Assumption of a Noted Garment
The tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen see no one. But the forward, and downward, and at the end was a of light. Jurgen on and on, and so came presently to a centaur: and this him not a little, Jurgen that were creatures.
Certainly they were to look at: for here was the of a horse, and from its shoulders, the sun-burnt of a who Jurgen with and not eyes. The Centaur was a fire of and wood: near him was a a liquid with which he was his hoofs. This stuff, as the Centaur it in with his fingers, the of his to gold.
"Hail, friend," says Jurgen, "if you be the work of God."
"Your is not good Greek," the Centaur, "because in Hellas we did not make such reservations. Besides, it is not so much my as my which you."
"Well, friend, and are you going?"
"To the garden and sunrise, Jurgen."
"Surely, now, but that is a name for a garden! and it is a place I would take to be seeing."
"Up upon my back, Jurgen, and I will take you thither," says the Centaur, and to his feet. Then said the Centaur, when the hesitated: "Because, as you must understand, there is no other way. For this garden not exist, and did exist, in what men called life; so that of only such as I can enter it."
"That very reasonable," Jurgen estimated: "but as it happens, I am looking for my wife, I to have been off by a devil, fellow!"
And Jurgen to to the Centaur what had befallen.
The Centaur laughed. "It may be for that I am here. There is, in any event, only one in this matter. Above all devils--and above all gods, they tell me, but above all centaurs--is the power of Koshchei the Deathless, who as they are."
"It is not always wholesome," Jurgen submitted, "to speak of Koshchei. It in a dark place like this."
"None the less, I it is to him you must go for justice."
"I would not doing that," said Jurgen, with candor.
"You have my sympathy: but there is no question of where Koshchei is concerned. Do you think, for example, that I am in this place by my own choice? and your name by accident?"
Jurgen was frightened, a little. "Well, well! but it is the and all, this doing of the thing. How, then, can I come to Koshchei?"
"Roundabout," says the Centaur. "There is any other way."
"And is the road to this garden roundabout?"
"Oh, very much so, as it and common-sense."
"Needs must, then," says Jurgen: "at all events, I am to taste any drink once."
"You will be chilled, though, traveling as you are. For you and I are going a way, in search of justice, over the of a and through the of time. So you had best put on this shirt above your other clothing."
"Indeed it is a garment, with on it. I accept such gladly. And shall I be for his kindness, now?"
"My name," said the Centaur, "is Nessus."
"Well, then, friend Nessus, I am at your service."
And in a Jurgen was on the Centaur's back, and the two of them had somehow come out of the cave, and were Amneran Heath. So they passed into a place, where the light of yet lingered, unaccountably. Now the Centaur westward. And now about the pawnbroker's and upon his and over his arms like a the many-colored shirt of Nessus.
For a while they through the woods, which were of big trees a from one another, with the Centaur's and in a thick of leaves, all and brown, in level that were by any undergrowth. And then they came to a white that west, and so were done with the woods. Now an thing in which Jurgen would have had he not it with his own eyes: for now the Centaur so fast that he a little by a little upon the sun, thus it to in the west a little by a little; and these two in the of a sunset. The sun full in Jurgen's as he toward the west, so that he and closed his eyes, and looked toward this side, then the other. Thus it was that the country about him, and the they were passing, were by him in quick flashes, like pictures into other pictures; and all his memories of this were, in consequence, always and incoherent.
He that there to be so many along the road to the garden. Here was a girl in white a great and yellow dog that about her clumsily; here a girl sat in the of a and tree, and of her was a river, copper-colored in the sun; and here the of a tall girl on horseback, who to wait for someone: in fine, the girls along the way were numberless, and Jurgen he one or two of them.
But the Centaur so that Jurgen not be sure.
