Jurgen by James Branch Cabell (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

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 Anaïtis,” he said, “you have unusual taste in sculpture.”

Thence Jurgen came with Anaïtis 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 fingernails, and the tips of the breasts⁠—and they anointed him with four oils, then dressed him again in his glittering shirt. Of Caliburn, said Anaïtis, 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 Anaïtis 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 Anaïtis, “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 Anaïtis explained what they must do.

“Well,” says Jurgen, “I am willing to taste any drink once.”

So Anaïtis 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.”

Anaïtis took salt and water from the child, and mingled these. “Let the salt of earth enable the thin fluid to assume the virtue of the teeming sea!”

Then, kneeling, she touched the lance, and began to stroke it lovingly. To Jurgen she said: “Now may you be fervent of soul and body! May the endless Serpent be your crown, and the fertile flame of the sun your strength!”

Said the hooded man, again: “So be it!” His voice was high and bleating, because of that which had been done to him.

“That therefore which we cannot understand we also invoke,” said Jurgen. “By the power of the lifted lance”⁠—and now with his left hand he took the hand of Anaïtis⁠—“I, being a man born of a woman incomprehensibly, now seize upon that which alone I desire with my whole being. I lead you toward the east. I upraise you above the earth and all the things of earth.”

Then Jurgen raised Queen Anaïtis so that she sat upon the altar, and that which was there before tumbled to the ground. Anaïtis placed together the tips of her thumbs and of her fingers, so that her hands made an open triangle; and waited thus. Upon her head was a network of red coral, with branches radiating downward: her gauzy tunic had twenty-two openings, so as to admit all imaginable caresses, and was of two colors, being shot with black and crimson curiously mingled: her dark eyes glittered and her breath came fast.

Now the hooded man and the two naked girls performed their share in the ceremonial, which part it is not essential to record. But Jurgen was rather shocked by it.

None the less, Jurgen said: “O cord that binds the circling of the stars! O cup which holds all time, all color, and all thought! O soul of space! not unto any image of thee do we attain unless thy image show in what we are about to do. Therefore by every plant which scatters its seed and by the moist warm garden which receives and nourishes it, by the comminglement of bloodshed with pleasure, by the joy that mimics anguish with sighs and shudderings, and by the contentment which mimics death⁠—by all these do we invoke thee. O thou, continuous one, whose will these children attend, and whom I now adore in this fair-colored and soft woman’s body, it is thou whom I honor, not any woman, in doing what seems good to me: and it is thou who art about to speak, and not she.”

Then Anaïtis said: “Yea, for I speak with the tongue of every woman, and I shine in the eyes of every woman, when the lance is lifted. To serve me is better than all else. When you invoke me with a heart wherein is kindled the serpent flame, if but for a moment, you will understand the delights of my garden, what joy unwordable pulsates therein, and how potent is the sole desire which uses all of a man. To serve me you will then be eager to surrender whatever else is in your life: and other pleasures you will take with your left hand, not thinking of them entirely: for I am the desire which uses all of a man, and so wastes nothing. And I accept you, I yearn toward you,