Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice Read online

  3.

  The Garden between Dawn and Sunrise

  Thus it was that Jurgen and the Centaur came to the garden betweendawn and sunrise, entering this place in a fashion which it is notconvenient to record. But as they passed over the bridge three fledbefore them, screaming. And when the life had been trampled out ofthe small furry bodies which these three had misused, there was noneto oppose the Centaur's entry into the garden between dawn andsunrise.

  This was a wonderful garden: yet nothing therein was strange.Instead, it seemed that everything hereabouts was heart-breakinglyfamiliar and very dear to Jurgen. For he had come to a broad lawnwhich slanted northward to a well-remembered brook: andmultitudinous maples and locust-trees stood here and there,irregularly, and were being played with very lazily by an irresolutewest wind, so that foliage seemed to toss and ripple everywhere likegreen spray: but autumn was at hand, for the locust-trees weredropping a Danae's shower of small round yellow leaves. Around thegarden was an unforgotten circle of blue hills. And this was a placeof lucent twilight, unlit by either sun or stars, and with noshadows anywhere in the diffused faint radiancy that revealed thisgarden, which is not visible to any man except in the brief intervalbetween dawn and sunrise.

  "Why, but it is Count Emmerick's garden at Storisende," says Jurgen,"where I used to be having such fine times when I was a lad."

  "I will wager," said Nessus, "that you did not use to walk alone inthis garden."

  "Well, no; there was a girl."

  "Just so," assented Nessus. "It is a local by-law: and here arethose who comply with it."

  For now had come toward them, walking together in the dawn, ahandsome boy and girl. And the girl was incredibly beautiful,because everybody in the garden saw her with the vision of the boywho was with her. "I am Rudolph," said this boy, "and she is Anne."

  "And are you happy here?" asked Jurgen.

  "Oh, yes, sir, we are tolerably happy: but Anne's father is veryrich, and my mother is poor, so that we cannot be quite happy untilI have gone into foreign lands and come back with a great many lakhsof rupees and pieces of eight."

  "And what will you do with all this money, Rudolph?"

  "My duty, sir, as I see it. But I inherit defective eyesight."

  "God speed to you, Rudolph!" said Jurgen, "for many others are inyour plight."

  Then came to Jurgen and the Centaur another boy with the smallblue-eyed person in whom he took delight. And this fat and indolentlooking boy informed them that he and the girl who was with him werewalking in the glaze of the red mustard jar, which Jurgen thoughtwas gibberish: and the fat boy said that he and the girl had decidednever to grow any older, which Jurgen said was excellent good senseif only they could manage it.

  "Oh, I can manage that," said this fat boy, reflectively, "if only Ido not find the managing of it uncomfortable."

  Jurgen for a moment regarded him, and then gravely shook hands.

  "I feel for you," said Jurgen, "for I perceive that you, too, are amonstrous clever fellow: so life will get the best of you."

  "But is not cleverness the main thing, sir?"

  "Time will show you, my lad," says Jurgen, a little sorrowfully."And God speed to you, for many others are in your plight."

  And a host of boys and girls did Jurgen see in the garden. And allthe faces that Jurgen saw were young and glad and very lovely andquite heart-breakingly confident, as young persons beyond numberingcame toward Jurgen and passed him there, in the first glow of dawn:so they all went exulting in the glory of their youth, andforeknowing life to be a puny antagonist from whom one might takevery easily anything which one desired. And all passed incouples--"as though they came from the Ark," said Jurgen. But theCentaur said they followed a precedent which was far older than theArk.

  "For in this garden," said the Centaur, "each man that ever livedhas sojourned for a little while, with no company save hisillusions. I must tell you again that in this garden are encounterednone but imaginary creatures. And stalwart persons take their hourof recreation here, and go hence unaccompanied, to become aldermenand respected merchants and bishops, and to be admired as captainsupon prancing horses, or even as kings upon tall thrones; each inhis station thinking not at all of the garden ever any more. But nowand then come timid persons, Jurgen, who fear to leave this gardenwithout an escort: so these must need go hence with one or anotherimaginary creature, to guide them about alleys and by-paths, becauseimaginary creatures find little nourishment in the public highways,and shun them. Thus must these timid persons skulk about obscurelywith their diffident and skittish guides, and they do not everventure willingly into the thronged places where men get horses andbuild thrones."

  "And what becomes of these timid persons, Centaur?"

  "Why, sometimes they spoil paper, Jurgen, and sometimes they spoilhuman lives."

  "Then are these accursed persons," Jurgen considered.

  "You should know best," replied the Centaur.

  "Oh, very probably," said Jurgen. "Meanwhile here is one who walksalone in this garden, and I wonder to see the local by-laws thusviolated."

  Now Nessus looked at Jurgen for a while without speaking: and in theeyes of the Centaur was so much of comprehension and compassion thatit troubled Jurgen. For somehow it made Jurgen fidget and considerthis an unpleasantly personal way of looking at anybody.

  "Yes, certainly," said the Centaur, "this woman walks alone. Butthere is no help for her loneliness, since the lad who loved thiswoman is dead."

  "Nessus, I am willing to be reasonably sorry about it. Still, isthere any need of pulling quite such a portentously long face? Afterall, a great many other persons have died, off and on: and foranything I can say to the contrary, this particular young fellow mayhave been no especial loss to anybody."

  Again the Centaur said, "You should know best."