.o.body admires these ceremonials of your faith more heartily than I do. I merely confess that to celebrate these rites so frequently requires a sustention of enthusiasm which is beyond me. In fine, I have not your fervent temperament, I am more sceptical. You may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say you are wrong: but still, at the same time--! That is how I feel about it, my precious, and that is why I find, with constant repet.i.tion of these ceremonials, a certain lack of firmness developing in my responses: and finally, darling, that is all there is to it."

"I never in my whole incarnation had such a Prince Consort!

Sometimes I think you do not care a bit about me one way or the other, Jurgen."

"Ah, but I do care for you very much. And to prove it, come now let us try some brand-new diversion, at sight of which the skies will be blackened and the earth will shudder or something of that sort, and then I will take the children fis.h.i.+ng, as I promised."

"No, Jurgen, I do not feel like diverting you just now. You take all the solemnity out of it with your jeering. Besides, you are always with the children. Jurgen, I believe you are fonder of the children than you are of me. And when you are not with them you are locked up in the Library."

"Well, and was there ever such a treasury as the Library of Cocaigne? All the diversions that you nature myths have practised I find recorded there: and to read of your ingenious devices delights and maddens me. For it is eminently interesting to meditate upon strange pleasures, and to make verses about them is the most amiable of avocations: it is merely the pursuit of them that I would discourage, as disappointing and mussy. Besides, the Library is the only spot I have to myself in the palace, what with your fellow nature myths making the most of life all over the place."

"It is necessary, Jurgen, for one in my position to entertain more or less. And certainly I cannot close the doors against my own relatives."

"Such riffraff, though, my darling! Such odds and ends! I cannot congratulate you upon your kindred, for I do not get on at all with these patchwork combinations, that are one-third man and the other two-thirds a vulgar fraction of bull or hawk or goat or serpent or ape or jackal or what not. Priapos is the only male myth who comes here in anything like the semblance of a complete human being: and I had infinitely rather he stayed away, because even I who am Jurgen cannot but be envious of him."

"And why, pray?"

"Well, where I go reasonably equipped with Caliburn, Priapos carries a lance I envy--"

"Like all the Bacchic myths he usually carries a thyrsos, and it is a showy weapon, certainly; but it is not of much use in actual conflict."

"My darling! and how do you know?"

"Why, Jurgen, how do women always know these things?--by intuition, I suppose."

"You mean that you judge all affairs by feeling rather than reason?

Indeed, I dare say that is true of most women, and men are daily chafed and delighted, about equally, by your illogical method of putting things together. But to get back to the congenial task of criticizing your kindred, your cousin Apis, for example, may be a very good sort of fellow: but, say what you will, it is ill-advised of him to be going about in public with a bull's head. It makes him needlessly conspicuous, if not actually ridiculous: and it puts me out when I try to talk to him."