Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  20.

  Efficacy of Prayer

  Jurgen went in a tremble to the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn inCameliard. All night Jurgen prayed there, not in repentance, but interror. For his dead he prayed, that they should not have beenblotted out in nothingness, for the dead among his kindred whom hehad loved in boyhood, and for these only. About the men and womenwhom he had known since then he did not seem to care, or not atleast so vitally. But he put up a sort of prayer for DameLisa--"wherever my dear wife may be, and, O God, grant that I maycome to her at last, and be forgiven!" he wailed, and wondered if hereally meant it.

  He had forgotten about Guenevere. And nobody knows what were thatnight the thoughts of the young Princess, nor if she offered anyprayers, in the deserted Hall of Judgment.

  In the morning a sprinkling of persons came to early mass. Jurgenattended with fervor, and started doorward with the others. Justbefore him a merchant stopped to get a pebble from his shoe, and themerchant's wife went forward to the holy-water font.

  "Madame, permit me," said a handsome young esquire, and offered herholy water.

  "At eleven," said the merchant's wife, in low tones. "He will be outall day."

  "My dear," says her husband, as he rejoined her, "and who was theyoung gentleman?"

  "Why, I do not know, darling. I never saw him before."

  "He was certainly very civil. I wish there were more like him. And afine looking young fellow, too!"

  "Was he? I did not notice," said the merchant's wife, indifferently.

  And Jurgen saw and heard and regarded the departing trio ruefully.It seemed to him incredible the world should be going on just as itwent before he ventured into the Druid forest.

  He paused before a crucifix, and he knelt and looked up wistfully."If one could only know," says Jurgen, "what really happened inJudea! How immensely would matters be simplified, if anyone but knewthe truth about You, Man upon the Cross!"

  Now the Bishop of Merion passed him, coming from celebration of theearly mass. "My Lord Bishop," says Jurgen, simply, "can you tell methe truth about this Christ?"

  "Why, indeed, Messire de Logreus," replied the Bishop, "one cannotbut sympathize with Pilate in thinking that the truth about Him isvery hard to get at, even nowadays. Was He Melchisedek, or Shem, orAdam? or was He verily the Logos? and in that event, what sort of asomething was the Logos? Granted He was a god, were the Arians orthe Sabellians in the right? had He existed always, co-substantialwith the Father and the Holy Spirit, or was He a creation of theFather, a kind of Israelitic Zagreus? Was He the husband ofAcharamoth, that degraded Sophia, as the Valentinians aver? or theson of Pantherus, as say the Jews? or Kalakau, as contendsBasilides? or was it, as the Docetes taught, only a tinted cloud inthe shape of a man that went from Jordan to Golgotha? Or were theMerinthians right? These are a few of the questions, Messire deLogreus, which naturally arise. And not all of them are to besettled out of hand."

  Thus speaking, the gallant prelate bowed, then raised three fingersin benediction, and so quitted Jurgen, who was still kneeling beforethe crucifix.

  "Ah, ah!" says Jurgen, to himself, "but what a variety ofinteresting problems are, in point of fact, suggested by religion.And what delectable exercise would the settling of these problems,once for all, afford the mind of a monstrous clever fellow! Comenow, it might be well for me to enter the priesthood. It may be thatI have a call."

  But people were shouting in the street. So Jurgen rose and dustedhis knees. And as Jurgen came out of the Cathedral of the SacredThorn the cavalcade was passing that bore away Dame Guenevere to thearms and throne of her appointed husband. Jurgen stood upon theCathedral porch, his mind in part pre-occupied by theology, butstill not failing to observe how beautiful was this young princess,as she rode by on her white palfrey, green-garbed and crowned anda-glitter with jewels. She was smiling as she passed him, bowingher small tenderly-colored young countenance this way and that way,to the shouting people, and not seeing Jurgen at all.

  Thus she went to her bridal, that Guenevere who was the symbol ofall beauty and purity to the chivalrous people of Glathion. The mobworshipped her; and they spoke as though it were an angel whopassed.

  "Our beautiful young Princess!"

  "Ah, there is none like her anywhere!"

  "And never a harsh word for anyone, they say--!"

  "Oh, but she is the most admirable of ladies--!"

  "And so brave too, that lovely smiling child who is leaving her homeforever!"

  "And so very, very pretty!"

  "--So generous!"

  "King Arthur will be hard put to it to deserve her!"

  Said Jurgen: "Now it is droll that to these truths I have but to addanother truth in order to have large paving-stones flung at her! andto have myself tumultuously torn into fragments, by thoseunpleasantly sweaty persons who, thank Heaven, are no longerjostling me!"

  For the Cathedral porch had suddenly emptied, because as theprocession passed heralds were scattering silver among thespectators.

  "Arthur will have a very lovely queen," says a soft lazy voice.

  And Jurgen turned and saw that beside him was Dame Anaitis, whompeople called the Lady of the Lake.

  "Yes, he is greatly to be envied," says Jurgen, politely. "But doyou not ride with them to London?"

  "Why, no," says the Lady of the Lake, "because my part in thisbridal was done when I mixed the stirrup-cup of which the Princessand young Lancelot drank this morning. He is the son of King Ban ofBenwick, that tall young fellow in blue armor. I am partial toLancelot, for I reared him, at the bottom of a lake that belongs tome, and I consider he does me credit. I also believe that MadameGuenevere by this time agrees with me. And so, my part being done toserve my creator, I am off for Cocaigne."

  "And what is this Cocaigne?"

  "It is an island wherein I rule."

  "I did not know you were a queen, madame."

  "Why, indeed there are a many things unknown to you, Messire deLogreus, in a world where nobody gets any assuredness of knowledgeabout anything. For it is a world wherein all men that live have buta little while to live, and none knows his fate thereafter. So thata man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan of his own body:and yet the body of man is capable of much curious pleasure."

  "I believe," said Jurgen, as his thoughts shuddered away from whathe had seen and heard in the Druid forest, "that you speak wisdom."

  "Then in Cocaigne we are all wise: for that is our religion. But ofwhat are you thinking, Duke of Logreus?"

  "I was thinking," says Jurgen, "that your eyes are unlike the eyesof any other woman that I have ever seen."

  Smilingly the dark woman asked him wherein they differed, andsmilingly he said he did not know. They were looking at each otherwarily. In each glance an experienced gamester acknowledged a worthyopponent.

  "Why, then you must come with me into Cocaigne," says Anaitis, "andsee if you cannot discover wherein lies that difference. For it isnot a matter I would care to leave unsettled."

  "Well, that seems only just to you," says Jurgen. "Yes, certainly Imust deal fairly with you."

  Then they left the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn, walking together.The folk who went toward London were now well out of sight andhearing, which possibly accounts for the fact that Jurgen was now inno wise thinking of Guenevere. So it was that Guenevere rode out ofJurgen's life for a while: and as she rode she talked with Lancelot.