Читать книгу Jurgen: A Play in Three Acts - James Branch Cabell - Страница 7

ACT I

SCENE 1

In the Garden of Youth. A beautiful garden. Several young lovers in medieval dress. Dorothy la Désirée, a beautiful girl of sixteen, is wandering by herself and meets Jurgen, who enters dressed in a beautiful shirt.

Dorothy

Why have you come to this garden, stranger?

Jurgen

Well, because I am looking for my wife whom I suspect was carried off by some poor devil.

Dorothy (archly)

You are glad to be rid of her, are you not?

Jurgen

I confess a certain—relief.

Dorothy

Then why are you here?

Jurgen

Because everyone said it was the manly thing to do, to try and find her. I have always been too deferential to the opinion of mankind.

Dorothy

How did you get here?

Jurgen

You wouldn’t believe me. You are a monstrously clever person.

Dorothy

Try me.

Jurgen

A centaur that I met on the road brought me. He gave me this shirt.

Dorothy

That’s ridiculous. I don’t believe you.

Jurgen

Perfectly all right. You’d be daft if you did. But are you not Dorothy la Désirée—the only woman I ever loved?

Dorothy

Certainly, I am she. Count Emerrich’s daughter.

Jurgen (bitterly)

And the wife of Hetman Michael.

Dorothy

That oaf! I would never marry him.

Jurgen

So you told me when I was young. But you married him all the same.

Dorothy

You’re funny. Are you mad? Who are you, friend, that you have such curious notions about me?

Jurgen

I will answer that question, even though you clearly know the answer. I am Jurgen.

Dorothy

I know but one Jurgen—and he is much younger than you.

Jurgen

Ah, I understand. I have returned to my youth. I have heard of this other Jurgen. A monstrously clever fellow—and he loved you.

Dorothy

No more than I love him. A whole summer I have loved him.

Jurgen

The poor devil loved you, too. I can testify to it. For a whole summer and perhaps all of his life.

Dorothy

You talk in riddles, friend.

Jurgen

That is customary when age talks to youth. For I am a man of forty, and you—you will be sixteen in two months—for it is August—the August of a year I had not expected ever to see again.

Dorothy

You really are a strange fellow—but I like you. In fact, I liked you instantly, as soon as you told me your name was Jurgen.

Jurgen

Well—and what can I do about it? Somehow, I—who am but the shadow of what I was, walk with the love of my youth. In this same garden, there was once a boy who loved a girl with such a love as it puzzles me to think of now. And for a whole summer these two were as brave and comely and clean a pair of sweethearts as the world has known.

Dorothy

Tell me about yourself, sir. For I love all tales of lovers.

Jurgen

Ah, dear child—if only I could. Who can tell the glory of a first love—moonlight nights—unreasonable laughter—and the feeling that suddenly you are—alive. A story not worth raking up at this late date. Preposterous, really.

Dorothy

What happened then?

Jurgen

There was a difficulty. She was a count’s daughter and he was the son of a pawnbroker.

Dorothy (excited)

I know a case just like it. (curious) What happened?

Jurgen

Well—it seemed a transient discrepancy because our hero intended to become an Emperor.

Dorothy

And then? And then?

Jurgen

Well—our hero had to go away for a while—and before long he learned that his lady had married Hetman Michael.

Dorothy

Isn’t that strange? There is a Hetman Michael that my family is plaguing me to marry. But I won’t. (thoughtfully) Anyway, go on.

Jurgen

There’s nothing further to tell, really. The boy became a pawnbroker and married a shrew—and suffered ever after until a devil befriended him and carried off his wife.

Dorothy (disappointed)

So his life was ruined!

Jurgen

To be perfectly honest, no more than most. He met her again in her married state and decided she was rather dull and stupid—yet—well—he could not retain his composure in her presence.

Dorothy (interested)

So he still loved her!

Jurgen

My child, you are incurably romantic. He hated her—naturally.

Dorothy (bawling)

Oh—couldn’t they have become lovers?

Jurgen

No, it did not work out. She took many lovers—and he, the legend tells, had many affaires de coeur—but never did these two become lovers.

Dorothy

What an awful, cynical, stupid story. I am going to leave you.

Jurgen (quickly)

No. Now that I have found you again it would not be possible to lose you. Not so long as there is Justice upon Earth. Why, there is no imaginable God who would permit a boy to be robbed of so noble a dream twice.

Dorothy

You—upset me. It seems to me you are my Jurgen—yet you are not my Jurgen.

Jurgen

But truly, I am Jurgen, and I have won back that first love whom every man must lose no matter whom he marries. Had I known you awaited me in this garden of youth—between dawn and sunrise—I would have had the heart to live. Surely, you are a reparation. I will not let you go—for you and you alone are my heart’s desire.

Dorothy

Hands off, old lecher! I can’t stand an old man!

(Jurgen is pushed off balance and she escapes.)

Jurgen

Well, I am answered—yet, I know it is not the final answer. Am I so changed?

(Enter Old Monk.)

Old Monk

Good and evil keep exact accounts, and the face of every man is their ledger.

Jurgen

What is Dorothy doing here?

Old Monk

Why, all women a man has ever loved live here—for very obvious reasons.

Jurgen

That is a hard saying, friend. This is a world that never was. Was Dorothy la Désirée an imaginary creature?

Old Monk

Poet! Do you not know she was your masterpiece? Actually, she was a shallow little bitch with passable looks and a bad temper—consider what a goddess you made from such material.

Jurgen

Who can be proud of such folly? Yet—who can regret it? My heart will keep the memory of that bliss until life ends.

Old Monk

There is something in that, Jurgen.

Jurgen

What is the good of revisiting one’s youth if one is no longer young?

Old Monk

Do you think that will help?

Jurgen

It can’t hurt.

Old Monk

So be it. All who see you now will see you to be Jurgen as you were twenty years ago. Only your mirror will tell you the truth.

Jurgen

How can I thank you?

Old Monk

It is my pleasure. I like experiments.

(The Old Monk exits.)

Jurgen

Well, it’s certainly nice to be young again. Now, where did he go? Oh, well. Hmm, my shadow certainly isn’t that of a young man. Let’s hope no one notices. Look at these doomed people. There is my mother Azra—she never had any confidence in me—the only woman, I suspect who really understood me. She will die in ten years—and I won’t learn of it for several months. Ah, but these things are not yet—and besides, these things are inevitable. Why think about it. Yet the inevitability of all this is decidedly not fair. And there is Rainault Vinsauf laughing. In six years he will have his throat cut like a pig while held by three Burgundians. I wonder if he would laugh quite so loudly now if he knew that. And I shall forget all about him, although he is worth three of me. How can they laugh? Still, they may be wise in not glooming over what is inevitable; and I certainly cannot go so far as to say they are wrong—but still—at the same time—

(Enter Dorothy. She runs to him.)

Dorothy

There you are. I met the most horrible man.

Jurgen

My heart’s desire, I am sad tonight, for I am thinking of what life will do to us, and what offal the years will make of you and me.

Dorothy

Sweetheart, do we not know you are to be an Emperor and conquer the Holy Land?

Jurgen

We are more now than we will ever be. Our splendor will be wasted. And such wastage is not fair.

Dorothy

First, you will conquer France; then you will preach a Crusade and lead an army against the infidels.

Jurgen

No, heart’s desire—I shall be quite otherwise.

Dorothy

How proud I shall be of you.

Jurgen

You will not think of me at all.

Dorothy

Can you really think I care a damn for any man but you?

(Hetman Michael approaches.)

Dorothy

I have promised to dance with this old fart, and so I must. He must be nearly thirty.

Jurgen

Now, by Heaven, wherever Hetman Michael does his dancing, it will not be hereabouts.

Michael (very civilly)

I fear I must rob you of this fair lady, Master Jurgen.

Jurgen

The next dance is to be mine.

Michael (good-naturedly)

We must leave it to the lady.

Jurgen

Au contraire. Were I to do that, my fate would be sealed. I am not the same callow thing I was twenty years ago.

Michael (puzzled)

Your remarks, Master Jurgen, are somewhat strange.

Jurgen

But, I will tell you a stranger thing. There seem to be three of us here, but actually there are four.

Michael

Four?

Jurgen

The fourth is a goddess whom no prayers or sacrifice can placate.

Michael

You speak of death?

Jurgen

You have a jumping wit, Hetman. But hardly quick enough to outrun the whim of the Goddess.

Michael

Ah, my young bantam—the Goddess and I are acquainted—I have dispatched many stout warriors to serve her underground.

Jurgen

My notion is, Hetman, that the Goddess should not leave us unescorted. One of us, as a gentleman, cannot fail to accompany her.

Michael

You are insane. But you extend an invitation I cannot possibly refuse.

Jurgen

Hetman, I bear you no ill will. But it is highly necessary that you die tonight in order that my soul not perish twenty years hence.

(They draw their swords and fight. Hetman is easily Jurgen’s master.)

Jurgen

This is highly annoying, Hetman. You are the better swordsman and it is not fair.

Michael (disarming Jurgen)

So now, Master Jurgen—there is the end of your nonsense. But you needn’t wet your pants—I don’t intend to kill you—it is not my custom to kill children—and besides, I prefer to dance with this lady.

(Michael turns his back to Jurgen and offers Dorothy his arm.)

Jurgen

Not this I call insufferable! Did I come back to my youth only to lost it again? This is unjust.

(Jurgen snatches a dagger and stabs Hetman Michael in the back.)

Michael

Oh, I am slain. (dies)

Dorothy

Oh, dear, dear. But I don’t blame you—he was such an old fart and he was going to carry me off. I’ll bet he was over thirty. (thinking seriously) But, what will become of you? They’ll hang you for sure.

Jurgen

I will take my doom—and without whimpers, so that I get justice. But I shall certainly insist upon Justice. The man was stronger than I and wanted what I wanted. It wasn’t fair. So—I have compromised with necessity to get that which was requisite to me. I cry for Justice to the power that gave him strength and gave me weakness—but gave us both the same desires. (impressively) I have done what I have done.

Dorothy

Oh, my hero. You’re so brave.

Jurgen (dragging the body and concealing it under a bench)

Rest here, brave sir, until they find you.

Jurgen

Come to me now, heart’s desire. Here I sit, (Dorothy sits on his lap) with my true love—upon the body of my enemy. Justice is satisfied. Oh, that I could detain this moment! Could I but get into words the softness of this girl’s hair—for I shall forget all this beauty—this be-drenching moonlight.

Dorothy

You shouldn’t have done it. Even if he was an old fart—he wasn’t so bad.

Jurgen

Whatever the future holds for us—and whatever the happiness we two may know—we shall find no moment happier than this.

Dorothy

Poor, dear, brave Jurgen. You did all this for me, But, what will become of you?

Jurgen

Who knows? But I am wiser now than then. So I will not waste the one real passion I have known—nor leave unfed the one desire of my life—nor live to regret I did not avail myself of your love before it was taken from me. Remove your clothes.

Dorothy

Here—over a dead body! Are you mad? What kind of a girl do you think I am, anyway? And I thought I could trust you. Somebody may come at any moment.

Jurgen

Then, we have no time to lose.

Dorothy

Let’s go to my room.

(Jurgen and Dorothy hurry off, eager for the game; a bell tolls.)

CURTAIN