Now the Bishop of Merion passed him, coming from celebration of the early mass. 'My Lord Bishop,' says Jurgen, simply, 'can you tell me the truth about this Christ?'
'Why, indeed, Messire de Logreus,' replied the Bishop, 'one cannot but sympathize with Pilate in thinking that the truth about Him is very hard to get at, even nowadays. Was He Melchisedek, or Shem, or Adam? or was He verily the Logos? and in that event, what sort of a something was the Logos? Granted He was a god, were the Arians or the Sabellians in the right? had He existed always, co-substantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, or was He a creation of the Father, a kind of Israelitic Zagreus? Was He the husband of Acharamoth, that degraded Sophia, as the Valentinians aver? or the son of Pantherus, as say the Jews? or Kalakau, as contends Basilides? or was it, as the Docetes taught, only a tinted cloud in the shape of a man that went from Jordan to Golgotha? Or were the Merinthians right? These are a few of the questions, Messire de Logreus, which naturally arise. And not all of them are to be settled out of hand.'
Thus speaking, the gallant prelate bowed, then raised three fingers in benediction, and so quitted Jurgen, who was still kneeling before the crucifix.
'Ah, ah!' says Jurgen, to himself, 'but what a variety of interesting problems are, in point of fact, suggested by religion. And what delectable exercise would the settling of these problems, once for all, afford the mind of a monstrous clever fellow! Come now, it might be well for me to enter the priesthood. It may be that I have a call.'
But people were shouting in the street. So Jurgen rose and dusted his knees. And as Jurgen came out of the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn the cavalcade was passing that bore away Dame Guenevere to the arms and throne of her appointed husband. Jurgen stood upon the Cathedral porch, his mind in part pre-occupied by theology, but still not failing to observe how beautiful was this young princess, as she rode by on her white palfrey, green-garbed and crowned and a-glitter with jewels. She was smiling as she passed him, bowing her small tenderly-colored young countenance this way and that way, to the shouting people, and not seeing Jurgen at all.
Thus she went to her bridal, that Guenevere who was the symbol of all beauty and purity to the chivalrous people of Glathion. The mob worshipped her; and they spoke as though it were an angel who passed.
'Our beautiful young Princess!'
'Ah, there is none like her anywhere!'
'And never a harsh word for anyone, they say—!'
'Oh, but she is the most admirable of ladies—!'
'And so brave too, that lovely smiling child who is leaving her home forever!'
'And so very, very pretty!'
'—So generous!'
'King Arthur will be hard put to it to deserve her!'
Said Jurgen: 'Now it is droll that to these truths I have but to add another truth in order to have large paving-stones flung at her! and to have myself tumultuously torn into fragments, by those unpleasantly sweaty persons who, thank Heaven, are no longer jostling me!'
For the Cathedral porch had suddenly emptied, because as the procession passed heralds were scattering silver among the spectators.
'Arthur will have a very lovely queen,' says a soft lazy voice.
And Jurgen turned and saw that beside him was Dame Anaitis, whom people called the Lady of the Lake.
'Yes, he is greatly to be envied,' says Jurgen, politely. 'But do you not ride with them to London?'
'Why, no,' says the Lady of the Lake, 'because my part in this bridal was done when I mixed the stirrup-cup of which the Princess and young Lancelot drank this morning. He is the son of King Ban of Benwick, that tall young fellow in blue armor. I am partial to Lancelot, for I reared him, at the bottom of a lake that belongs to me, and I consider he does me credit. I also believe that Madame Guenevere by this time agrees with me. And so, my part being done to serve my creator, I am off for Cocaigne.'
'And what is this Cocaigne?'
'It is an island wherein I rule.'
'I did not know you were a queen, madame.'
'Why, indeed there are a many things unknown to you, Messire de Logreus, in a world where nobody gets any assuredness of knowledge about anything. For it is a world wherein all men that live have but a little while to live, and none knows his fate thereafter. So that a man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan of his own body: and yet the body of man is capable of much curious pleasure.'
'I believe,' said Jurgen, as his thoughts shuddered away from what he had seen and heard in the Druid forest, 'that you speak wisdom.'
'Then in Cocaigne we are all wise: for that is our religion. But of what are you thinking, Duke of Logreus?'
'I was thinking,' says Jurgen, 'that your eyes are unlike the eyes of any other woman that I have ever seen.'
Smilingly the dark woman asked him wherein they differed, and smilingly he said he did not know. They were looking at each other warily. In each glance an experienced gamester acknowledged a worthy opponent.
'Why, then you must come with me into Cocaigne,' says Anaitis, 'and see if you cannot discover wherein lies that difference. For it is not a matter I would care to leave unsettled.'
'Well, that seems only just to you,' says Jurgen. 'Yes, certainly I must deal fairly with you.'
Then they left the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn, walking together. The folk who went toward London were now well out of sight and hearing, which possibly accounts for the fact that Jurgen was now in no wise thinking of Guenevere. So it was that Guenevere rode out of Jurgen's life for a while: and as she rode she talked with Lancelot.
21. How Anaitis Voyaged
Now the tale tells that Jurgen and this Lady of the Lake came presently to the wharves of Cameliard, and went aboard the ship which had brought Anaitis and Merlin into Glathion. This ship was now to every appearance deserted: yet all its saffron colored sails were spread, as though in readiness for the ship's departure.
'The crew are scrambling, it may be, for the largesse, and fighting over Gogyrvan's silver pieces,' says Anaitis, 'but I think they will not be long in returning. So we will sit here upon the prow, and await their leisure.'
'But already the vessel moves,' says Jurgen, 'and I hear behind us the rattling of silver chains and the flapping of shifted saffron-colored sails.'
'They are roguish fellows,' says Anaitis, smiling. 'Evidently, they hid from us, pretending there was nobody aboard. Now they think to give us a surprise when the ship sets out to sea as though it were of itself. But we will disappoint these merry rascals, by seeming to notice nothing unusual.'
So Jurgen sat with Anaitis in the two tall chairs that were in the prow of the vessel, under a canopy of crimson stuff embroidered with gold dragons, and just back of the ship's figurehead, which was a dragon painted with thirty colors: and the ship moved out of the harbor, and so into the open sea. Thus they passed Enisgarth.
'And it is a queer crew that serve you, Anaitis, who are Queen of Cocaigne: for I can hear them talking, far back of us, and their language is all a cheeping and a twittering, as though the mice and the bats were holding conference.'
'Why, you must understand that these are outlanders who speak a dialect of their own, and are not like any other people you have ever seen.'
'Indeed, now, that is very probable, for I have seen none of your crew. Sometimes it is as though small flickerings passed over the deck, and that is all.'
'It is but the heat waves rising from the deck, for the day is warmer than you would think, sitting here under this canopy. And besides, what call have you and I to be bothering over the pranks of common mariners, so long as they do their proper duty?'
