"And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Your beauty has been to me as a robber that stripped my life of joy and sorrow, and I desire not ever to dream of your beauty any more. For I have been able to love nobody. And I know that it is you who have prevented this, Queen Helen, at every moment of my life since the disastrous moment when I first seemed to find your loveliness in the face of Madame Dorothy. It is the memory of your beauty, as I then saw it mirrored in the face of a jill-flirt, which has enfeebled me for such honest love as other men give women; and I envy these other men. For Jurgen has loved nothing--not even you, not even Jurgen!--quite whole-heartedly. "And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Hereafter I rove no more a-questing anything; instead, I potter after hearthside comforts, and play the physician with myself, and strive painstakingly to make old bones. And no man's notion anywhere seems worth a cup of mulled wine; and for the sake of no notion would I endanger the routine which so hideously bores me. For I am transmuted by time's handling; I have become the lackey of prudence and half-measures; and it does not seem fair, but there is no help for it. So it is necessary that I now cry farewell to you, Queen Helen: for I have failed in the service of my vision, and I deny you utterly!" Thus he cried farewell to the Swan's daughter: and Queen Helen vanished as a bright mist passes, not departing swiftly, as had departed Queen Guenevere and Queen Anaïtis; and Jurgen was alone with the black gentleman. And to Jurgen the world seemed cheerless, and like a house that none has lived in for a great while. 48. Candid Opinions of Dame Lisa "Eh, sirs!" observes Koshchei the Deathless, "but some of us are certainly hard to please." And now Jurgen was already intent to shrug off his display of emotion. "In selecting a wife, sir," submitted Jurgen, "there are all sorts of matters to be considered--" Then bewilderment smote him. For it occurred to Jurgen that his previous commerce with these three women was patently unknown to Koshchei. Why, Koshchei, who made all things as they are--Koshchei, no less--was now doing for Jurgen Koshchei's utmost: and that utmost amounted to getting for Jurgen what Jurgen had once, with the aid of youth and impudence, got for himself. Not even Koshchei, then, could do more for Jurgen than might be accomplished by that youth and impudence and tendency to pry into things generally which Jurgen had just relinquished as over-restless nuisances. Jurgen drew the inference, and shrugged; decidedly cleverness was not at the top. However, there was no pressing need to enlighten Koshchei, and no wisdom in attempting it.