Jurgen and the law

by Unknown

And so we are able truly to understand the episode, occurring while Jurgen abides in this country of Cocaigne, to which so much attention has been directed by Mr. Sumner (chap. 22, pp. 151–158). This Moon Goddess (159) “who ruled not merely in Cocaigne but furtively swayed the tides of life everywhere the Moon keeps any power over tides” (159) had but one mission, “to divert and to turn aside and deflect” (159). Goethe puts into the mouth of Mephistopheles the tremendous words, “I am the spirit that always denies”. The episode in the present book simply shows forth the action of the spirit that denies, for to deflect is to deny. What occurs in the passage to which Mr. Sumner objects is nothing but a repetition of the mediæval practice of the Black Mass, the Devil’s Mass. It is certainly not against the dictates of literature to publish what the author conceives as a detail of the mysterious Black Mass; for if so then the novel, “Black Diamonds”, by the famous Hungarian novelist of a generation ago, Maurice Jokai, would never have been allowed in translation. And that the ceremony in question was a Black Mass is clear after we read, not merely the words describing the ceremony itself, but the references to it that follow.

In the inner sanctuary we find a toad nailed to a cross (157). The incident occurred “on the eve of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist” (159), in other words Midsummer Night’s Eve, at which time, according to mediæval tradition, the powers of darkness are allowed abroad.[6] Let us remember that in the country of Venus “the Church is not Christian”, and the law is “do that which seems good to you” (161). The very goddess herself was “created by perversity, and everyone knows that it is the part of piety to worship one’s creator in fashions acceptable to that creator” (165). That goddess, whose mission it was to divert, to deny, naturally enjoyed “the ceremony of God-baiting” as Jurgen calls it (157). Tannhäuser abode in the Venusberg, and nobody has dreamed of forbidding Wagner’s opera based on that. Jurgen lived in precisely the same place, but simply described with more cynicism. Really, we have nothing but “Tannhäuser” as it would have been written by Heine, if he had happened to take up the German legend in the spirit of his own cynical wit. Wagner took it seriously, and Mr. Cabell does not take it seriously; that is all the difference.

It will probably be advisable at this point to explain the details of the lance and the veil as used in this Devil’s Mass. The explanation, fortunately, can be shortly put. The lance was a real lance, which the hooded man handed to Jurgen (153). The veil was also real. It hung before the adytum (Gr. = inner part of a temple) and inside this adytum, beyond the veil, was the cross with a toad nailed upon it (157). The tip of the lance was red (154) and with it the veil was pierced that concealed the cross, but upon the cross hung the disgusting figure of a toad. The whole thing was, as Jurgen called it on the spot, a piece of “God-baiting”, a mockery, after the manner of the mediæval necromancers, of the mystery of the Passion of the Cross, of the lance that pierced a sacred Side, of the veil of the Temple that broke with a certain event which changed all the tides of history.

Taking it by itself this incident is not obscene or lewd; for mockery of sacred belief does not, as matter of law, fall into that class. An attack on religious belief cannot be indictable as an obscenity under Section 1141 of the Penal Code; if prosecuted, it must be indicted as a libel (People v. Eastman, 188 N. Y. 478). But we will not allow the defendants, nor Mr. Cabell, the author, to remain for a moment solely under that protection. This book puts forth the attack upon the Christian belief, not to support the attack, but to deride the attack itself. It is a matter of common observation that infidelity itself partakes of a religious fervor, and it is of that fervor that Jurgen makes fun. “Well, well!” says Jurgen, “but you are a little old fashioned, with all these equivocal mummeries” (157). Being “skeptical” (165) he denies that “death is going to end all for him” (171). And so Cocaigne “does not satisfy him” (172), he expresses his discontent at length (163–170) until Anaitis, in wrath, calls him “irreverent” (167), and that leads to their parting.

Surely that is a moral ending! Jurgen leaves Anaitis, his heart and mind not going along with the beliefs and practices of a goddess who enjoys every “far-fetched frolic of heathenry”, and who goes forth into the world to tempt people like St. Simeon Stylites and the hermits of the Thebaid (176). If it is unlawful to say that in print, then we must suppress Flaubert’s “Temptation of St. Anthony”, and we should certainly never permit “Tannhäuser” or “Thais” to be sung at the Metropolitan.

Then what survives all of this? What indeed but the words of one of the goddess’ friends, the Master Philologist, who says: “The Jewish mob spoke louder than He Whom they crucified. But the Word endures” (182). Jurgen, in short, tires of this place, a place where “it appears that their notion of felicity is to dwell eternally in a glorified brothel” (187).

He is now looking for Helen of Troy. Of course it is not criminal to think about her, since otherwise the second part of Faust should not be allowed in print, nor should Tennyson’s “Dream of Fair Women”. So it is lawful for Jurgen to look for her, and he does look. But on his way comes another episode.

In the domain of Leuke (192) he meets a hamadryad named Chloris. Leuke is the land of conventionality where nobody ever does anything except what he has been accustomed to do, and would never dream of doing a thing which nobody ever heard of doing (203–204). Consequently the wisest person among them is the god Silenus, the god of drunkenness, and he is always drunk in order to escape the conventional (208–9). That of course is not right, but the indictment is not drawn under the Volstead Law. Jurgen stops among these people and marries a little hamadryad, who is all that a wife should be (215) and who puts up a lunch for him when he goes for a walk (215). So conventional is Leuke, be it noted, that even a stroll is out of keeping. In this country of conventionality the people have never taken a holiday, nobody ever having heard of such a thing (206). It is the Utopia of the Podsnaps of Dickens’ time, of the Rotarians of our own. But his life in this happy place, where nothing out of the ordinary ought in nature’s course to happen, does not last long. War is threatened by the Philistines.

Be it observed, from what has already been said, that the Philistines and the people of Leuke were made by the same creator, the power that made things as they are, and consequently it does not much matter who will win, because all it will amount to is that “dullness will conquer dullness” (209). Yet in the matter of dullness the balance is with the Philistines. Fire is their means of sacrifice, not because of the glow, but because it ends in ashes, and the gray of ashes is their favorite color (230). They are Realists (231) and they believe that there is no art except it “teach something” (241). Their high priests claim to have read every book ever written, and denounce those who doubt the assertion (244). Knowing everything, believing in nothing that is not practical, they have a summary way of dealing with those who presume to disagree. All such recalcitrants are sent to Hell, “relegated to Limbo” (242).

Against the people of Leuke, the ordinary conventionalists, came these Philistines, the militant Realists. Naturally the Philistines conquered, and the people of Leuke were condemned to death. Jurgen’s wife, the little hamadryad whose life was bound up with that of her tutelary tree (215) perished with its felling. The Philistine Queen took a fancy to Jurgen, but he, “coming of morbid ancestry” (247) declined to abide in Philistia; and so they sent him to the limbo which they call Hell (250).