"Yes, dearie, had you once sinned with a woman in the youth I gave, you would have been punished instantly and very terribly. For I was always a great believer in chastity, and in the old days I used to insure the chastity of all my priests in the only way that is infallible."
"In fact, I noticed something of the sort as you passed in Leukê."
"And over and over again I have been angered by my shadow's reports, and was about to punish you, my poor dearie, when I would remember that you held fast to the rarest of all virtues in a man, and that my shadow reported no irregularities with women. And that would please me, I acknowledge: so I would let matters run on a while longer. But it is a shiftless business, dearie, for you are making nothing of the youth I restored to you. And had you a thousand lives the result would be the same."
"Nevertheless, I am a monstrous clever fellow." Jurgen chuckled here.
"You are, instead, a palterer; and your life, apart from that fine song you made about me, is sheer waste."
"Ah, if you come to that, there was a brown man in the Druid forest, who showed me a very curious spectacle, last June. And I am not apt to lose the memory of what he showed me, whatever you may say, and whatever I may have said to him."
"This and a many other curious spectacles you have seen and have made nothing of, in the false youth I gave you. And therefore my shadow was angry that in the revelation of so much futile trifling I did not take away the youth I gave—as I have half a mind to do, even now, I warn you, dearie, for there is really no putting up with you. But I spared you because of my shadow's grudging reports as to your continence, which is a virtue that we of the Léshy peculiarly revere."
Now Jurgen considered. "Eh?—then it is within your ability to make me old again, or rather, an excellently preserved person of forty-odd, or say, thirty-nine, by the calendar, but not looking it by a long shot? Such threats are easily voiced. But how can I know that you are speaking the truth?"
"How can any of us know anything? And what is Jurgen, that his knowing or his not knowing should matter to anybody?"
"Ah, godmother, and must you still be mumbling that! Come now, forget you are a woman, and be reasonable! You exercise the fair and ancient privilege of kinship by calling me harsh names, but it is in the face of this plain fact: I got from you what never man has got before. I am a monstrous clever fellow, say what you will: for already I have cajoled you out of a year of youth, a year wherein I have neither builded nor robbed any churches, but have had upon the whole a very pleasant time. Ah, you may murmur platitudes and threats and axioms and anything else which happens to appeal to you: the fact remains that I got what I wanted. Yes, I cajoled you very neatly into giving me eternal youth. For, of course, poor dear, you are now powerless to take it back: and so I shall retain, in spite of you, the most desirable possession in life."