The Brown Man with Queer Feet
Early in the Jurgen left Cameliard, traveling toward Carohaise, and into the Druid there, and Merlin's instructions.
"Not that I for a moment in such nonsense," said Jurgen: "but it will be to see what comes of this business, and it is to nonsense a trial."
So he presently a sun-browned fellow, who sat upon the bank of a stream, his in the water, and making music with a pipe of seven of lengths. To him Jurgen displayed, in such a manner as Merlin had prescribed, the which Merlin had given. The man a sign, and rose. Jurgen saw that this man's were unusual.
Jurgen low, and he said, as Merlin had bidden: "Now be to thee, lord of the two truths! I have come to thee, O most wise, that I may learn secret. I would know thee, and would know the forty-two ones who with in the of the two truths, and who are by evil-doers, and who of blood each day of the Wennofree. I would know for what art."
The man answered: "I am that was and that is to be. Never has any been able to what I am."
Then this man Jurgen to an open glen, at the of the forest.
"Merlin not come himself, because," the man, "Merlin is wise. But you are a poet. So you will presently that which you are about to see, or at you will tell about it, particularly to yourself."
"I do not know about that," says Jurgen, "but I am to taste any drink once. What are you about to me?"
The man answered: "All."
So it was near when they came out of the glen. It was dark now, for a had risen. The man was smiling, and Jurgen was in a flutter.
"It is not true," Jurgen protested. "What you have me is a pack of nonsense. It is the of a so-called Realist. It is and pure and blasphemy. It is, in a word, something I do not choose to believe. You ought to be of yourself!"
"Even so, you do me, Jurgen."
"I that you are an man and that I am your cousin: so there are two more for you."
The man said, still smiling: "Yes, you are a poet, you who have the of my cousin. For you come out of my glen, and from my candor, as as when you entered. That is not saying much, to be sure, in of a poet's at any time. But Merlin would have died, and Merlin would have died without regret, if Merlin had what you have seen, Merlin reasonably."
"Facts! sanity! and reason!" Jurgen raged: "why, but what nonsense you are talking! Were there a of truth in your this world of time and space and would be a bubble, a which the sun and moon and the high stars, and still was but a in swill! I must go my mind of all this foulness. You would have me that men, that all men who have or shall live hereafter, that I am of no importance! Why, there would be no in any such arrangement, no anywhere!"
"That you, did it not? It me at times, me, who under Koshchei's will alone am changeless."
"I do not know about your variability: but I to my opinion about your veracity," says Jurgen, for all that he was upon the of hysteria. "Yes, if people that would be sore."
Then the man his foot, and the of his upon the a new noise such as Jurgen had heard: for the noise to come from every side, at as though each in the were cachinnating; and then this noise was by the of larger creatures, and played with this noise, until there was a like that of thunder. The earth moved under their very much as a its skin under the of flies. Another thing Jurgen noticed, and it was that the trees about the had and their trunks, and so had bended, much as in very weather, to their at the of the man. And the man's was as he there, terrible in a from the low-hanging clouds, and with the making obeisance, and with and everywhere.
"Make answer, you who about justice! how if I you now," says the man,--"I being what I am?"
"Slay me, then!" says Jurgen, with eyes, for he did not at all like the of things. "Yes, you can kill me if you choose, but it is your power to make me that there is no anywhere, and that I am unimportant. For I would have you know I am a fellow. As for you, you are either a or a god or a Realist. But you are, you have to me, and I know that you have lied, and I will not in the of Jurgen."
Chillingly came the of the man: "Poor fool! O shuddering, stiff-necked fool! and have you not just that which you may not forget?"
"None the less, I think there is something in me which will endure. I am by cowardice, I am by memories; and I am by old follies. Still, I to in myself something which is permanent and fine. Underneath everything, and in of everything, I do to that something. What rôle that something is to after the death of my body, and upon what stage, I cannot guess. When I shall open the door. Meanwhile I tell you candidly, you man, there is something in Jurgen too for any to into the dustheap. I am, if nothing else, a fellow: and I think I shall endure, somehow. Yes, cap in hand goes through the land, as the saying is, and I I can some to when the need arises," says Jurgen, trembling, and gulping, and with his tight, but so, with his mind up about it. "Of you may be right; and I cannot go so as to say you are wrong: but still, at the same time--"
"Now but a fool's opinion of himself," the man cried, "the Gods are powerless. Oh, yes, and envious, too!"
And when Jurgen very opened his the man had left him physically unharmed. But the of Jurgen's was deplorable.
