Efficacy of Prayer
Jurgen in a to the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn in Cameliard. All night Jurgen prayed there, not in repentance, but in terror. For his he prayed, that they should not have been out in nothingness, for the among his he had loved in boyhood, and for these only. About the men and he had since then he did not to care, or not at least so vitally. But he put up a of prayer for Dame Lisa--"wherever my dear wife may be, and, O God, that I may come to her at last, and be forgiven!" he wailed, and if he meant it.
He had about Guenevere. And nobody what were that night the of the Princess, if she offered any prayers, in the Hall of Judgment.
In the a of came to early mass. Jurgen with fervor, and started with the others. Just him a merchant stopped to a from his shoe, and the merchant's wife to the holy-water font.
"Madame, permit me," said a esquire, and offered her water.
"At eleven," said the merchant's wife, in low tones. "He will be out all day."
"My dear," says her husband, as he her, "and who was the gentleman?"
"Why, I do not know, darling. I saw him before."
"He was very civil. I wish there were more like him. And a looking fellow, too!"
"Was he? I did not notice," said the merchant's wife, indifferently.
And Jurgen saw and and the ruefully. It to him the world should be going on just as it he into the Druid forest.
He paused a crucifix, and he and looked up wistfully. "If one only know," says Jurgen, "what in Judea! How would be simplified, if anyone but the truth about You, Man upon the Cross!"
Now the Bishop of Merion passed him, from of the early mass. "My Lord Bishop," says Jurgen, simply, "can you tell me the truth about this Christ?"
"Why, indeed, Messire de Logreus," the Bishop, "one cannot but with Pilate in that the truth about Him is very hard to at, nowadays. Was He Melchisedek, or Shem, or Adam? or was He the Logos? and in that event, what of a something was the Logos? Granted He was a god, were the Arians or the Sabellians in the right? had He always, co-substantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, or was He a of the Father, a of Israelitic Zagreus? Was He the husband of Acharamoth, that Sophia, as the Valentinians aver? or the son of Pantherus, as say the Jews? or Kalakau, as Basilidês? or was it, as the Docetês taught, only a cloud in the shape of a man that from Jordan to Golgotha? Or were the Merinthians right? These are a of the questions, Messire de Logreus, which naturally arise. And not all of them are to be settled out of hand."
Thus speaking, the bowed, then three in benediction, and so Jurgen, who was still the crucifix.
"Ah, ah!" says Jurgen, to himself, "but what a of problems are, in point of fact, by religion. And what would the settling of these problems, once for all, the mind of a fellow! Come now, it might be well for me to enter the priesthood. It may be that I have a call."
But people were in the street. So Jurgen rose and his knees. And as Jurgen came out of the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn the was that away Dame Guenevere to the arms and of her husband. Jurgen upon the Cathedral porch, his mind in part pre-occupied by theology, but still not to how was this princess, as she by on her white palfrey, green-garbed and and a-glitter with jewels. She was as she passed him, her small tenderly-colored this way and that way, to the people, and not Jurgen at all.
Thus she to her bridal, that Guenevere who was the symbol of all and purity to the people of Glathion. The her; and they spoke as though it were an who passed.
"Our Princess!"
"Ah, there is none like her anywhere!"
"And a word for anyone, they say--!"
"Oh, but she is the most of ladies--!"
"And so too, that child who is her home forever!"
"And so very, very pretty!"
"--So generous!"
"King Arthur will be hard put to it to her!"
Said Jurgen: "Now it is that to these I have but to add another truth in order to have large paving-stones at her! and to have myself into fragments, by those who, thank Heaven, are no longer me!"
For the Cathedral had emptied, as the passed were among the spectators.
"Arthur will have a very queen," says a soft lazy voice.
And Jurgen and saw that him was Dame Anaïtis, people called the Lady of the Lake.
"Yes, he is to be envied," says Jurgen, politely. "But do you not with them to London?"
"Why, no," says the Lady of the Lake, "because my part in this was done when I mixed the stirrup-cup of which the Princess and Lancelot this morning. He is the son of King Ban of Benwick, that tall in armor. I am to Lancelot, for I him, at the of a that to me, and I he me credit. I also that Madame Guenevere by this time with me. And so, my part being done to my creator, I am off for Cocaigne."
"And what is this Cocaigne?"
"It is an I rule."
"I did not know you were a queen, madame."
"Why, there are a many unknown to you, Messire de Logreus, in a world where nobody any of knowledge about anything. For it is a world all men that live have but a little while to live, and none his thereafter. So that a man nothing save a of his own body: and yet the of man is of much pleasure."
"I believe," said Jurgen, as his away from what he had and in the Druid forest, "that you speak wisdom."
"Then in Cocaigne we are all wise: for that is our religion. But of what are you thinking, Duke of Logreus?"
"I was thinking," says Jurgen, "that your are the of any other woman that I have seen."
Smilingly the dark woman asked him they differed, and he said he did not know. They were looking at each other warily. In each an a opponent.
"Why, then you must come with me into Cocaigne," says Anaïtis, "and see if you cannot that difference. For it is not a I would to unsettled."
"Well, that only just to you," says Jurgen. "Yes, I must with you."
Then they left the Cathedral of the Sacred Thorn, walking together. The who toward London were now well out of and hearing, which possibly for the that Jurgen was now in no wise of Guenevere. So it was that Guenevere out of Jurgen's life for a while: and as she she talked with Lancelot.
