Jurgen: A Play in Three Acts. James Branch Cabell
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