Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  33.

  Farewell to Chloris

  Now the Philistines led out their prisoners, and made ready toinflict the doom which was decreed. And they permitted the youngKing of Eubonia to speak with Chloris.

  "Farewell to you now, Jurgen!" says Chloris, weeping softly. "It islittle I care what foolish words these priests of Philistia mayutter against me. But the big-armed axemen are felling my treeyonder, to get them timber to make a bedstead for the Queen ofPhilistia: for that is what this Queen Dolores ordered them to dothe first thing this morning."

  And Jurgen raised his hands. "You women!" he said. "What man wouldever have thought of that?"

  "So when my tree is felled I must depart into a sombre land whereinthere is no laughter at all; and where the puzzled dead go wanderingfutilely through fields of scentless asphodel, and through tallsullen groves of myrtle,--the puzzled quiet dead, who may not evenweep as I do now, but can only wonder what it is that they regret.And I too must taste of Lethe, and forget all I have loved."

  "You should give thanks to the imagination of your forefathers, mydear, that your doom is no worse. For I am going into a morebarbaric limbo, into the Hell of a people who thought entirely toomuch about flames and pitchforks," says Jurgen, ruefully. "I tellyou it is the deuce and all, to come of morbid ancestry." And hekissed Chloris, upon the brow. "My dear, dear girl," he said, with agulp, "as long as you remember me, do so with charity."

  "Jurgen"--and she clung close to him--"you were not ever unkind, noteven for a moment. Jurgen, you have not ever spoken one harsh wordto me or any other person, in all the while we were together. OJurgen, whom I have loved as you could love nobody, it was not muchthose other women had left me to worship!"

  "Indeed, it is a pity that you loved me, Chloris, for I was notworthy." And for the instant Jurgen meant it.

  "If any other person said that, Jurgen, I would be very angry. And evento hear you say it troubles me, because there was never a hamadryadbetween two hills that had a husband one-half so clever-foolish as hemade light of time and chance, with his sleek black head cocked to oneside, and his mischievous brown eyes a-twinkle."

  And Jurgen wondered that this should be the notion Chloris had ofhim, and that a gesture should be the things she remembered abouthim: and he was doubly assured that no woman bothers to understandthe man she elects to love and cosset and slave for.

  "O woman dear," says Jurgen, "but I have loved you, and my heart iswater now that you are taken from me: and to remember your ways andthe joy I had in them will be a big and grinding sorrow in the longtime to come. Oh, not with any heroic love have I loved you, norwith any madness and high dreams, nor with much talking either; butwith a love befitting my condition, with a quiet and cordial love."

  "And must you be trying, while I die, to get your grieving for meinto the right words?" she asks him, smiling very sadly. "No matter:you are Jurgen, and I have loved you. And I am glad that I shallknow nothing about it when in the long time, to come you will betelling so many other women about what was said by Zorobasius andPtolemopiter, and when you will be posturing and romancing for theirdelight. For presently I shall have tasted Lethe: and presently Ishall have forgotten you, King Jurgen, and all the joy I had in you,and all the pride, and all the love I had for you, King Jurgen, wholoved me as much as you were able."

  "Why, and will there be any love-making, do you think, in Hell?" heasks her, with a doleful smile.

  "There will be love-making," she replied, "wherever you go, KingJurgen. And there will be women to listen. And at the last therewill be a bean-pole of a woman, in a wig."

  "I am sorry--" he said. "And yet I have loved you, Chloris."

  "That is my comfort now. And presently there will be Lethe. I putthe greater faith in Lethe. And still, I cannot help but love you,Jurgen, in whom I have no faith at all."

  He said, again: "I am not worthy."

  They kissed. Then each of them was conveyed to an appropriate doom.

  And tears were in the eyes of Jurgen, who was not used to weep: andhe thought not at all of what was to befall him, but only of thisand that small trivial thing which would have pleased his Chlorishad Jurgen done it, and which for one reason or another Jurgen hadleft undone.

  "I was not ever unkind to her, says she! ah, but I might have beenso much kinder. And now I shall not ever see her any more, nor everany more may I awaken delight and admiration in those bright tendereyes which saw no fault in me! Well, but it is a comfort surely thatshe does not know how I devoted the last night she was to live toteaching mathematics."

  And then Jurgen wondered how he would be despatched into the Hell ofhis fathers? And when the Philistines showed him in what manner theyproposed to inflict their sentence he wondered at his ownobtuseness.

  "For I might have surmised this would be the way of it," saidJurgen. "And yet as always there is a simplicity in the methods ofthe Philistines which is unimaginable by really clever fellows. Andas always, too, these methods are unfair to us clever fellows. Well,I am willing to taste any drink once: but this is a very horribledevice, none the less; and I wonder if I have the pluck to endureit?"

  Then as he stood considering this matter, a man-at-arms camehurrying. He brought with him three great rolled parchments, withseals and ribbons and everything in order: and these were Jurgen'spardon and Jurgen's nomination as Poet Laureate of Philistia andJurgen's appointment as Mathematician Royal.

  The man-at-arms brought also a letter from Queen Dolores, and thisJurgen read with a frown.

  "Do you consider now what fun it would be to hood-wink everybody bypretending to conform to our laws!" said this letter, and it saidnothing more: Dolores was really a wise woman. Yet there was apostscript. "For we could be so happy!" said the postscript.

  And Jurgen looked toward the Woods, where men were sawing up a greatoak-tree. And Jurgen gave a fine laugh, and with fine deliberatenesshe tore up the Queen's letter into little strips. Then statelily hetook the parchments, and found they were so tough he could not tearthem. This was uncommonly awkward, for Jurgen's ill-advised attemptto tear the parchments impaired the dignity of his magnanimousself-sacrifice: he even suspected one of the guards of smiling. Sothere was nothing for it but presently to give up that futile tuggingand jerking, and to compromise by crumpling these parchments.

  "This is my answer," said Jurgen heroically, and with someadmiration of himself, but still a little dashed by the uncalled-fortoughness of the parchments.

  Then Jurgen cried farewell to fallen Leuke; and scornfully he criedfarewell to the Philistines and to their devices. Then he submittedto their devices. Thus, it was without making any special protestabout it that Jurgen was relegated to limbo, and was despatched tothe Hell of his fathers, two days before Christmas.