[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
swiftly. Everywhere my palaces stand upon high places near the sea: so they
are beheld from afar by those whom I hold dearest, my beautiful broadcheated
mariners, who do not fear even me, but know that in my palaces they will find
notable employment. For I must tell you of what is to be encountered within
these places that are mine, and of how pleasantly we pass our time there."
Then she told him.
Now he listened more attentively than ever, and his eyes were narrowed, and
his lips were lax and motionless and foolishlooking, and he was deeply
interested. For Anaïtis had thought of some new diversions since their last
meeting: and to Jurgen, even at forty and something, this queen's voice was
all a horrible and strange and lovely magic. "She really tempts very nicely,
too," he reflected, with a sort of pride in her.
Then Jurgen growled and shook himself, half angrily: and he tweaked the ear of
Queen Anaïtis.
"Sweetheart," says he, "you paint a glowing picture: but you are shrewd enough
to borrow your pigments from the daydreams of inexperience. What you prattle
about is not at all as you describe it. You forget you are talking to a widely
married man of varied experience. Moreover I shudder to think of what might
happen if Lisa were to walk in unexpectedly. And for the rest, all this todo
over nameless delights and unspeakable caresses and other anonymous antics
seems rather naïve. My ears are beset by eloquent gray hairs which plead at
closer quarters than does that fibbing little tongue of yours. And so be off
with you!"
With that Queen Anaïtis smiled very cruelly, and she said: "Farewell to you,
then Jurgen, for it is I that am leaving you forever. Henceforward you must
fret away much sunlight by interminably shunning discomfort and by indulging
tepid preferences. For I, and none but I, can waken that desire which uses all
of a man, and so wastes nothing, even though it leave that favored man forever
after like wan ashes in the sunlight. And with you I have no more concern, for
it is I that am leaving you forever. Join with your graying fellows, then!
and help them to affront the clean sane sunlight, by making guilds and laws
and solemn phrases wherewith to rid the world of me. I, Anaïtis, laugh, and my
heart is a wave in the sunlight. For there is no power like my power, and no
living thing which can withstand my power; and those who deride me, as I well
know, are but the dead dry husks that a wind moves, with hissing noises, while
I harvest in open sunlight. For I am the desire that uses all of a man: and it
is I that am leaving you forever."
Said Jurgen: "I could not see all this in you, not quite all this, because of
a shadow that followed me. Now it is too late, and this is a sorrowful thing
which is happening. I am become as a puzzled ghost who furtively observes the
doings of loudvoiced ruddy persons: and I am compact of weariness and
apprehension, for I no longer discern what thing is I, nor what is my desire
and I fear that I am already dead. So farewell to you, Queen Anaïtis, for
this, too, is a sorrowful thing and a very unfair thing that is happening."
Thus he cried farewell to the Sun's daughter. And all the colors of her
loveliness flickered and merged into the likeness of a tall thin flame, that
aspired; and then this flame was extinguished.
47. The Vision of Helen
Page 143
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
AND for the third time Koshchei waved his hand. Now came to Jurgen a
goldhaired woman, clothed all in white. She was tall, and lovely and tender to
regard: and hers was not the red and white comeliness of many ladies that were
famed for beauty, but rather it had the even glow of ivory. Her nose was large
and high in the bridge, her flexible mouth was not of the smallest; and yet,
whatever other persons might have said, to Jurgen this woman's countenance was
in all things perfect. And, beholding her, Jurgen kneeled.
He hid his face in her white robe: and he stayed thus, without speaking, for a
long while.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
150
"Lady of my vision," he said, and his voice broke "there is that in you which
wakes old memories. For now assuredly I believe your father was not Dom Manuel
but that ardent bird which nestled very long ago in
Leda's bosom. And now Troy's sons are all in Adês' keeping, in the world
below; fire has consumed the walls of Troy, and the years have forgotten her
tall conquerors; but still you are bringing woe on woe to hapless sufferers."
And again his voice broke. For the world seemed cheerless, and like a house
that none has lived in for a great while.
Queen Helen, the delight of gods and men, replied nothing at all, because
there was no need, inasmuch as the man who has once glimpsed her loveliness is
beyond saving, and beyond the desire of being saved.
"Tonight," says Jurgen, "as once through the gray art of Phobetor, now through
the will of Koshchei, it appears that you stand within arm's reach. Hah, lady,
were that possible and I know very well it is not possible, whatever my
senses may report, I am not fit to mate with your perfection. At the bottom
of my heart, I no longer desire perfection. For we who are taxpayers as well
as immortal souls must live by politic evasions and formulæ and catchwords
that fret away our lives as moths waste a garment; we fall insensibly to
commonsense as to a drug; and it dulls and kills whatever in us is rebellious
and fine and unreasonable; and so you will find no man of my years with whom
living is not a mechanism which gnaws away time unprompted. For within this
hour I have become again a creature of use and wont; I am the lackey of
prudence and halfmeasures; and I have put my dreams upon an allowance. Yet
even now I love you more than I love books and indolence and flattery and the
charitable wine which cheats me into a favorable opinion of myself. What more
can an old poet say? For that reason, lady, I pray you begone, because your
loveliness is a taunt which I find unendurable."
But his voice yearned, because this was Queen Helen, the delight of gods and
men, who regarded him with grave, kind eyes. She seemed to view, as one
appraises the pattern of an unrolled carpet, every action of
Jurgen's life: and she seemed, too, to wonder, without reproach or trouble,
how men could be so foolish, and of their own accord become so miry.
"Oh, I have failed my vision!" cries Jurgen. "I have failed, and I know very
well that every man must fail: and yet my shame is no less bitter. For I am
transmuted by time's handling! I shudder at the thought of living dayin and
dayout with my vision! And so I will have none of you for my wife."
Then, trembling, Jurgen raised toward his lips the hand of her who was the
world's darling.
"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Oh, very long ago I found your beauty
mirrored in a wanton's face!
and often in a woman's face I have found one or another feature wherein she
resembled you, and for the sake of it have lied to that woman glibly. And all
my verses, as I know now, were vain enchantments striving to evoke that hidden
loveliness of which I knew by dim report alone. Oh, all my life was a foiled
quest of you, Queen Helen, and an unsatiated hungering. And for a while I
served my vision, honoring you with cleanhanded deeds. Yes, certainly it
Page 144
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
should be graved upon my tomb, 'Queen Helen ruled this earth while it stayed
worthy.' But that was very long ago.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]