Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice

by James Branch Cabell

  39.

  Of Compromises in Hell

  Now Grandfather Satan's wife was called Phyllis: and apart fromhaving wings like a bat's, she was the loveliest little slip ofdevilishness that Jurgen had seen in a long while. Jurgen spent thisnight at the Black House of Barathum, and two more nights, or itmight be three nights: and the details of what Jurgen used to dothere, after supper, when he would walk alone in the Black HouseGardens, among the artfully colored cast-iron flowers and shrubbery,and would so come to the grated windows of Phyllis's room, and wouldstand there joking with her in the dark, are not requisite to thisstory.

  Satan was very jealous of his wife, and kept one of her wingsclipped and held her under lock and key, as the treasure that shewas. But Jurgen was accustomed to say afterward that, while thegratings over the windows were very formidable, they only seemedsomehow to enhance the piquancy of his commerce with Dame Phyllis.This queen, said Jurgen, he had found simply unexcelled at repartee.

  Florimel considered the saying cryptic: just what precisely did hismajesty mean?

  "Why, that in any and all circumstances Dame Phyllis knows how totake a joke, and to return as good as she receives."

  "So your majesty has already informed me: and certainly jokes can beexchanged through a grating--"

  "Yes, that was what I meant. And Dame Phyllis appeared to appreciatemy ready flow of humor. She informs me Grandfather Satan is of acold dry temperament, with very little humor in him, so that they gofor months without exchanging any pleasantries. Well, I am willingto taste any drink once: and for the rest, remembering that my hosthad very enormous and intimidating horns, I was at particular painsto deal fairly with my hostess. Though, indeed, it was more for thehonor and the glory of the affair than anything else that Iexchanged pleasantries with Satan's wife. For to do that, my dear, Ifelt was worthy of the Emperor Jurgen."

  "Ah, I am afraid your majesty is a sad scapegrace," repliedFlorimel: "however, we all know that the sceptre of an emperor isrespected everywhere."

  "Indeed," says Jurgen, "I have often regretted that I did not bringwith me my jewelled sceptre when I left Noumaria."

  She shivered at some unspoken thought: it was not until some whileafterward that Florimel told Jurgen of her humiliating misadventurewith the absent-minded Sultan of Garcao's sceptre. Now she onlyreplied that jewels might, conceivably, seem ostentatious and out ofplace.

  Jurgen agreed to this truism: for of course they were living veryquietly, and Jurgen was splendid enough for any reasonable wife'srequirements, in his glittering shirt.

  So Jurgen got on pleasantly with Florimel. But he never became asfond of her as he had been of Guenevere or Anaitis, nor one-tenth asfond of her as he had been of Chloris. In the first place, hesuspected that Florimel had been invented by his father, and Cothand Jurgen had never any tastes in common: and in the second place,Jurgen could not but see that Florimel thought a great deal of hisbeing an emperor.

  "It is my title she loves, not me," reflected Jurgen, sadly, "andher affection is less for that which is really integral to me thanfor imperial orbs and sceptres and such-like external trappings."

  And Jurgen would come out of Florimel's cleft considerably dejected,and would sit alone by the Sea of Blood, and would meditate howinequitable it was that the mere title of emperor should thus shuthim off from sincerity and candor.

  "We who are called kings and emperors are men like other men: we areas rightly entitled as other persons to the solace of true love andaffection: instead, we live in a continuous isolation, and womenoffer us all things save their hearts, and we are a lonely folk.No, I cannot believe that Florimel loves me for myself alone: it ismy title which dazzles her. And I would that I had never made myselfthe emperor of Noumaria: for this emperor goes about everywherein a fabulous splendor, and is, very naturally, resistless in hissemi-mythical magnificence. Ah, but these imperial gewgaws distractthe thoughts of Florimel from the real Jurgen; so that the realJurgen is a person whom she does not understand at all. And it isnot fair."

  Then, too, he had a sort of prejudice against the way in whichFlorimel spent her time in seducing and murdering young men. It wasnot possible, of course, actually to blame the girl, since she wasthe victim of circumstances, and had no choice about becoming avampire, once the cat had jumped over her coffin. Still, Jurgenalways felt, in his illogical masculine way, that her vocation wasnot nice. And equally in the illogical way of men, did he persist incoaxing Florimel to tell him of her vampiric transactions, in spiteof his underlying feeling that he would prefer to have his wifeengaged in some other trade: and the merry little creature wouldhumor him willingly enough, with her purple eyes a-sparkle, and withher vivid lips curling prettily back, so as to show her tiny whitesharp teeth quite plainly.

  She was really very pretty thus, as she told him of what happenedin Copenhagen when young Count Osmund went down into the blindbeggar-woman's cellar, and what they did with bits of him; andof how one kind of serpent came to have a secret name, which,when cried aloud in the night, with the appropriate ceremony, willbring about delicious happenings; and of what one can do with smallunchristened children, if only they do not kiss you, with theirmoist uncertain little mouths, for then this thing is impossible;and of what use she had made of young Sir Ganelon's skull, when hewas through with it, and she with him; and of what the young priestWulfnoth had said to the crocodiles at the very last.

  "Oh, yes, my life has its amusing side," said Florimel: "and onelikes to feel, of course, that one is not wholly out of touch withthings, and is even, in one's modest way, contributing to thesuppression of folly. But even so, your majesty, the calls that aremade upon one! the things that young men expect of you, as the priceof their bodily and spiritual ruin! and the things their relatives sayabout you! and, above all, the constant strain, the irregular hours,and the continual effort to live up to one's position! Oh, yes, yourmajesty, I was far happier when I was a consumptive seamstress and tookpride in my buttonholes. But from a sister-in-law who only has you into tea occasionally as a matter of duty, and who is prominent inchurchwork, one may, of course, expect anything. And that remindsme that I really must tell your majesty about what happened in thehay-loft, just after the abbot had finished undressing--"

  So she would chatter away, while Jurgen listened and smiledindulgently. For she certainly was very pretty. And so they kepthouse in Hell contentedly enough until Florimel's vacation was at anend: and then they parted, without any tears but in perfectfriendliness.

  And Jurgen always remembered Florimel most pleasantly, but not as awife with whom he had ever been on terms of actual intimacy.

  Now when this lovely Vampire had quitted him, the Emperor Jurgen, inspite of his general popularity and the deference accorded hispolitical views, was not quite happy in Hell.

  "It is a comfort, at any rate," said Jurgen, "to discover whooriginated the theory of democratic government. I have long wonderedwho started the notion that the way to get a wise decision on anyconceivable question was to submit it to a popular vote. Now I know.Well, and the devils may be right in their doctrines; certainly Icannot go so far as to say they are wrong: but still, at the sametime--!"

  For instance, this interminable effort to make the universe safe fordemocracy, this continual warring against Heaven because Heavenclung to a tyrannical form of autocratic government, sounded bothlogical and magnanimous, and was, of course, the only method ofinsuring any general triumph for democracy: yet it seemed ratherfutile to Jurgen, since, as he knew now, there was certainlysomething in the Celestial system which made for militaryefficiency, so that Heaven usually won. Moreover, Jurgen could notget over the fact that Hell was just a notion of his ancestors withwhich Koshchei had happened to fall in: for Jurgen had never muchpatience with antiquated ideas, particularly when anyone put theminto practice, as Koshchei had done.

  "Why, this place appears to me a glaring anachronism," said Jurgen,brooding over the fires of Chorasma: "and its methods of tormentingconscientious people I cannot
but consider very crude indeed. Thedevils are simple-minded and they mean well, as nobody would dreamof denying, but that is just it: for hereabouts is needed some morepertinacious and efficiently disagreeable person--"

  And that, of course, reminded him of Dame Lisa: and so it was thethoughts of Jurgen turned again to doing the manly thing. And hesighed, and went among the devils tentatively looking and inquiringfor that intrepid fiend who in the form of a black gentleman hadcarried off Dame Lisa. But a queer happening befell, and it was thatnowhere could Jurgen find the black gentleman, nor did any of thedevils know anything about him.

  "From what you tell us, Emperor Jurgen," said they all, "your wifewas an acidulous shrew, and the sort of woman who believes thatwhatever she does is right."

  "It was not a belief," says Jurgen: "it was a mania with the poordear."

  "By that fact, then, she is forever debarred from entering Hell."

  "You tell me news," says Jurgen, "which if generally known wouldlead many husbands into vicious living."

  "But it is notorious that people are saved by faith. And there is nofaith stronger than that of a bad-tempered woman in her owninfallibility. Plainly, this wife of yours is the sort of person whocannot be tolerated by anybody short of the angels. We deduce thatyour Empress must be in Heaven."

  "Well, that sounds reasonable. And so to Heaven I will go, and itmay be that there I shall find justice."

  "We would have you know," the fiends cried, bristling, "that in Hellwe have all kinds of justice, since our government is an enlighteneddemocracy."

  "Just so," says Jurgen: "in an enlightened democracy one has allkinds of justice, and I would not dream of denying it. But you havenot, you conceive, that lesser plague, my wife; and it is she whom Imust continue to look for."

  "Oh, as you like," said they, "so long as you do not criticize theexigencies of war-time. But certainly we are sorry to see you goinginto a country where the benighted people put up with an autocratWho was not duly elected to His position. And why need you continueseeking your wife's society when it is so much pleasanter living inHell?"

  And Jurgen shrugged. "One has to do the manly thing sometimes."

  So the fiends told him the way to Heaven's frontiers, pitying him."But the crossing of the frontier must be your affair."

  "I have a cantrap," said Jurgen; "and my stay in Hell has taught mehow to use it."

  Then Jurgen followed his instructions, and went into Meridie, andturned to the left when he had come to the great puddle where theadders and toads are reared, and so passed through the mists ofTartarus, with due care of the wild lightning, and took the secondturn to his left--"always in seeking Heaven be guided by yourheart," had been the advice given him by devils,--and thus avoidingthe abode of Jemra, he crossed the bridge over the Bottomless Pitand the solitary Narakas. And Brachus, who kept the toll-gate onthis bridge, did that of which the fiends had forewarned Jurgen: butfor this, of course, there was no help.