Part 3
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).
A better fate befalls the allied city of Pseudopolis. There live those of the Grecian spirit, of that spirit of Hellenism which, according to Matthew Arnold, wars always with the genius of Philistia. There abides Helen of Troy. Her Jurgen sees (224-9) the occasion being much the same as that which is pictured in Keats’ “St. Agnes Eve”. These people the Philistines could not slay, for “when the Philistines shouted in their triumph, Achilles and all they who served him rose from the ground like gleaming clouds and passed above the heads of the Philistines, deriding them” (231). But Jurgen and the people of ordinary conventionality perished, and thus our next view of Jurgen finds him in Hell.
The Hell to which he has gone is the Hell of his forefathers, being in truth but a monument to their egotism. They built it “out of the pride which led them to believe that what they did was of sufficient importance to merit punishment” (253). There Jurgen sees his father standing calmly in the midst of an especially tall flame, and very well satisfied with it, because of his confidence that he is important enough to deserve a special place in Hell. Therefore he is angry when the attendant devil does not sufficiently tend his furnace (254, 260-7).
It is not obscene, at least at common law, to speak lightly of Hell. If it were otherwise a great many books would be condemned. Every lawyer knows what was said about Lord Hatherley, when he, sitting in the Privy Council, held that the calvinistic idea of Hell was not part of the religion of the Church of England. It was said that Lord Hatherley had dismissed Hell with costs and had deprived thousands of their hope of everlasting damnation. Nor is it obscene to represent that there are people whose sense of personal importance rules even in death, people who think that their sins are greater than the sins of anybody else, not because of their quality as sins but because of the persons who commit them. And, pausing yet further at this point, let us suggest that if it is lewd to make fun of Philistia, then all of Matthew Arnold’s books should be burned by the hangman; and certainly Whistler’s book, “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”, should never have been allowed in public print. Indeed it was Arnold, the father-in-law of a late most respectable member of this Bar, who invented the term Philistines as used in the present connection. Mr. Cabell has simply put in another form the protest that can be made against this point of view. At least it is open to protest.
Of course, we may not be able to agree with all of Mr. Cabell’s classifications as to what pertains to Philistia. Many of us are citizens of that country without knowing it. But it is not obscene or lewd for some one else to call us Philistines because of the views we may happen to hold dear. Legally we cannot object; practically we conserve our energies by not doing so. Like the famous Bishop Bonner of Queen Mary’s time, we may do well to laugh at the caricatures which the heretics make of us.
With this in mind we might get enjoyment out of Jurgen’s observations as to the real issue between Heaven and Hell. The war between them is not as Milton saw it. Rather, the war is between autocracy and democracy; and Hell is fighting to make the universe safe for democracy (287). Everybody knew how Satan came to be the chief magistrate of Hell, he was elected to that office, and he has continued in office so long simply because elections are inadvisable in war time (278-9). And while Hell used vigorous methods against dissenters, that was only because of necessary war time legislation (278-9). But Heaven was indisputably an autocracy, because nobody knew how God derived his power. He had been there through the ages, and He proposed to have no successor (286). Such, then, was the issue. Of its outcome, the shrewd Jurgen was inclined to favor Heaven, because of its superior military efficiency (287). And so, although Jurgen’s friends in Hell try to dissuade him (288), although he has married in Hell a vampire who is quite conventional, and life there is conventional also--“Hurry”, says his wife, “for we are spending the evening with the Asmodeuses” (277)--Jurgen leaves Hell and visits Heaven.
At that moment the mood of the author changes. Jurgen ascends to Heaven leaving irreverence behind, and the pictures now uncovered are of different tone and motive. The first person whom he sees is a little boy who was once Jurgen himself. When Jurgen meets God he says, “Once very long ago I had faith in you”; to which the reply is, “No, for that boy is here with me as you yourself have seen, and today there is nothing remaining of him anywhere in the man that is Jurgen” (297).[7] Heaven contains children, mothers and grandmothers. Logic cannot lead one to it, because logic does not exist there. Therefore, children, mothers and grandmothers can ascend to Heaven where people like Jurgen cannot. Taking Heaven as an illusion, Jurgen finds none of his own illusions there, and hence he must “return to such illusions as are congenial, for one must believe in something” (306). And yet he has stood motionless for thirty-seven days in that place, “forgetful of everything save that the God of his grandmother was love” (306-7). Nobody else, he is told, has willingly turned away so soon, and it is supposed that this is due to some evil wrought in the Nessus shirt he was wearing, the like of which was never seen in Heaven (307). And finally this wayfarer, this man of modern philosophy, says that he turned away from Heaven because he seeks for justice and he cannot find it in the eyes of God, “but only love and such forgiveness as troubled him” (307). To which archangels reply that because of that very fact he should rejoice (307).
If that is obscene, then “The Little Flowers” of St. Francis D’Assisi should at once be suppressed by Mr. Sumner. If it is lewd to teach that none of us would go to Heaven if we had justice done us, Christianity once more should betake itself to the catacombs.
We are let down from these heights by way of an interview between Jurgen and St. Peter. The Saint has something to say about prohibition (311-313) with which, theoretically speaking, many might disagree. But as the defendants are not indicted under the prohibition laws, it is needless to go into this discussion. The Saint also represents Heaven as pacifistic (312-313); but Mr. Cabell wrote after the Armistice, and pacifism is not, legally speaking, obscene or lewd, whatever else it undoubtedly is.
The travels of Jurgen now draw near to their end, the rest of the book simply rounding out the ideas suggested. Returning to earth, he meets once more the earth goddess Sereda, and the pith of their talk is the conclusion, not that “there is no meaning in anything”,--that, both agree, nobody really could face,--but that the lower god, Koshchei, who made things as they are, “is in turn the butt of some larger jest, * * * that all of us take part in a moving and a shifting and a reasoned use of things * * * a using such as we do not comprehend and are not fit to comprehend” (317). The quest of Jurgen ends, fitly enough, with a return to this lower power (329), this power that made things as they are, but is controlled, however rebellious, by a higher force beyond him (333).
We then have a return, in pageant form, of the women with whom, in this year of pilgrimage just ended (319), Jurgen has foregathered. First there is Guenevere (335) who is now ready to be his wife, Arthur being gone into Avalon and Lancelot being turned monk (335); Anaitis follows (340), then Helen of Troy (345). But all of them he refuses. “For I am transmuted by time’s handling. I have become the lackey of prudence and half measures” (348). Then appears to him his wife (350) who disposes of Koshchei “casually, for she believed him to be merely Satan” (353). After ordering Jurgen to be sure to be home in time for supper and to stop on the way to get a half pound of butter, she passes out “neither as flame nor mist, but as the voice of judgment” (355). Jurgen follows her (356), but on the way he sees Dorothy, Dorothy as she is and not as she had lived in either memory or imagination (364). He arrives home recollecting that he had forgotten to do the errand his wife told him to perform, but reflecting that after all things were just about as well with him as could be. He has his wife, he has his business, and the god of things as they are has probably dealt with him very justly. “And probably his methods are everything they should be; certainly I cannot go so far as to say that they are wrong; but still at the same time--Then Jurgen sighed and entered his snug home” (368).
Doubtless we have erred in many ways in our interpretation of the book under attack: we are quite sure that we have not done it justice. After all, it must speak for itself, for everyone has his own reading of whatsoever comes to his notice. But of one thing we are sure, that it fills the test of literature as distinct from pornography; that it has a theme, sustains a thought, criticises life. _It attempts, among other things, to show the futility of escaping from conventionality by way of seeking sin, for sin itself has its conventions. It pictures sin in this spirit, and in doing so it perforce speaks of sin._ But it must be judged as a whole, not by a sentence here, or even by a page there (_Halsey_ v. _N. Y. Society_, 234 N. Y. 1). And, as decided in the case just cited, a publication can be lawful even if it should happen to contain indecent passages.
6--The passages, to which reference has been made in the complaint originally filed in Special Sessions, are not indecent.
We submit that, having in mind the context, there is nothing in “Jurgen” which is indecent. A man studiously on the alert for the indecent can put his finger on certain words in the book; but the very meaning of these words is decent if we will but read them in the connection to which they are meant to refer. And other things that are said, so far from being indecent, are things lawfully to be said, unless the body of our literature should perish from the earth.
All of this is illustrated by the bill of particulars which Mr. Sumner, one of the prosecutors in this case, furnished when he filed a complaint in the Special Sessions. Mr. Sumner there enumerates the pages containing, as he thinks, lewd and obscene matter. We shall now deal with the particulars thus furnished.
What is there to complain of on pages 59, 88, 99, 114, 134-5, 275? Pages 88 and 99 require no discussion. On pages 134-5 Guenevere takes leave of Jurgen, that is all. On page 59 occurs “temptress”, which is not obscene. On page 114 the ghost of Smoit tells Jurgen that he is his grandfather, instead of the putative ancestor whom Jurgen had always accepted. But if this is lewd, then we must stop the sale of such books as Thackeray’s “Henry Esmond”. On page 275 Jurgen stops his vampire wife from sucking his blood through biting his chest. Burne-Jones’ painting “The Vampire”, is familiar,--even to those of us who never frequent galleries at home or abroad,--through Kipling’s famous poem.
But as perhaps it is not suitable thus to summarize the particulars which Mr. Sumner was at such pains to gather, we will take the other pages which he mentions and deal with them _seriatim_.
Pages 57-8--Jurgen’s conversation with Dorothy in the garden. A kiss is not indecent. Temptation came, but it was dispelled.
Page 61--Reference to “the bed” is made--But for whom? The bride. A bridal bed is not obscene or lewd. _Vide_ wedding march in “Lohengrin”, and the relative chapters in Scott’s “The Bride of Lammermuir”.
Page 63--“Had wondered if he were really the first man for whom she had put a deceit upon her husband”, etc. If this is obscene, then nearly all current fiction is, to say nothing of the classics, ancient or modern.
Page 64--Jurgen counts up his conquests. But so did Don Juan. “The end of all is death”--but so said Villon--“_Ou sont les nieges d’antan?_”
Page 67--Speaks simply of a kiss. Whether long or short, a kiss is not lewd.
Page 80--Jurgen is talking about Guenevere to her father--“I can get justice done me anywhere, in all the bed chambers of the world.” If this is lewd, then we should abolish Ophelia’s mad song in Hamlet. Anyhow, Jurgen goes on to say (same page) “I only meant in a manner of speaking, sir.”
Pages 84-6--Jurgen tells Yolande she must reward him by candle light, etc. This contains no description of any offensive act. There is nothing explicit.
Page 89--Guenevere’s father suspects that she was not entirely chaste while in the giant’s cavern. Has literature, ancient or modern, never previously exposed a father’s doubt of his daughter’s chastity? Did no one ever study the Greek tragedies?
Page 90--The King wonders whether “a thing like this is happening” in his city in many places, and Jurgen says that it probably is. Sinclair Lewis has similar speculations in “Babbitt”. The references to a “breakage” refer to infractions of moral law.
Page 92--The King says that, if Jurgen has had improper relations with Guenevere, he should lie like a gentleman. Where is the obscenity? Has not that phrase become time-worn, in literature and conversation, since the late eighties?
Page 98--Jurgen looks forward “to more intimate converse” with the lady. Entirely compatible with just what it says. The dreadful word “liaison” also is used. But the late war has brought it into such use--“liaison officer”; “liaison between the Y. M. C. A. and the chaplains’ corps”, etc.--that the word now has _Anglice_ the extensive meaning that the French always allowed it.
Pages 100, 102, 104-8--These deal with Jurgen’s affair with Guenevere. If read as a whole, bearing in mind the outstanding point, that Guenevere’s characteristic was “her innocence, combined with a certain moral obtuseness” (108) there is nothing lewd or obscene in this any more than in Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”. Reference may be made to page 102, where Jurgen had his answer to the question, what sort of service did women most cordially appreciate. He believed they did not really desire to be served as (103) a symbol of Heaven’s perfection, as (336) half goddess, half bric-a-brac. But this opinion was not suitable for a mixed audience in Glathion, where people believed otherwise (104-108). They are not said to have done anything but kiss and talk. The reasons for their talking in privacy are logical. If any improprieties took place the text nowhere alludes to them. Compare the first part of Goethe’s “Faust,” Scott’s “The Heart of Midlothian,” George Eliot’s “Adam Bede” and “Middlemarch,” or Stevenson’s “Weir of Hermiston,” for precisely similar seductions.
Page 120--Jurgen gets into the bedroom of the Bishop. “His eminence was not alone, but as both occupants of the _apartment_ were asleep, Jurgen saw nothing unepiscopal”.--If we are to be literal, then let us observe that this passage does not say (_a_) that the other was a female; (_b_) that they were in bed together. Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey” has passages much more explicit.
Page 144--Jurgen talks concerning Guenevere and Lancelot. Tennyson, in verse, discoursed of the same thing.