Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  4.

  The Dorothy Who Did Not Understand

  For now had come to Jurgen and the Centaur a gold-haired woman,clothed all in white, and walking alone. She was tall, and lovelyand tender to regard: and hers was not the red and white comelinessof many ladies that were famed for beauty, but rather it had theeven glow of ivory. Her nose was large and high in the bridge, herflexible mouth was not of the smallest: and yet whatever otherpersons might have said, to Jurgen this woman's countenance was inall things perfect. Perhaps this was because he never saw her as shewas. For certainly the color of her eyes stayed a matter neverrevealed to him: gray, blue or green, there was no saying: theyvaried as does the sea; but always these eyes were lovely andfriendly and perturbing.

  Jurgen remembered that: for Jurgen saw this was Count Emmerick'ssecond sister, Dorothy la Desiree, whom Jurgen very long ago (a manyyears before he met Dame Lisa and set up in business as apawnbroker) had hymned in innumerable verses as Heart's Desire.

  "And this is the only woman whom I ever loved," Jurgen remembered,upon a sudden. For people cannot always be thinking of thesematters.

  So he saluted her, with such deference as is due to a countess froma tradesman, and yet with unforgotten tremors waking in his staidbody. But the strangest was yet to be seen, for he noted now thatthis was not a handsome woman in middle life but a young girl.

  "I do not understand," he said, aloud: "for you are Dorothy. And yetit seems to me that you are not the Countess Dorothy who is HeitmanMichael's wife."

  And the girl tossed her fair head, with that careless lovely gesturewhich the Countess had forgotten. "Heitman Michael is well enough,for a nobleman, and my brother is at me day and night to marry theman: and certainly Heitman Michael's wife will go in satin anddiamonds at half the courts of Christendom, with many lackeys toattend her. But I am not to be thus purchased."

  "So you told a boy that I remember, very long ago. Yet you marriedHeitman Michael, for all that, and in the teeth of a number of otherfine declarations."

  "Oh, no, not I," said this Dorothy, wondering. "I never marriedanybody. And Heitman Michael has never married anybody, either, oldas he is. For he is twenty-eight, and looks every day of it! But whoare you, friend, that have such curious notions about me?"

  "That question I will answer, just as though it were put reasonably.For surely you perceive I am Jurgen."

  "I never knew but one Jurgen. And he is a young man, barely come ofage--" Then as she paused in speech, whatever was the matter uponwhich this girl now meditated, her cheeks were tenderly colored bythe thought of it, and in her knowledge of this thing her eyes tookinfinite joy.

  And Jurgen understood. He had come back somehow to the Dorothy whomhe had loved: but departed, and past overtaking by the fleet hoofsof centaurs, was the boy who had once loved this Dorothy, and whohad rhymed of her as his Heart's Desire: and in the garden there wasof this boy no trace. Instead, the girl was talking to a staid andpaunchy pawnbroker, of forty-and-something.

  So Jurgen shrugged, and looked toward the Centaur: but Nessus haddiscreetly wandered away from them, in search of four-leafedclovers. Now the east had grown brighter, and its crimson began tobe colored with gold.

  "Yes, I have heard of this other Jurgen," says the pawnbroker. "Oh,Madame Dorothy, but it was he that loved you!"

  "No more than I loved him. Through a whole summer have I lovedJurgen."

  And the knowledge that this girl spoke a wondrous truth was now toJurgen a joy that was keen as pain. And he stood motionless for awhile, scowling and biting his lips.

  "I wonder how long the poor devil loved you! He also loved for awhole summer, it may be. And yet again, it may be that he loved youall his life. For twenty years and for more than twenty years I havedebated the matter: and I am as well informed as when I started."

  "But, friend, you talk in riddles."

  "Is not that customary when age talks with youth? For I am an oldfellow, in my forties: and you, as I know now, are neareighteen,--or rather, four months short of being eighteen, for it isAugust. Nay, more, it is the August of a year I had not looked everto see again; and again Dom Manuel reigns over us, that man of ironwhom I saw die so horribly. All this seems very improbable."

  Then Jurgen meditated for a while. He shrugged.

  "Well, and what could anybody expect me to do about it? Somehow ithas befallen that I, who am but the shadow of what I was, now walkamong shadows, and we converse with the thin intonations of deadpersons. For, Madame Dorothy, you who are not yet eighteen, in thissame garden there was once a boy who loved a girl, with such love asit puzzles me to think of now. I believe that she loved him. Yes,certainly it is a cordial to the tired and battered heart whichnowadays pumps blood for me, to think that for a little while, for awhole summer, these two were as brave and comely and clean a pair ofsweethearts as the world has known."

  Thus Jurgen spoke. But his thought was that this was a girl whoseequal for loveliness and delight was not to be found between twooceans. Long and long ago that doubtfulness of himself which wascloser to him than his skin had fretted Jurgen into believing theDorothy he had loved was but a piece of his imaginings. Butcertainly this girl was real. And sweet she was, and innocent shewas, and light of heart and feet, beyond the reach of any man'sinventiveness. No, Jurgen had not invented her; and it strangelycontented him to know as much.

  "Tell me your story, sir," says she, "for I love all romances."

  "Ah, my dear child, but I cannot tell you very well of just whathappened. As I look back, there is a blinding glory of green woodsand lawns and moonlit nights and dance music and unreasonablelaughter. I remember her hair and eyes, and the curving and the feelof her red mouth, and once when I was bolder than ordinary--But thatis hardly worth raking up at this late day. Well, I see these thingsin memory as plainly as I now seem to see your face: but I canrecollect hardly anything she said. Perhaps, now I think of it, shewas not very intelligent, and said nothing worth remembering. Butthe boy loved her, and was happy, because her lips and heart werehis, and he, as the saying is, had plucked a diamond from theworld's ring. True, she was a count's daughter and the sister of acount: but in those days the boy quite firmly intended to become aduke or an emperor or something of that sort, so the transientdiscrepancy did not worry them."

  "I know. Why, Jurgen is going to be a duke, too," says she, veryproudly, "though he did think, a great while ago, before he knew me,of being a cardinal, on account of the robes. But cardinals are notallowed to marry, you see--And I am forgetting your story, too! Whathappened then?"

  "They parted in September--with what vows it hardly matters now--andthe boy went into Gatinais, to win his spurs under the old Vidame deSoyecourt. And presently--oh, a good while before Christmas!--camethe news that Dorothy la Desiree had married rich Heitman Michael."

  "But that is what I am called! And as you know, there is a HeitmanMichael who is always plaguing me. Is that not strange! for you tellme all this happened a great while ago."

  "Indeed, the story is very old, and old it was when Methuselah wasteething. There is no older and more common story anywhere. As thesequel, it would be heroic to tell you this boy's life was ruined.But I do not think it was. Instead, he had learned all of a suddenthat which at twenty-one is heady knowledge. That was the hour whichtaught him sorrow and rage, and sneering, too, for a redemption. Oh,it was armor that hour brought him, and a humor to use it, becauseno woman now could hurt him very seriously. No, never any more!"

  "Ah, the poor boy!" she said, divinely tender, and smiling as agoddess smiles, not quite in mirth.

  "Well, women, as he knew by experience now, were the pleasantest ofplayfellows. So he began to play. Rampaging through the world hewent in the pride of his youth and in the armor of his hurt. Andsongs he made for the pleasure of kings, and sword-play he made forthe pleasure of men, and a whispering he made for the pleasure ofwomen, in places where renown was, and where he trod boldly, givingpleasure to everybody, in those fine days. But the whispering, and
all that followed the whispering, was his best game, and the game heplayed for the longest while, with many brightly colored playmateswho took the game more seriously than he did. And their faith in thegame's importance, and in him and his high-sounding nonsense, hevery often found amusing: and in their other chattels too he tookhis natural pleasure. Then, when he had played sufficiently, he helda consultation with divers waning appetites; and he married thehandsome daughter of an estimable pawnbroker in a fair line ofbusiness. And he lived with his wife very much as two peoplecustomarily live together. So, all in all, I would not say his lifewas ruined."

  "Why, then, it was," said Dorothy. She stirred uneasily, with animpatient sigh; and you saw that she was vaguely puzzled. "Oh, butsomehow I think you are a very horrible old man: and you seem doublyhorrible in that glittering queer garment you are wearing."

  "No woman ever praised a woman's handiwork, and each of you isparticularly severe upon her own. But you are interrupting thesaga."

  "I do not see"--and those large bright eyes of which the color wasso indeterminable and so dear to Jurgen, seemed even largernow--"but I do not see how there could well be any more."

  "Still, human hearts survive the benediction of the priest, as you mayperceive any day. This man, at least, inherited his father-in-law'sbusiness, and found it, quite as he had anticipated, the fittest ofvocations for a cashiered poet. And so, I suppose, he was content. Ah,yes; but after a while Heitman Michael returned from foreign parts,along with his lackeys, and plate, and chest upon chest of merchandise,and his fine horses, and his wife. And he who had been her lover couldsee her now, after so many years, whenever he liked. She was a handsomestranger. That was all. She was rather stupid. She was nothingremarkable, one way or another. This respectable pawnbroker saw thatquite plainly: day by day he writhed under the knowledge. Because, asI must tell you, he could not retain composure in her presence, evennow. No, he was never able to do that."

  The girl somewhat condensed her brows over this information. "Youmean that he still loved her. Why, but of course!"

  "My child," says Jurgen, now with a reproving forefinger, "you arean incurable romanticist. The man disliked her and despised her. Atany event, he assured himself that he did. Well, even so, thishandsome stupid stranger held his eyes, and muddled his thoughts,and put errors into his accounts: and when he touched her hand hedid not sleep that night as he was used to sleep. Thus he saw her,day after day. And they whispered that this handsome and stupidstranger had a liking for young men who aided her artfully todeceive her husband: but she never showed any such favor to therespectable pawnbroker. For youth had gone out of him, and it seemedthat nothing in particular happened. Well, that was his saga. Abouther I do not know. And I shall never know! But certainly she got thename of deceiving Heitman Michael with two young men, or with fiveyoung men it might be, but never with a respectable pawnbroker."

  "I think that is an exceedingly cynical and stupid story," observedthe girl. "And so I shall be off to look for Jurgen. For he makeslove very amusingly," says Dorothy, with the sweetest, loveliestmeditative smile that ever was lost to heaven.

  And a madness came upon Jurgen, there in the garden between dawn andsunrise, and a disbelief in such injustice as now seemed incredible.

  "No, Heart's Desire," he cried, "I will not let you go. For you aredear and pure and faithful, and all my evil dream, wherein you werea wanton and be-fooled me, was not true. Surely, mine was a dreamthat can never be true so long as there is any justice upon earth.Why, there is no imaginable God who would permit a boy to be robbedof that which in my evil dream was taken from me!"

  "And still I cannot understand your talking, about this dream ofyours--!"

  "Why, it seemed to me I had lost the most of myself; and there wasleft only a brain which played with ideas, and a body that wentdelicately down pleasant ways. And I could not believe as my fellowsbelieved, nor could I love them, nor could I detect anything inaught they said or did save their exceeding folly: for I had losttheir cordial common faith in the importance of what use they madeof half-hours and months and years; and because a jill-flirt hadopened my eyes so that they saw too much, I had lost faith in theimportance of my own actions, too. There was a little time of whichthe passing might be made endurable; beyond gaped unpredictabledarkness: and that was all there was of certainty anywhere. Now tellme, Heart's Desire, but was not that a foolish dream? For thesethings never happened. Why, it would not be fair if these thingsever happened!"

  And the girl's eyes were wide and puzzled and a little frightened."I do not understand what you are saying: and there is that aboutyou which troubles me unspeakably. For you call me by the name whichnone but Jurgen used, and it seems to me that you are Jurgen; andyet you are not Jurgen."

  "But I am truly Jurgen. And look you, I have done what never any manhas done before! For I have won back to that first love whom everyman must lose, no matter whom he marries. I have come back again,passing very swiftly over the grave of a dream and through themalice of time, to my Heart's Desire! And how strange it seems thatI did not know this thing was inevitable!"

  "Still, friend, I do not understand you."

  "Why, but I yawned and fretted in preparation for some great andbeautiful adventure which was to befall me by and by, and dazedly Itoiled forward. Whereas behind me all the while was the gardenbetween dawn and sunrise, and therein you awaited me! Now assuredly,the life of every man is a quaintly builded tale, in which the rightand proper ending comes first. Thereafter time runs forward, not asschoolmen fable in a straight line, but in a vast closed curve,returning to the place of its starting. And it is by a dimforeknowledge of this, by some faint prescience of justice andreparation being given them by and by, that men have heart to live.For I know now that I have always known this thing. What else wasliving good for unless it brought me back to you?"

  But the girl shook her small glittering head, very sadly. "I do notunderstand you, and I fear you. For you talk foolishness and in yourface I see the face of Jurgen as one might see the face of a deadman drowned in muddy water."

  "Yet am I truly Jurgen, and, as it seems to me, for the first timesince we were parted. For I am strong and admirable--even I, whosneered and played so long, because I thought myself a thing ofno worth at all. That which has been since you and I were youngtogether is as a mist that passes: and I am strong and admirable,and all my being is one vast hunger for you, my dearest, and I willnot let you go, for you, and you alone, are my Heart's Desire."

  Now the girl was looking at him very steadily, with a small puzzledfrown, and with her vivid young soft lips a little parted. And allher tender loveliness was glorified by the light of a sky that hadturned to dusty palpitating gold.

  "Ah, but you say that you are strong and admirable: and I can onlymarvel at such talking. For I see that which all men see."

  And then Dorothy showed him the little mirror which was attached tothe long chain of turquoise matrix about her neck: and Jurgenstudied the frightened foolish aged face that he found in themirror.

  Thus drearily did sanity return to Jurgen: and his flare of passiondied, and the fever and storm and the impetuous whirl of things wasended, and the man was very weary. And in the silence he heard thepiping cry of a bird that seemed to seek for what it could not find.

  "Well, I am answered," said the pawnbroker: "and yet I know thatthis is not the final answer. Dearer than any hope of heaven wasthat moment when awed surmises first awoke as to the new strangeloveliness which I had seen in the face of Dorothy. It was then Inoted the new faint flush suffusing her face from chin to brow sooften as my eyes encountered and found new lights in the shiningeyes which were no longer entirely frank in meeting mine. Well, letthat be, for I do not love Heitman Michael's wife.

  "It is a grief to remember how we followed love, and found hisservice lovely. It is bitter to recall the sweetness of those vowswhich proclaimed her mine eternally,--vows that were broken in theirmaking by prolonged and unforgotten kisses. We used to laugh atHeitman M
ichael then; we used to laugh at everything. Thus for awhile, for a whole summer, we were as brave and comely and clean apair of sweethearts as the world has known. But let that be, for Ido not love Heitman Michael's wife.

  "Our love was fair but short-lived. There is none that may revivehim since the small feet of Dorothy trod out this small love's life.Yet when this life of ours too is over--this parsimonious life whichcan allow us no more love for anybody,--must we not win back,somehow, to that faith we vowed against eternity? and be contentagain, in some fair-colored realm? Assuredly I think this thing willhappen. Well, but let that be, for I do not love Heitman Michael'swife."

  "Why, this is excellent hearing," observed Dorothy, "because I seethat you are converting your sorrow into the raw stuff of verses. SoI shall be off to look for Jurgen, since he makes love quiteotherwise and far more amusingly."

  And again, whatever was the matter upon which this girl nowmeditated, her cheeks were tenderly colored by the thought of it,and in her knowledge of this thing her eyes took infinite joy.

  Thus it was for a moment only: for she left Jurgen now, with thefriendliest light waving of her hand; and so passed from him, notthinking of this old fellow any longer, as he could see, even in theinstant she turned from him. And she went toward the dawn, in searchof that young Jurgen whom she, who was perfect in all things, hadloved, though only for a little while, not undeservedly.