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JURGEN

... _amara lento temperet risu_




1.

Why Jurgen Did the Manly Thing


It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, saying: In the 'old
days lived a pawnbroker named Jurgen; but what his wife called him
was very often much worse than that. She was a high-spirited woman,
with no especial gift for silence. Her name, they say, was Adelais,
but people by ordinary called her Dame Lisa.

They tell, also, that in the old days, after putting up the shop-windows
for the night, Jurgen was passing the Cistercian Abbey, on his way home:
and one of the monks had tripped over a stone in the roadway. He was
cursing the devil who had placed it there.