'I was thinking, O woman with unusual eyes, that these are hardly common mariners.'
'And I was thinking, Duke Jurgen, that I would tell you a tale of the Old Gods, to make the time speed more pleasantly as we sit here untroubled as a god and a goddess.'
Now they had passed Camwy: and Anaitis began to narrate the history of Anistar and Calmoora and of the unusual concessions they granted each other, and of how Calmoora contented her five lovers: and Jurgen found the tale perturbing.
While Anaitis talked the sky grew dark, as though the sun were ashamed and veiled his shame with clouds: and they went forward in a gray twilight which deepened steadily over a tranquil sea. So they passed the lights of Sargyll, most remote of the Red Islands, while Anaitis talked of Procris and King Minos and Pasiphae. As color went out of the air new colors entered into the sea, which now assumed the varied gleams of water that has long been stagnant. And a silence brooded over the sea, so that there was no noise anywhere except the sound of the voice of Anaitis, saying, '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.'
They came thus to a low-lying naked beach, where there was no sign of habitation. Anaitis said this was the land they were seeking, and they went ashore.
'Even now,' says Jurgen, 'I have seen none of the crew who brought us hither.'
And the beautiful dark woman shrugged, and marveled why he need perpetually be bothering over the doings of common sailors.
They went forward across the beach, through sand hills, to a moor, seeing no one, and walking in a gray fog. They passed many gray fat sluggish worms and some curious gray reptiles such as Jurgen had never imagined to exist, but Anaitis said these need not trouble them.
'So there is no call to be fingering your charmed sword as we walk here, Duke Jurgen, for these great worms do not ever harm the living.'
'For whom, then, do they lie here in wait, in this gray fog, wherethrough the green lights flutter, and wherethrough I hear at times a thin and far-off wailing?'
'What is that to you, Duke Jurgen, since you and I are still in the warm flesh? Surely there was never a man who asked more idle questions.'
'Yet this is an uncomfortable twilight.'
'To the contrary, you should rejoice that it is a fog too heavy to be penetrated by the Moon.'
'But what have I to do with the Moon?'
'Nothing, as yet. And that is as well for you, Duke Jurgen, since it is authentically reported you have derided the day which is sacred to the Moon. Now the Moon does not love derision, as I well know, for in part I serve the Moon.'
'Eh?' says Jurgen: and he began to reflect.
So they came to a wall that was high and gray, and to the door which was in the wall.
'You must knock two or three times,' says Anaitis, 'to get into Cocaigne.'
Jurgen observed the bronze knocker upon the door, and he grinned in order to hide his embarrassment.
'It is a quaint fancy,' said he, 'and the two constituents of it appear to have been modeled from life.'
'They were copied very exactly from Adam and Eve,' says Anaitis, 'who were the first persons to open this gateway.'
'Why, then,' says Jurgen, 'there is no earthly doubt that men degenerate, since here under my hand is the proof of it.'
With that he knocked, and the door opened, and the two of them entered.
22. As to a Veil They Broke
So it was that Jurgen came into Cocaigne, wherein is the bedchamber of Time. And Time, they report, came in with Jurgen, since Jurgen was mortal: and Time, they say, rejoiced in this respite from the slow toil of dilapidating cities stone by stone, and with his eyes tired by the finicky work of etching in wrinkles, went happily into his bedchamber, and fell asleep just after sunset on this fine evening in late June: so that the weather remained fair and changeless, with no glaring sun rays anywhere, and with one large star shining alone in clear daylight. This was the star of Venus Mechanitis, and Jurgen later derived considerable amusement from noting how this star was trundled about the dome of heaven by a largish beetle, named Khepre. And the trees everywhere kept their first fresh foliage, and the birds were about their indolent evening songs, all during Jurgen's stay in Cocaigne, for Time had gone to sleep at the pleasantest hour of the year's most pleasant season. So tells the tale.
And Jurgen's shadow also went in with Jurgen, but in Cocaigne as in Glathion, nobody save Jurgen seemed to notice this curious shadow which now followed Jurgen everywhere.
In Cocaigne Queen Anaitis had a palace, where domes and pinnacles beyond numbering glimmered with a soft whiteness above the top of an old twilit forest, wherein the vegetation was unlike that which is nourished by ordinary earth. There was to be seen in these woods, for instance, a sort of moss which made Jurgen shudder. So Anaitis and Jurgen came through narrow paths, like murmuring green caverns, into a courtyard walled and paved with yellow marble, wherein was nothing save the dimly colored statue of a god with ten heads and thirty-four arms: he was represented as very much engrossed by a woman, and with his unoccupied hands was holding yet other women.
'It is Jigsbyed,' said Anaitis.
Said Jurgen: 'I do not criticize. Nevertheless, I think this Jigsbyed is carrying matters to extremes.'
Then they passed the statue of Tangaro Loloquong, and afterward the statue of Legba. Jurgen stroked his chin, and his color heightened. 'Now certainly, Queen Anaitis,' he said, 'you have unusual taste in sculpture.'
Thence Jurgen came with Anaitis into a white room, with copper plaques upon the walls, and there four girls were heating water in a brass tripod. They bathed Jurgen, giving him astonishing caresses meanwhile—with the tongue, the hair, the finger-nails, and the tips of the breasts,—and they anointed him with four oils, then dressed him again in his glittering shirt. Of Caliburn, said Anaitis, there was no present need: so Jurgen's sword was hung upon the wall.
These girls brought silver bowls containing wine mixed with honey, and they brought pomegranates and eggs and barleycorn, and triangular red-colored loaves, whereon they sprinkled sweet-smelling little seeds with formal gestures. Then Anaitis and Jurgen broke their fast, eating together while the four girls served them.
'And now,' says Jurgen, 'and now, my dear, I would suggest that we enter into the pursuit of those curious pleasures of which you were telling me.'
'I am very willing,' responded Anaitis, 'since there is no one of these pleasures but is purchased by some diversion of man's nature. Yet first, as I need hardly inform you, there is a ceremonial to be observed.'
'And what, pray, is this ceremonial?'
'Why, we call it the Breaking of the Veil.' And Queen Anaitis explained what they must do.
'Well,' says Jurgen, 'I am willing to taste any drink once.'
So Anaitis led Jurgen into a sort of chapel, adorned with very unchurchlike paintings. There were four shrines, dedicated severally to St. Cosmo, to St. Damianus, to St. Guignole of Brest, and to St. Foutin de Varailles. In this chapel were a hooded man, clothed in long garments that were striped with white and yellow, and two naked children, both girls. One of the children carried a censer: the other held in one hand a vividly blue pitcher half filled with water, and in her left hand a cellar of salt.
First of all, the hooded man made Jurgen ready. 'Behold the lance,' said the hooded man, 'which must serve you in this adventure.'
'I accept the adventure,' Jurgen replied, 'because I believe the weapon to be trustworthy.'
Said the hooded man: 'So be it! but as you are, so once was I.'
Meanwhile Duke Jurgen held the lance erect, shaking it with his right hand. This lance was large, and the tip of it was red with blood.
'Behold,' said Jurgen, 'I am a man born of a woman incomprehensibly. Now I, who am miraculous, am found worthy to perform a miracle, and to create that which I may not comprehend.'
