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                         Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 .
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About the electronic version

The Mysterious Stranger; A Romance by Mark Twain [pseud.] with
illustrations by N.C. Wyeth.
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910
Illustrator N.C. Wyeth

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2000
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About the print version

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910
Illustrator N.C. Wyeth [3] l., 150, [1] p. col. front., col. plates. 24 cm.

Harper & Brothers
New York, London
1916
Source copy consulted: PS 1322 .M97 1916, Special Collections, Alderman
Library, University of Virginia

   Prepared for the University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center.

Published: 1916

English fiction prose masculine Mark Twain LCSH
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                    Eseldorf Was a Paradise for Us Boys

                                  [Image]

                          The Mysterious Stranger
                                 A Romance

                                    By
                                 Mark Twain
                           With Illustrations By
                                N. C. Wyeth

                        Harper & Brothers Publishers

                                  New York

                                   1916

                               Illustrations


*Eseldorf Was a Paradise for Us
Boys......................................Frontispiece

*The Lightning Blazed Out Flash Upon Flash and Set the Castle on
Fire.....Facing p. 20

*On the Fourth Day Comes the Astrologer from His Crumbling Old
Tower......" 38

*Marget Was Cheerful By Help of Wilhelm
Meidling.........................." 60

*The Astrologer Emptied the Whole of the Bowl into the
Bottle............." 74

*There Was a Sound of Tramping Outside and the Crowd Came Solemnly
In....." 108

*"Life Itself Is Only a Vision, a
Dream".................................." 148

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                                 Chapter 1

                                 Chapter 1

    IT WAS IN 1590 -- winter. Austria was far away from the world, and
asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so
forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that
by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in
Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so
taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only
a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.

    Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in
the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in
peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from
the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely
content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted with
cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats; behind it
rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from the top of
the precipice frowned a vast castle, its long stretch of towers and
bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, a league to the left, was a
tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the
sun never penetrated; and to the right a precipice overlooked the river,
and between it and the hills just spoken of lay a far-reaching plain dotted
with little homesteads nested among orchards and shade trees.

    The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of a
prince, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for
occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in
five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived,
and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went
they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an
orgy.

    Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with
schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Christians; to revere the
Virgin, the Church, and the saints above everything. Beyond these matters
we were not required to know much; and, in fact, not allowed to. Knowledge
was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with
the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure
discontentment with His plans. We had two priests. One of them, Father
Adolf, was a very zealous and strenuous priest, much considered.

    There may have been better priests, in some ways, than Father Adolf,
but there was never one in our commune who was held in more solemn and
awful respect. This was because he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He
was the only Christian I have ever known of whom that could be truly said.
People stood in deep dread of him on that account; for they thought that
there must be something supernatural about him, else he could not be so
bold and so confident. All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil,
but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolf's way was very
different; he called him by every name he could lay his tongue to, and it
made everyone shudder that heard him; and often he would even speak of him
scornfully and scoffingly; then the people crossed themselves and went
quickly out of his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen.

    Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face more than once, and
defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf said it himself. He never
made any secret of it, but spoke it right out. And that he was speaking
true there was proof in at least one instance, for on that occasion he
quarreled with the enemy, and intrepidly threw his bottle at him; and
there, upon the wall of his study, was the ruddy splotch where it struck
and broke.

    But it was Father Peter, the other priest, that we all loved best and
were sorriest for. Some people charged him with talking around in
conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all his
poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was never
any absolute proof that Father Peter said it; and it was out of character
for him to say it, too, for he was always good and gentle and truthful. He
wasn't charged with saying it in the pulpit, where all the congregation
could hear and testify, but only outside, in talk; and it is easy for
enemies to manufacture that. Father Peter had an enemy and a very powerful
one, the astrologer who lived in a tumbled old tower up the valley, and put
in his nights studying the stars. Every one knew he could foretell wars and
famines, though that was not so hard, for there was always a war, and
generally a famine somewhere. But he could also read any man's life through
the stars in a big book he had, and find lost property, and every one in
the village except Father Peter stood in awe of him. Even Father Adolf, who
had defied the Devil, had a wholesome respect for the astrologer when he
came through our village wearing his tall, pointed hat and his long,
flowing robe with stars on it, carrying his big book, and a staff which was
known to have magic power. The bishop himself sometimes listened to the
astrologer, it was said, for, besides studying the stars and prophesying,
the astrologer made a great show of piety, which would impress the bishop,
of course.

    But Father Peter took no stock in the astrologer. He denounced him
openly as a charlatan -- a fraud with no valuable knowledge of any kind, or
powers beyond those of an ordinary and rather inferior human being, which
naturally made the astrologer hate Father Peter and wish to ruin him. It
was the astrologer, as we all believed, who originated the story about
Father Peter's shocking remark and carried it to the bishop. It was said
that Father Peter had made the remark to his niece, Marget, though Marget
denied it and implored the bishop to believe her and spare her old uncle
from poverty and disgrace. But the bishop wouldn't listen. He suspended
Father Peter indefinitely, though he wouldn't go so far as to excommunicate
him on the evidence of only one witness; and now Father Peter had been out
a couple of years, and our other priest, Father Adolf, had his flock.

    Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They had been
favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow of
the bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the rest
became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when the
trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it.
She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own
industry. But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was forgotten when
there were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young
fellows stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling -- and he
could have been spared; she and her uncle were sad and forlorn in their
neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone out of their lives. Matters
went worse and worse, all through the two years. Clothes were wearing out,
bread was harder and harder to get. And now, at last, the very end was
come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the money he was willing to put on the
house, and gave notice that to-morrow he would foreclose.

                                 Chapter 2

                                 Chapter 2

    Three of us boys were always together, and had been so from the cradle,
being fond of one another from the beginning, and this affection deepened
as the years went on -- Nikolaus Bauman, son of the principal judge of the
local court; Seppi Wohlmeyer, son of the keeper of the principal inn, the
"Golden Stag," which had a nice garden, with shade trees reaching down to
the riverside, and pleasure boats for hire; and I was the third -- Theodor
Fischer, son of the church organist, who was also leader of the village
musicians, teacher of the violin, composer, tax-collector of the commune,
sexton, and in other ways a useful citizen, and respected by all. We knew
the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them; for we were always
roaming them when we had leisure -- at least, when we were not swimming or
boating or fishing, or playing on the ice or sliding down hill.

    And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was
because we were pets of the oldest servingman in the castle -- Felix
Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old times
and strange things, and to smoke with him (he taught us that) and to drink
coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of Vienna; and
there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away, among the captured
things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish prisoners explained the
character of it and how to make a pleasant drink out of it, and now he
always kept coffee by him, to drink himself and also to astonish the
ignorant with. When it stormed he kept us all night; and while it thundered
and lightened outside he told us about ghosts and horrors of every kind,
and of battles and murders and mutilations, and such things, and made it
pleasant and cozy inside; and he told these things from his own experience
largely. He had seen many ghosts in his time, and witches and enchanters,
and once he was lost in a fierce storm at midnight in the mountains, and by
the glare of the lightning had seen the Wild Huntsman rage on the blast
with his specter dogs chasing after him through the driving cloud-rack.
Also he had seen an incubus once, and several times he had seen the great
bat that sucks the blood from the necks of people while they are asleep,
fanning them softly with its wings and so keeping them drowsy till they
die.

    He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as ghosts, and
said they did no harm, but only wandered about because they were lonely and
distressed and wanted kindly notice and compassion; and in time we learned
not to be afraid, and even went down with him in the night to the haunted
chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost appeared only once, and it
went by very dim to the sight and floated noiseless through the air, and
then disappeared; and we scarcely trembled, he had taught us so well. He
said it came up sometimes in the night and woke him by passing its clammy
hand over his face, but it did him no hurt; it only wanted sympathy and
notice. But the strangest thing was that he had seen angels -- actual
angels out of heaven -- and had talked with them. They had no wings, and
wore clothes, and talked and looked and acted just like any natural person,
and you would never know them for angels except for the wonderful things
they did which a mortal could not do, and the way they suddenly disappeared
while you were talking with them, which was also a thing which no mortal
could do. And he said they were pleasant and cheerful, not gloomy and
melancholy, like ghosts.

    It was after that kind of a talk one May night that we got up next
morning and had a good breakfast with him and then went down and crossed
the bridge and went away up into the hills on the left to a woody hill-top
which was a favorite place of ours, and there we stretched out on the grass
in the shade to rest and smoke and talk over these strange things, for they
were in our minds yet, and impressing us. But we couldn't smoke, because we
had been heedless and left our flint and steel behind.

    Soon there came a youth strolling toward us through the trees, and he
sat down and began to talk in a friendly way, just as if he knew us. But we
did not answer him, for he was a stranger and we were not used to strangers
and were shy of them. He had new and good clothes on, and was handsome and
had a winning face and a pleasant voice, and was easy and graceful and
unembarrassed, not slouchy and awkward and diffident, like other boys. We
wanted to be friendly with him, but didn't know how to begin. Then I
thought of the pipe, and wondered if it would be taken as kindly meant if I
offered it to him. But I remembered that we had no fire, so I was sorry and
disappointed. But he looked up bright and pleased, and said:

    "Fire? Oh, that is easy; I will furnish it."

    I was so astonished I couldn't speak; for I had not said anything. He
took the pipe and blew his breath on it, and the tobacco glowed red, and
spirals of blue smoke rose up. We jumped up and were going to run, for that
was natural; and we did run a few steps, although he was yearningly
pleading for us to stay, and giving us his word that he would not do us any
harm, but only wanted to be friends with us and have company. So we stopped
and stood, and wanted to go back, being full of curiosity and wonder, but
afraid to venture. He went on coaxing, in his soft, persuasive way; and
when we saw that the pipe did not blow up and nothing happened, our
confidence returned by little and little, and presently our curiosity got
to be stronger than our fear, and we ventured back -- but slowly, and ready
to fly at any alarm.

    He was bent on putting us at ease, and he had the right art; one could
not remain doubtful and timorous where a person was so earnest and simple
and gentle, and talked so alluringly as he did; no, he won us over, and it
was not long before we were content and comfortable and chatty, and glad we
had found this new friend. When the feeling of constraint was all gone we
asked him how he had learned to do that strange thing, and he said he
hadn't learned it at all; it came natural to him -- like other things --
other curious things.

    "What ones?"

    "Oh, a number; I don't know how many."

    "Will you let us see you do them?"

    "Do -- please!" the others said.

    "You won't run away again?"

    "No -- indeed we won't. Please do. Won't you?"

    "Yes, with pleasure; but you mustn't forget your promise, you know."

    We said we wouldn't, and he went to a puddle and came back with water
in a cup which he had made out of a leaf, and blew upon it and threw it
out, and it was a lump of ice the shape of the cup. We were astonished and
charmed, but not afraid any more; we were very glad to be there, and asked
him to go on and do some more things. And he did. He said he would give us
any kind of fruit we liked, whether it was in season or not. We all spoke
at once;

    "Orange!"

    "Apple!"

    "Grapes!"

    "They are in your pockets," he said, and it was true. And they were of
the best, too, and we ate them and wished we had more, though none of us
said so.

    "You will find them where those came from," he said, "and everything
else your appetites call for; and you need not name the thing you wish; as
long as I am with you, you have only to wish and find."

    And he said true. There was never anything so wonderful and so
interesting. Bread, cakes, sweets, nuts -- whatever one wanted, it was
there. He ate nothing himself, but sat and chatted, and did one curious
thing after another to amuse us. He made a tiny toy squirrel out of clay,
and it ran up a tree and sat on a limb overhead and barked down at us. Then
he made a dog that was not much larger than a mouse, and it treed the
squirrel and danced about the tree, excited and barking, and was as alive
as any dog could be. It frightened the squirrel from tree to tree and
followed it up until both were out of sight in the forest. He made birds
out of clay and set them free, and they flew away, singing.

    At last I made bold to ask him to tell us who he was.

    "An angel," he said, quite simply, and set another bird free and
clapped his hands and made it fly away.

    A kind of awe fell upon us when we heard him say that, and we were
afraid again; but he said we need not be troubled, there was no occasion
for us to be afraid of an angel, and he liked us, anyway. He went on
chatting as simply and unaffectedly as ever; and while he talked he made a
crowd of little men and women the size of your finger, and they went
diligently to work and cleared and leveled off a space a couple of yards
square in the grass and began to build a cunning little castle in it, the
women mixing the mortar and carrying it up the scaffoldings in pails on
their heads, just as our work-women have always done, and the men laying
the courses of masonry -- five hundred of these toy people swarming briskly
about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as
natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those five hundred
little people make the castle grow step by step and course by course, and
take shape and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed away and we were
quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we might make some people,
and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some cannon for the walls, and told
Nikolaus to make some halberdiers, with breastplates and greaves and
helmets, and I was to make some cavalry, with horses, and in allotting
these tasks he called us by our names, but did not say how he knew them.
Then Seppi asked him what his own name was, and he said, tranquilly,
"Satan," and held out a chip and caught a little woman on it who was
falling from the scaffolding and put her back where she belonged, and said,
"She is an idiot to step backward like that and not notice what she is
about."

    It caught us suddenly, that name did, and our work dropped out of our
hands and broke to pieces -- a cannon, a halberdier, and a horse. Satan
laughed, and asked what was the matter. I said, "Nothing, only it seemed a
strange name for an angel." He asked why.

    "Because it's -- it's -- well, it's his name, you know."

    "Yes -- he is my uncle."

    He said it placidly, but it took our breath for a moment and made our
hearts beat. He did not seem to notice that, but mended our halberdiers and
things with a touch, handing them to us finished, and said, "Don't you
remember? -- he was an angel himself, once."

    "Yes -- it's true," said Seppi; "I didn't think of that."

    "Before the Fall he was blameless."

    "Yes," said Nikolaus, "he was without sin."

    "It is a good family -- ours," said Satan; "there is not a better. He
is the only member of it that has ever sinned."

    I should not be able to make any one understand how exciting it all
was. You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you
are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is
just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze,
and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be
anywhere but there, not for the world. I was bursting to ask one question
-- I had it on my tongue's end and could hardly hold it back -- but I was
ashamed to ask it; it might be a rudeness. Satan set an ox down that he had
been making, and smiled up at me and said:

    "It wouldn't be a rudeness, and I should forgive it if it was. Have I
seen him? Millions of times. From the time that I was a little child a
thousand years old I was his second favorite among the nursery angels of
our blood and lineage -- to use a human phrase -- yes, from that time until
the Fall, eight thousand years, measured as you count time."

    "Eight -- thousand!"

    "Yes." He turned to Seppi, and went on as if answering something that
was in Seppi's mind: "Why, naturally I look like a boy, for that is what I
am. With us what you call time is a spacious thing; it takes a long stretch
of it to grow an angel to full age." There was a question in my mind, and
he turned to me and answered it, "I am sixteen thousand years old --
counting as you count." Then he turned to Nikolaus and said: "No, the Fall
did not affect me nor the rest of the relationship. It was only he that I
was named for who ate of the fruit of the tree and then beguiled the man
and the woman with it. We others are still ignorant of sin; we are not able
to commit it; we are without blemish, and shall abide in that estate
always. We -- " Two of the little workmen were quarreling, and in buzzing
little bumblebee voices they were cursing and swearing at each other; now
came blows and blood; then they locked themselves together in a
life-and-death struggle. Satan reached out his hand and crushed the life
out of them with his fingers, threw them away, wiped the red from his
fingers on his handkerchief, and went on talking where he had left off: "We
cannot do wrong; neither have we any disposition to do it, for we do not
know what it is."

    It seemed a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed
that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had committed
-- for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without palliation
or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us
miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and so beautiful
and gracious, and had honestly believed he was an angel; and to have him do
this cruel thing -- ah, it lowered him so, and we had had such pride in
him. He went right on talking, just as if nothing had happened, telling
about his travels, and the interesting things he had seen in the big worlds
of our solar systems and of other solar systems far away in the
remotenesses of space, and about the customs of the immortals that inhabit
them, somehow fascinating us, enchanting us, charming us in spite of the
pitiful scene that was now under our eyes, for the wives of the little dead
men had found the crushed and shapeless bodies and were crying over them,
and sobbing and lamenting, and a priest was kneeling there with his hands
crossed upon his breast, praying; and crowds and crowds of pitying friends
were massed about them, reverently uncovered, with their bare heads bowed,
and many with the tears running down -- a scene which Satan paid no
attention to until the small noise of the weeping and praying began to
annoy him, then he reached out and took the heavy board seat out of our
swing and brought it down and mashed all those people into the earth just
as if they had been flies, and went on talking just the same.

    An angel, and kill a priest! An angel who did not know how to do wrong,
and yet destroys in cold blood hundreds of helpless poor men and women who
had never done him any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed, and to
think that none of those poor creatures was prepared except the priest, for
none of them had ever heard a mass or seen a church. And we were witnesses;
we had seen these murders done and it was our duty to tell, and let the law
take its course.

    But he went on talking right along, and worked his enchantments upon us
again with that fatal music of his voice. He made us forget everything; we
could only listen to him, and love him, and be his slaves, to do with us as
he would. He made us drunk with the joy of being with him, and of looking
into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that thrilled along
our veins from the touch of his hand.

                                 Chapter 3

                                 Chapter 3

    The Stranger had seen everything, he had been everywhere, he knew
everything, and he forgot nothing. What another must study, he learned at a
glance; there were no difficulties for him. And he made things live before
you when he told about them. He saw the world made; he saw Adam created; he
saw Samson surge against the pillars and bring the temple down in ruins
about him; he saw Caesar's death; he told of the daily life in heaven; he
had seen the damned writhing in the red waves of hell; and he made us see
all these things, and it was as if we were on the spot and looking at them
with our own eyes. And we felt them, too, but there was no sign that they
were anything to him beyond mere entertainments. Those visions of hell,
those poor babes and women and girls and lads and men shrieking and
supplicating in anguish -- why, we could hardly bear it, but he was as
bland about it as if it had been so many imitation rats in an artificial
fire.

    And always when he was talking about men and women here on the earth
and their doings -- even their grandest and sublimest -- we were secretly
ashamed, for his manner showed that to him they and their doings were of
paltry poor consequence; often you would think he was talking about flies,
if you didn't know. Once he even said, in so many words, that our people
down here were quite interesting to him, notwithstanding they were so dull
and ignorant and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and
such a shabby, poor, worthless lot all around. He said it in a quite
matter-of-course way and without bitterness, just as a person might talk
about bricks or manure or any other thing that was of no consequence and
hadn't feelings. I could see he meant no offense, but in my thoughts I set
it down as not very good manners.

    "Manners!" he said. "Why, it is merely the truth, and truth is good
manners; manners are a fiction. The castle is done. Do you like it?"

    Any one would have been obliged to like it. It was lovely to look at,
it was so shapely and fine, and so cunningly perfect in all its
particulars, even to the little flags waving from the turrets. Satan said
we must put the artillery in place now, and station the halberdiers and
display the cavalry. Our men and horses were a spectacle to see, they were
so little like what they were intended for; for, of course, we had no art
in making such things. Satan said they were the worst he had seen; and when
he touched them and made them alive, it was just ridiculous the way they
acted, on account of their legs not being of uniform

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    The Lightning Blazed Out Flash Upon Flask and Set the Castle on Fire

lengths. They reeled and sprawled around as if they were drunk, and
endangered everybody's lives around them, and finally fell over and lay
helpless and kicking. It made us all laugh, though it was a shameful thing
to see. The guns were charged with dirt, to fire a salute, but they were so
crooked and so badly made that they all burst when they went off, and
killed some of the gunners and crippled the others. Satan said we would
have a storm now, and an earthquake, if we liked, but we must stand off a
piece, out of danger. We wanted to call the people away, too, but he said
never mind them; they were of no consequence, and we could make more, some
time or other, if we needed them.

    A small storm-cloud began to settle down black over the castle, and the
miniature lightning and thunder began to play, and the ground to quiver,
and the wind to pipe and wheeze, and the rain to fall, and all the people
flocked into the castle for shelter. The cloud settled down blacker and
blacker, and one could see the castle only dimly through it; the lightning
blazed out flash upon flash and pierced the castle and set it on fire, and
the flames shone out red and fierce through the cloud, and the people came
flying out, shrieking, but Satan brushed them back, paying no attention to
our begging and crying and imploring; and in the midst of the howling of
the wind and volleying of the thunder the magazine blew up, the earthquake
rent the ground wide, and the castle's wreck and ruin tumbled into the
chasm, which swallowed it from sight, and closed upon it, with all that
innocent life, not one of the five hundred poor creatures escaping. Our
hearts were broken; we could not keep from crying.

    "Don't cry," Satan said; "they were of no value."

    "But they are gone to hell!"

    "Oh, it is no matter; we can make plenty more."

    It was of no use to try to move him; evidently he was wholly without
feeling, and could not understand. He was full of bubbling spirits, and as
gay as if this were a wedding instead of a fiendish massacre. And he was
bent on making us feel as he did, and of course his magic accomplished his
desire. It was no trouble to him; he did whatever he pleased with us. In a
little while we were dancing on that grave, and he was playing to us on a
strange, sweet instrument which he took out of his pocket; and the music --
but there is no music like that, unless perhaps in heaven, and that was
where he brought it from, he said. It made one mad, for pleasure; and we
could not take our eyes from him, and the looks that went out of our eyes
came from our hearts, and their dumb speech was worship. He brought the
dance from heaven, too, and the bliss of paradise was in it.

    Presently he said he must go away on an errand. But we could not bear
the thought of it, and clung to him, and pleaded with him to stay; and that
pleased him, and he said so, and said he would not go yet, but would wait a
little while and we would sit down and talk a few minutes longer; and he
told us Satan was only his real name, and he was to be known by it to us
alone, but he had chosen another one to be called by in the presence of
others; just a common one, such as people have -- Philip Traum.

    It sounded so odd and mean for such a being! But it was his decision,
and we said nothing; his decision was sufficient.

    We had seen wonders this day; and my thoughts began to run on the
pleasure it would be to tell them when I got home, but he noticed those
thoughts, and said:

    "No, all these matters are a secret among us four. I do not mind your
trying to tell them, if you like, but I will protect your tongues, and
nothing of the secret will escape from them."

    It was a disappointment, but it couldn't be helped, and it cost us a
sigh or two. We talked pleasantly along, and he was always reading our
thoughts and responding to them, and it seemed to me that this was the most
wonderful of all the things he did, but he interrupted my musings and said:

    "No, it would be wonderful for you, but it is not wonderful for me. I
am not limited like you. I am not subject to human conditions. I can
measure and understand your human weaknesses, for I have studied them; but
I have none of them. My flesh is not real, although it would seem firm to
your touch; my clothes are not real; I am a spirit. Father Peter is
coming." We looked around, but did not see any one. "He is not in sight
yet, but you will see him presently."

    "Do you know him, Satan?"

    "No."

    "Won't you talk with him when he comes? He is not ignorant and dull,
like us, and he would so like to talk with you. Will you?"

    "Another time, yes, but not now. I must go on my errand after a little.
There he is now; you can see him. Sit still, and don't say anything."

    We looked up and saw Father Peter approaching through the chestnuts. We
three were sitting together in the grass, and Satan sat in front of us in
the path. Father Peter came slowly along with his head down, thinking, and
stopped within a couple of yards of us and took off his hat and got out his
silk handkerchief, and stood there mopping his face and looking as if he
were going to speak to us, but he didn't. Presently he muttered, "I can't
think what brought me here; it seems as if I were in my study a minute ago
-- but I suppose I have been dreaming along for an hour and have come all
this stretch without noticing; for I am not myself in these troubled days."
Then he went mumbling along to himself and walked straight through Satan,
just as if nothing were there. It made us catch our breath to see it. We
had the impulse to cry out, the way you nearly always do when a startling
thing happens, but something mysteriously restrained us and we remained
quiet, only breathing fast. Then the trees hid Father Peter after a little,
and Satan said:

    "It is as I told you -- I am only a spirit."

    "Yes, one perceives it now," said Nikolaus, "but we are not spirits. It
is plain he did not see you, but were we invisible, too? He looked at us,
but he didn't seem to see us."

    "No, none of us was visible to him, for I wished it so."

    It seemed almost too good to be true, that we were actually seeing
these romantic and wonderful things, and that it was not a dream. And there
he sat, looking just like anybody -- so natural and simple and charming,
and chatting along again the same as ever, and -- well, words cannot make
you understand what we felt. It was an ecstasy; and an ecstasy is a thing
that will not go into words; it feels like music, and one cannot tell about
music so that another person can get the feeling of it. He was back in the
old ages once more now, and making them live before us. He had seen so
much, so much! It was just a wonder to look at him and try to think how it
must seem to have such experience behind one.

    But it made you seem sorrowfully trivial, and the creature of a day,
and such a short and paltry day, too. And he didn't say anything to raise
up your drooping pride -- no, not a word. He always spoke of men in the
same old indifferent way -- just as one speaks of bricks and manure-piles
and such things; you could see that they were of no consequence to him, one
way or the other. He didn't mean to hurt us, you could see that; just as we
don't mean to insult a brick when we disparage it; a brick's emotions are
nothing to us; it never occurs to us to think whether it has any or not.

    Once when he was bunching the most illustrious kings and conquerors and
poets and prophets and pirates and beggars together -- just a brick-pile --
I was shamed into putting in a word for man, and asked him why he made so
much difference between men and himself. He had to struggle with that a
moment; he didn't seem to understand how I could ask such a strange
question. Then he said:

    "The difference between man and me? The difference between a mortal and
an immortal? between a cloud and a spirit?" He picked up a wood-louse that
was creeping along a piece of bark: "What is the difference between Caesar
and this?"

    I said, "One cannot compare things which by their nature and by the
interval between them are not comparable."

    "You have answered your own question," he said. "I will expand it. Man
is made of dirt -- I saw him made. I am not made of dirt. Man is a museum
of diseases, a home of impurities; he comes to-day and is gone to-morrow;
he begins as dirt and departs as stench; I am of the aristocracy of the
Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense. You understand? He has the
Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference enough between us, all by
itself."

    He stopped there, as if that settled the matter. I was sorry, for at
that time I had but a dim idea of what the Moral Sense was. I merely knew
that we were proud of having it, and when he talked like that about it, it
wounded me, and I felt as a girl feels who thinks her dearest finery is
being admired and then overhears strangers making fun of it. For a while we
were all silent, and I, for one, was depressed. Then Satan began to chat
again, and soon he was sparkling along in such a cheerful and vivacious
vein that my spirits rose once more. He told some very cunning things that
put us in a gale of laughter; and when he was telling about the time that
Samson tied the torches to the foxes' tails and set them loose in the
Philistines' corn, and Samson sitting on the fence slapping his thighs and
laughing, with the tears running down his cheeks, and lost his balance and
fell off the fence, the memory of that picture got him to laughing, too,
and we did have a most lovely and jolly time. By and by he said:

    "I am going on my errand now."

    "Don't!" we all said. "Don't go; stay with us. You won't come back."

    "Yes, I will; I give you my word."

    "When? To-night? Say when."

    "It won't be long. You will see."

    "We like you."

    "And I you. And as a proof of it I will show you something fine to see.
Usually when I go I merely vanish; but now I will dissolve myself and let
you see me do it."

    He stood up, and it was quickly finished. He thinned away and thinned
away until he was a soap-bubble, except that he kept his shape. You could
see the bushes through him as clearly as you see things through a
soap-bubble, and all over him played and flashed the delicate iridescent
colors of the bubble, and along with them was that thing shaped like a
window-sash which you always see on the globe of the bubble. You have seen
a bubble strike the carpet and lightly bound along two or three times
before it bursts. He did that. He sprang -- touched the grass -- bounded --
floated along -- touched again -- and so on, and presently exploded --
puff! and in his place was vacancy.

    It was a strange and beautiful thing to see. We did not say anything,
but sat wondering and dreaming and blinking; and finally Seppi roused up
and said, mournfully sighing:

    "I suppose none of it has happened."

    Nikolaus sighed and said about the same.

    I was miserable to hear them say it, for it was the same cold fear that
was in my own mind. Then we saw poor old Father Peter wandering along back,
with his head bent down, searching the ground. When he was pretty close to
us he looked up and saw us, and said, "How long have you been here, boys?"

    "A little while, Father."

    "Then it is since I came by, and maybe you can help me. Did you come up
by the path?"

    "Yes, Father."

    "That is good. I came the same way. I have lost my wallet. There wasn't
much in it, but a very little is much to me, for it was all I had. I
suppose you haven't seen anything of it?"

    "No, Father, but we will help you hunt."

    "It is what I was going to ask you. Why, here it is!"

    We hadn't noticed it; yet there it lay, right where Satan stood when he
began to melt -- if he did melt and it wasn't a delusion. Father Peter
picked it up and looked very much surprised.

    "It is mine," he said, "but not the contents. This is fat; mine was
flat; mine was light; this is heavy." He opened it; it was stuffed as full
as it could hold with gold coins. He let us gaze our fill; and of course we
did gaze, for we had never seen so much money at one time before. All our
mouths came open to say "Satan did it!" but nothing came out. There it was,
you see -- we couldn't tell what Satan didn't want told; he had said so
himself.

    "Boys, did you do this?"

    It made us laugh. And it made him laugh, too, as soon as he thought
what a foolish question it was.

    "Who has been here?"

    Our mouths came open to answer, but stood so for a moment, because we
couldn't say "Nobody," for it wouldn't be true, and the right word didn't
seem to come; then I thought of the right one, and said it:

    "Not a human being."

    "That is so," said the others, and let their mouths go shut.

    "It is not so," said Father Peter, and looked at us very severely. "I
came by here a while ago, and there was no one here, but that is nothing;
some one has been here since. I don't mean to say that the person didn't
pass here before you came, and I don't mean to say you saw him, but some
one did pass, that I know. On your honor -- you saw no one?"

    "Not a human being."

    "That is sufficient; I know you are telling me the truth."

    He began to count the money on the path, we on our knees eagerly
helping to stack it in little piles.

    "It's eleven hundred ducats odd!" he said. "Oh dear! if it were only
mine -- and I need it so!" and his voice broke and his lips quivered.

    "It is yours, sir!" we all cried out at once, "every heller!"

    "No -- it isn't mine. Only four ducats are mine; the rest...!" He fell
to dreaming, poor old soul, and caressing some of the coins in his hands,
and forgot where he was, sitting there on his heels with his old gray head
bare; it was pitiful to see. "No," he said, waking up, "it isn't mine. I
can't account for it. I think some enemy... it must be a trap."

    Nikolaus said: "Father Peter, with the exception of the astrologer you
haven't a real enemy in the village -- nor Marget, either. And not even a
half-enemy that's rich enough to chance eleven hundred ducats to do you a
mean turn. I'll ask you if that's so or not?"

    He couldn't get around that argument, and it cheered him up. "But it
isn't mine, you see -- it isn't mine, in any case."

    He said it in a wistful way, like a person that wouldn't be sorry, but
glad, if anybody would contradict him.

    "It is yours, Father Peter, and we are witness to it. Aren't we, boys?"

    "Yes, we are -- and we'll stand by it, too."

    "Bless your hearts, you do almost persuade me; you do, indeed. If I had
only a hundred-odd ducats of it! The house is mortgaged for it, and we've
no home for our heads if we don't pay to-morrow. And that four ducats is
all we've got in the -- "

    "It's yours, every bit of it, and you've got to take it -- we are bail
that it's all right. Aren't we, Theodor? Aren't we, Seppi?"

    We two said yes, and Nikolaus stuffed the money back into the shabby
old wallet and made the owner take it. So he said he would use two hundred
of it, for his house was good enough security for that, and would put the
rest at interest till the rightful owner came for it; and on our side we
must sign a paper showing how he got the money -- a paper to show to the
villagers as proof that he had not got out of his troubles dishonestly.

                                 Chapter 4

                                 Chapter 4

    It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid Solomon Isaacs in
gold and left the rest of the money with him at interest. Also, there was a
pleasant change; many people called at the house to congratulate him, and a
number of cool old friends became kind and friendly again; and, to top all,
Marget was invited to a party.

    And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole circumstance just
as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the plain
hand of Providence, so far as he could see.

    One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked more like the
hand of Satan; and really that seemed a surprisingly good guess for
ignorant people like that. Some came slyly buzzing around and tried to coax
us boys to come out and "tell the truth;" and promised they wouldn't ever
tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole
thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the secret, and pay money for
it; and if we could have invented something that would answer -- but we
couldn't; we hadn't the ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and
it was a pity.

    We carried that secret around without any trouble, but the other one,
the big one, the splendid one, burned the very vitals of us, it was so hot
to get out and we so hot to let it out and astonish people with it. But we
had to keep it in; in fact, it kept itself in. Satan said it would, and it
did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the woods so that we
could talk about Satan, and really that was the only subject we thought of
or cared anything about; and day and night we watched for him and hoped he
would come, and we got more and more impatient all the time. We hadn't any
interest in the other boys any more, and wouldn't take part in their games
and enterprises. They seemed so tame, after Satan; and their doings so
trifling and commonplace after his adventures in antiquity and the
constellations, and his miracles and meltings and explosions, and all that.

    During the first day we were in a state of anxiety on account of one
thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext or another
to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid it would
crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did -- But it didn't. At
the end of the day no complaint had been made about it, so after that we
were satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the anxiety out of our
minds.

    There was a question which we wanted to ask Father Peter, and finally
we went there the second evening, a little diffidently, after drawing
straws, and I asked it as casually as I could, though it did not sound as
casual as I wanted, because I didn't know how:

    "What is the Moral Sense, sir?"

    He looked down, surprised, over his great spectacles, and said, "Why,
it is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good from evil."

    It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little disappointed,
also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on, so, in
default of anything else to say, I asked, "Is it valuable?"

    "Valuable? Heavens! lad, it is the one thing that lifts man above the
beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!"

    This did not remind me of anything further to say, so I got out, with
the other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense you have often
had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted me to explain, but I was
tired.

    We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at the spinnet
teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting pupils was back; and an
influential one, too; the others would follow. Marget jumped up and ran and
thanked us again, with tears in her eyes -- this was the third time -- for
saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street, and we told her
again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never could be grateful
enough for anything a person did for her; so we let her have her say. And
as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm Meidling sitting there
waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be
asking Marget to take a walk along the river with him when she was done
with the lesson. He was a young lawyer, and succeeding fairly well and
working his way along, little by little. He was very fond of Marget, and
she of him. He had not deserted along with the others, but had stood his
ground all through. His faithfulness was not lost on Marget and her uncle.
He hadn't so very much talent, but he was handsome and good, and these are
a kind of talents themselves and help along. He asked us how the lesson was
getting along, and we told him it was about done. And maybe it was so; we
didn't know anything about it, but we judged it would please him, and it
did, and didn't cost us anything.

                                 Chapter 5

                                 Chapter 5

    On the fourth day comes the astrologer from his crumbling old tower up
the valley, where he had heard the news, I reckon. He had a private talk
with us, and we told him what we could, for we were mightily in dread of
him. He sat there studying and studying awhile to himself; then he asked:

    "How many ducats did you say?"

    "Eleven hundred and seven, sir."

    Then he said, as if he were talking to himself: "It is ver-y singular.
Yes... very strange. A curious coincidence." Then he began to ask
questions, and went over the whole ground from the beginning, we answering.
By and by he said: "Eleven hundred and six ducats. It is a large sum."

    "Seven," said Seppi, correcting him.

    "Oh, seven, was it? Of course a ducat more or less isn't of
consequence, but you said eleven hundred and six before."

    It would not have been safe for us to say he was mistaken, but we knew
he was. Nikolaus said, "We ask pardon for the mistake, but we meant to say
seven."

    "Oh, it is no matter, lad; it was merely that I noticed the
discrepancy. It is several days, and you cannot be expected to remember
precisely. One is apt to be inexact when there is no particular
circumstance to impress the count upon the memory."

    "But there was one, sir," said Seppi, eagerly.

    "What was it, my son?" asked the astrologer, indifferently.

    "First, we all counted the piles of coin, each in turn, and all made it
the same -- eleven hundred and six. But I had slipped one out, for fun,
when the count began, and now I slipped it back and said, `I think there is
a mistake -- there are eleven hundred and seven; let us count again.' We
did, and of course I was right. They were astonished; then I told how it
came about."

    The astrologer asked us if this was so, and we said it was.

    "That settles it," he said. "I know the thief now. Lads, the money was
stolen."

    Then he went away, leaving us very much troubled, and wondering what he
could mean. In about an hour we found out; for by that time it was all over
the village that Father Peter had been arrested for stealing a great sum of
money from the astrologer. Everybody's tongue was loose and going. Many
said it was not in Father Peter's character and must be a mistake; but the
others shook their heads and said misery and want could drive a suffering

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    On the Fourth Day Comes the Astrologer From His Crumbling Old Tower

man to almost anything. About one detail there were no differences; all
agreed that Father Peter's account of how the money came into his hands was
just about unbelievable -- it had such an impossible look. They said it
might have come into the astrologer's hands in some such way, but into
Father Peter's, never! Our characters began to suffer now. We were Father
Peter's only witnesses; how much did he probably pay us to back up his
fantastic tale? People talked that kind of talk to us pretty freely and
frankly, and were full of scoffings when we begged them to believe really
we had told only the truth. Our parents were harder on us than any one
else. Our fathers said we were disgracing our families, and they commanded
us to purge ourselves of our lie, and there was no limit to their anger
when we continued to say we had spoken true. Our mothers cried over us and
begged us to give back our bribe and get back our honest names and save our
families from shame, and come out and honorably confess. And at last we
were so worried and harassed that we tried to tell the whole thing, Satan
and all -- but no, it wouldn't come out. We were hoping and longing all the
time that Satan would come and help us out of our trouble, but there was no
sign of him.

    Within an hour after the astrologer's talk with us, Father Peter was in
prison and the money sealed up and in the hands of the officers of the law.
The money was in a bag, and Solomon Isaacs said he had not touched it since
he had counted it; his oath was taken that it was the same money, and that
the amount was eleven hundred and seven ducats. Father Peter claimed trial
by the ecclesiastical court, but our other priest, Father Adolf, said an
ecclesiastical court hadn't jurisdiction over a suspended priest. The
bishop upheld him. That settled it; the case would go to trial in the civil
court. The court would not sit for some time to come. Wilhelm Meidling
would be Father Peter's lawyer and do the best he could, of course, but he
told us privately that a weak case on his side and all the power and
prejudice on the other made the outlook bad.

    So Marget's new happiness died a quick death. No friends came to
condole with her, and none were expected; an unsigned note withdrew her
invitation to the party. There would be no scholars to take lessons. How
could she support herself? She could remain in the house, for the mortgage
was paid off, though the government and not poor Solomon Isaacs had the
mortgage-money in its grip for the present. Old Ursula, who was cook,
chambermaid, housekeeper, laundress, and everything else for Father Peter,
and had been Marget's nurse in earlier years, said God would provide. But
she said that from habit, for she was a good Christian. She meant to help
in the providing, to make sure, if she could find a way.

    We boys wanted to go and see Marget and show friendliness for her, but
our parents were afraid of offending the community and wouldn't let us. The
astrologer was going around inflaming everybody against Father Peter, and
saying he was an abandoned thief and had stolen eleven hundred and seven
gold ducats from him. He said he knew he was a thief from that fact, for it
was exactly the sum he had lost and which Father Peter pretended he had
"found."

    In the afternoon of the fourth day after the catastrophe old Ursula
appeared at our house and asked for some washing to do, and begged my
mother to keep this secret, to save Marget's pride, who would stop this
project if she found it out, yet Marget had not enough to eat and was
growing weak. Ursula was growing weak herself, and showed it; and she ate
of the food that was offered her like a starving person, but could not be
persuaded to carry any home, for Marget would not eat charity food. She
took some clothes down to the stream to wash them, but we saw from the
window that handling the bat was too much for her strength; so she was
called back and a trifle of money offered her, which she was afraid to take
lest Marget should suspect; then she took it, saying she would explain that
she found it in the road. To keep it from being a lie and damning her soul,
she got me to drop it while she watched; then she went along by there and
found it, and exclaimed with surprise and joy, and picked it up and went
her way. Like the rest of the village, she could tell every-day lies fast
enough and without taking any precautions against fire and brimstone on
their account; but this was a new kind of lie, and it had a dangerous look
because she hadn't had any practice in it. After a week's practice it
wouldn't have given her any trouble. It is the way we are made.

    I was in trouble, for how would Marget live? Ursula could not find a
coin in the road every day -- perhaps not even a second one. And I was
ashamed, too, for not having been near Marget, and she so in need of
friends; but that was my parents' fault, not mine, and I couldn't help it.

    I was walking along the path, feeling very down-hearted, when a most
cheery and tingling freshening-up sensation went rippling through me, and I
was too glad for any words, for I knew by that sign that Satan was by. I
had noticed it before. Next moment he was alongside of me and I was telling
him all my trouble and what had been happening to Marget and her uncle.
While we were talking we turned a curve and saw old Ursula resting in the
shade of a tree, and she had a lean stray kitten in her lap and was petting
it. I asked her where she got it, and she said it came out of the woods and
followed her; and she said it probably hadn't any mother or any friends and
she was going to take it home and take care of it. Satan said:

    "I understand you are very poor. Why do you want to add another mouth
to feed? Why don't you give it to some rich person?"

    Ursula bridled at this and said: "Perhaps you would like to have it.
You must be rich, with your fine clothes and quality airs." Then she
sniffed and said: "Give it to the rich -- the idea! The rich don't care for
anybody but themselves; it's only the poor that have feeling for the poor,
and help them. The poor and God. God will provide for this kitten."

    "What makes you think so?"

    Ursula's eyes snapped with anger. "Because I know it!" she said. "Not a
sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing it."

    "But it falls, just the same. What good is seeing it fall?"

    Old Ursula's jaws worked, but she could not get any word out for the
moment, she was so horrified. When she got her tongue, she stormed out, "Go
about your business, you puppy, or I will take a stick to you!"

    I could not speak, I was so scared. I knew that with his notions about
the human race Satan would consider it a matter of no consequence to strike
her dead, there being "plenty more"; but my tongue stood still, I could
give her no warning. But nothing happened; Satan remained tranquil --
tranquil and indifferent. I suppose he could not be insulted by Ursula any
more than the king could be insulted by a tumble-bug. The old woman jumped
to her feet when she made her remark, and did it as briskly as a young
girl. It had been many years since she had done the like of that. That was
Satan's influence; he was a fresh breeze to the weak and the sick, wherever
he came. His presence affected even the lean kitten, and it skipped to the
ground and began to chase a leaf. This surprised Ursula, and she stood
looking at the creature and nodding her head wonderingly, her anger quite
forgotten.

    "What's come over it?" she said. "Awhile ago it could hardly walk."

    "You have not seen a kitten of that breed before," said Satan.

    Ursula was not proposing to be friendly with the mocking stranger, and
she gave him an ungentle look and retorted: "Who asked you to come here and
pester me, I'd like to know? And what do you know about what I've seen and
what I haven't seen?"

    "You haven't seen a kitten with the hair-spines on its tongue pointing
to the front, have you?"

    "No -- nor you, either."

    "Well, examine this one and see."

    Ursula was become pretty spry, but the kitten was spryer, and she could
not catch it, and had to give it up. Then Satan said:

    "Give it a name, and maybe it will come."

    Ursula tried several names, but the kitten was not interested.

    "Call it Agnes. Try that."

    The creature answered to the name and came. Ursula examined its tongue.
"Upon my word, it's true!" she said. "I have not seen this kind of a cat
before. Is it yours?"

    "No."

    "Then how did you know its name so pat?"

    "Because all cats of that breed are named Agnes; they will not answer
to any other."

    Ursula was impressed. "It is the most wonderful thing!" Then a shadow
of trouble came into her face, for her superstitions were aroused, and she
reluctantly put the creature down, saying: "I suppose I must let it go; I
am not afraid -- no, not exactly that, though the priest -- well, I've
heard people -- indeed, many people... And, besides, it is quite well now
and can take care of itself." She sighed, and turned to go, murmuring: "It
is such a pretty one, too, and would be such company -- and the house is so
sad and lonesome these troubled days... Miss Marget so mournful and just a
shadow, and the old master shut up in jail."

    "It seems a pity not to keep it," said Satan.

    Ursula turned quickly -- just as if she were hoping some one would
encourage her.

    "Why?" she asked, wistfully.

    "Because this breed brings luck."

    "Does it? Is it true? Young man, do you know it to be true? How does it
bring luck?"

    "Well, it brings money, anyway."

    Ursula looked disappointed. "Money? A cat bring money? The idea! You
could never sell it here; people do not buy cats here; one can't even give
them away." She turned to go.

    "I don't mean sell it. I mean have an income from it. This kind is
called the Lucky Cat. Its owner finds four silver groschen in his pocket
every morning."

    I saw the indignation rising in the old woman's face. She was insulted.
This boy was making fun of her. That was her thought. She thrust her hands
into her pockets and straightened up to give him a piece of her mind. Her
temper was all up, and hot. Her mouth came open and let out three words of
a bitter sentence,... then it fell silent, and the anger in her face turned
to surprise or wonder or fear, or something, and she slowly brought out her
hands from her pockets and opened them and held them so. In one was my
piece of money, in the other lay four silver groschen. She gazed a little
while, perhaps to see if the groschen would vanish away; then she said,
fervently:

    "It's true -- it's true -- and I'm ashamed and beg forgiveness, O dear
master and benefactor!" And she ran to Satan and kissed his hand, over and
over again, according to the Austrian custom.

    In her heart she probably believed it was a witch-cat and an agent of
the Devil; but no matter, it was all the more certain to be able to keep
its contract and furnish a daily good living for the family, for in matters
of finance even the piousest of our peasants would have more confidence in
an arrangement with the Devil than with an archangel. Ursula started
homeward, with Agnes in her arms, and I said I wished I had her privilege
of seeing Marget.

    Then I caught my breath, for we were there. There in the parlor, and
Marget standing looking at us, astonished. She was feeble and pale, but I
knew that those conditions would not last in Satan's atmosphere, and it
turned out so. I introduced Satan -- that is, Philip Traum -- and we sat
down and talked. There was no constraint. We were simple folk, in our
village, and when a stranger was a pleasant person we were soon friends.
Marget wondered how we got in without her hearing us. Traum said the door
was open, and we walked in and waited until she should turn around and
greet us. This was not true; no door was open; we entered through the walls
or the roof or down the chimney, or somehow; but no matter, what Satan
wished a person to believe, the person was sure to believe, and so Marget
was quite satisfied with that explanation. And then the main part of her
mind was on Traum, anyway; she couldn't keep her eyes off him, he was so
beautiful. That gratified me, and made me proud. I hoped he would show off
some, but he didn't. He seemed only interested in being friendly and
telling lies. He said he was an orphan. That made Marget pity him. The
water came into her eyes. He said he had never known his mamma; she passed
away while he was a young thing; and said his papa was in shattered health,
and had no property to speak of -- in fact, none of any earthly value --
but he had an uncle in business down in the tropics, and he was very well
off and had a monopoly, and it was from this uncle that he drew his
support. The very mention of a kind uncle was enough to remind Marget of
her own, and her eyes filled again. She said she hoped their two uncles
would meet, some day. It made me shudder. Philip said he hoped so, too; and
that made me shudder again.

    "Maybe they will," said Marget. "Does your uncle travel much?"

    "Oh yes, he goes all about; he has business everywhere."

    And so they went on chatting, and poor Marget forgot her sorrow for one
little while, anyway. It was probably the only really bright and cheery
hour she had known lately. I saw she liked Philip, and I knew she would.
And when he told her he was studying for the ministry I could see that she
liked him better than ever. And then, when he promised to get her admitted
to the jail so that she could see her uncle, that was the capstone. He said
he would give the guards a little present, and she must always go in the
evening after dark, and say nothing, "but just show this paper and pass in,
and show it again when you come out" -- and he scribbled some queer marks
on the paper and gave it to her, and she was ever so thankful, and right
away was in a fever for the sun to go down; for in that old, cruel time
prisoners were not allowed to see their friends, and sometimes they spent
years in the jails without ever seeing a friendly face. I judged that the
marks on the paper were an enchantment, and that the guards would not know
what they were doing, nor have any memory of it afterward; and that was
indeed the way of it. Ursula put her head in at the door now and said:

    "Supper's ready, miss." Then she saw us and looked frightened, and
motioned me to come to her, which I did, and she asked if we had told about
the cat. I said no, and she was relieved, and said please don't; for if
Miss Marget knew, she would think it was an unholy cat and would send for a
priest and have its gifts all purified out of it, and then there wouldn't
be any more dividends. So I said we wouldn't tell, and she was satisfied.
Then I was beginning to say good-by to Marget, but Satan interrupted and
said, ever so politely -- well, I don't remember just the words, but anyway
he as good as invited himself to supper, and me, too. Of course Marget was
miserably embarrassed, for she had no reason to suppose there would be half
enough for a sick bird. Ursula heard him, and she came straight into the
room, not a bit pleased. At first she was astonished to see Marget looking
so fresh and rosy, and said so; then she spoke up in her native tongue,
which was Bohemian, and said -- as I learned afterward -- "Send him away,
Miss Marget; there's not victuals enough."

    Before Marget could speak, Satan had the word, and was talking back to
Ursula in her own language -- which was a surprise to her, and for her
mistress, too. He said, "Didn't I see you down the road awhile ago?"

    "Yes, sir."

    "Ah, that pleases me; I see you remember me." He stepped to her and
whispered: "I told you it is a Lucky Cat. Don't be troubled; it will
provide."

    That sponged the slate of Ursula's feelings clean of its anxieties, and
a deep, financial joy shone in her eyes. The cat's value was augmenting. It
was getting full time for Marget to take some sort of notice of Satan's
invitation, and she did it in the best way, the honest way that was natural
to her. She said she had little to offer, but that we were welcome if we
would share it with her.

    We had supper in the kitchen, and Ursula waited at table. A small fish
was in the frying-pan, crisp and brown and tempting, and one could see that
Marget was not expecting such respectable food as this. Ursula brought it,
and Marget divided it between Satan and me, declining to take any of it
herself; and was beginning to say she did not care for fish to-day, but she
did not finish the remark. It was because she noticed that another fish had
appeared in the pan. She looked surprised, but did not say anything. She
probably meant to inquire of Ursula about this later. There were other
surprises: flesh and game and wines and fruits -- things which had been
strangers in that house lately; but Marget made no exclamations, and now
even looked unsurprised, which was Satan's influence, of course. Satan
talked right along, and was entertaining, and made the time pass pleasantly
and cheerfully; and although he told a good many lies, it was no harm in
him, for he was only an angel and did not know any better. They do not know
right from wrong; I knew this, because I remembered what he had said about
it. He got on the good side of Ursula. He praised her to Marget,
confidentially, but speaking just loud enough for Ursula to hear. He said
she was a fine woman, and he hoped some day to bring her and his uncle
together. Very soon Ursula was mincing and simpering around in a ridiculous
girly way, and smoothing out her gown and prinking at herself like a
foolish old hen, and all the time pretending she was not hearing what Satan
was saying. I was ashamed, for it showed us to be what Satan considered us,
a silly race and trivial. Satan said his uncle entertained a great deal,
and to have a clever woman presiding over the festivities would double the
attractions of the place.

    "But your uncle is a gentleman, isn't he?" asked Marget.

    "Yes," said Satan indifferently; "some even call him a Prince, out of
compliment, but he is not bigoted; to him personal merit is everything,
rank nothing."

    My hand was hanging down by my chair; Agnes came along and licked it;
by this act a secret was revealed. I started to say, "It is all a mistake;
this is just a common, ordinary cat; the hair-needles on her tongue point
inward, not outward." But the words did not come, because they couldn't.
Satan smiled upon me, and I understood.

    When it was dark Marget took food and wine and fruit, in a basket, and
hurried away to the jail, and Satan and I walked toward my home. I was
thinking to myself that I should like to see what the inside of the jail
was like; Satan overheard the thought, and the next moment we were in the
jail. We were in the torture-chamber, Satan said. The rack was there, and
the other instruments, and there was a smoky lantern or two hanging on the
walls and helping to make the place look dim and dreadful. There were
people there -- and executioners -- but as they took no notice of us, it
meant that we were invisible. A young man lay bound, and Satan said he was
suspected of being a heretic, and the executioners were about to inquire
into it. They asked the man to confess to the charge, and he said he could
not, for it was not true. Then they drove splinter after splinter under his
nails, and he shrieked with the pain. Satan was not disturbed, but I could
not endure it, and had to be whisked out of there. I was faint and sick,
but the fresh air revived me, and we walked toward my home. I said it was a
brutal thing.

    "No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a
misuse of that word; they have not deserved it," and he went on talking
like that. "It is like your paltry race -- always lying, always claiming
virtues which it hasn't got, always denying them to the higher animals,
which alone possess them. No brute ever does a cruel thing -- that is the
monopoly of those with the Moral Sense. When a brute inflicts pain he does
it innocently; it is not wrong; for him there is no such thing as wrong.
And he does not inflict pain for the pleasure of inflicting it -- only man
does that. Inspired by that mongrel Moral Sense of his! A sense whose
function is to distinguish between right and wrong, with liberty to choose
which of them he will do. Now what advantage can he get out of that? He is
always choosing, and in nine cases out of ten he prefers the wrong. There
shouldn't be any wrong; and without the Moral Sense there couldn't be any.
And yet he is such an unreasoning creature that he is not able to perceive
that the Moral Sense degrades him to the bottom layer of animated beings
and is a shameful possession. Are you feeling better? Let me show you
something."

                                 Chapter 6

                                 Chapter 6

    In a moment we were in a French village. We walked through a great
factory of some sort, where men and women and little children were toiling
in heat and dirt and a fog of dust; and they were clothed in rags, and
drooped at their work, for they were worn and half starved, and weak and
drowsy. Satan said:

    "It is some more Moral Sense. The proprietors are rich, and very holy;
but the wage they pay to these poor brothers and sisters of theirs is only
enough to keep them from dropping dead with hunger. The work-hours are
fourteen per day, winter and summer -- from six in the morning till eight
at night -- little children and all. And they walk to and from the pigsties
which they inhabit -- four miles each way, through mud and slush, rain,
snow, sleet, and storm, daily, year in and year out. They get four hours of
sleep. They kennel together, three families in a room, in unimaginable
filth and stench; and disease comes, and they die off like flies. Have they
committed a crime, these mangy things? No. What have they done, that they
are punished so? Nothing at all, except getting themselves born into your
foolish race. You have seen how they treat a misdoer there in the jail; now
you see how they treat the innocent and the worthy. Is your race logical?
Are these ill-smelling innocents better off than that heretic? Indeed, no;
his punishment is trivial compared with theirs. They broke him on the wheel
and smashed him to rags and pulp after we left, and he is dead now, and
free of your precious race; but these poor slaves here -- why, they have
been dying for years, and some of them will not escape from life for years
to come. It is the Moral Sense which teaches the factory proprietors the
difference between right and wrong -- you perceive the result. They think
themselves better than dogs. Ah, you are such an illogical, unreasoning
race! And paltry -- oh, unspeakably!"

    Then he dropped all seriousness and just overstrained himself making
fun of us, and deriding our pride in our warlike deeds, our great heroes,
our imperishable fames, our mighty kings, our ancient aristocracies, our
venerable history -- and laughed and laughed till it was enough to make a
person sick to hear him; and finally he sobered a little and said, "But,
after all, it is not all ridiculous; there is a sort of pathos about it
when one remembers how few are your days, how childish your pomps, and what
shadows you are!"

    Presently all things vanished suddenly from my sight, and I knew what
it meant. The next moment we were walking along in our village; and down
toward the river I saw the twinkling lights of the Golden Stag. Then in the
dark I heard a joyful cry:

    "He's come again!"

    It was Seppi Wohlmeyer. He had felt his blood leap and his spirits rise
in a way that could mean only one thing, and he knew Satan was near,
although it was too dark to see him. He came to us, and we walked along
together, and Seppi poured out his gladness like water. It was as if he
were a lover and had found his sweetheart who had been lost. Seppi was a
smart and animated boy, and had enthusiasm and expression, and was a
contrast to Nikolaus and me. He was full of the last new mystery, now --
the disappearance of Hans Oppert, the village loafer. People were beginning
to be curious about it, he said. He did not say anxious -- curious was the
right word, and strong enough. No one had seen Hans for a couple of days.

    "Not since he did that brutal thing, you know," he said.

    "What brutal thing?" It was Satan that asked.

    "Well, he is always clubbing his dog, which is a good dog, and his only
friend, and is faithful, and loves him, and does no one any harm; and two
days ago he was at it again, just for nothing -- just for pleasure -- and
the dog was howling and begging, and Theodor and I begged, too, but he
threatened us, and struck the dog again with all his might and knocked one
of his eyes out, and he said to us, `There, I hope you are satisfied now;
that's what you have got for him by your damned meddling' -- and he
laughed, the heartless brute." Seppi's voice trembled with pity and anger.
I guessed what Satan would say, and he said it.

    "There is that misused word again -- that shabby slander. Brutes do not
act like that, but only men."

    "Well, it was inhuman, anyway."

    "No, it wasn't, Seppi; it was human -- quite distinctly human. It is
not pleasant to hear you libel the higher animals by attributing to them
dispositions which they are free from, and which are found nowhere but in
the human heart. None of the higher animals is tainted with the disease
called the Moral Sense. Purify your language, Seppi; drop those lying
phrases out of it."

    He spoke pretty sternly -- for him -- and I was sorry I hadn't warned
Seppi to be more particular about the word he used. I knew how he was
feeling. He would not want to offend Satan; he would rather offend all his
kin. There was an uncomfortable silence, but relief soon came, for that
poor dog came along now, with his eye hanging down, and went straight to
Satan, and began to moan and mutter brokenly, and Satan began to answer in
the same way, and it was plain that they were talking together in the dog
language. We all sat down in the grass, in the moonlight, for the clouds
were breaking away now, and Satan took the dog's head in his lap and put
the eye back in its place, and the dog was comfortable, and he wagged his
tail and licked Satan's hand, and looked thankful and said the same; I knew
he was saying it, though I did not understand the words. Then the two
talked together a bit, and Satan said:

    "He says his master was drunk."

    "Yes, he was," said we.

    "And an hour later he fell over the precipice there beyond the Cliff
Pasture."

    "We know the place; it is three miles from here."

    "And the dog has been often to the village, begging people to go there,
but he was only driven away and not listened to."

    We remembered it, but hadn't understood what he wanted.

    "He only wanted help for the man who had misused him, and he thought
only of that, and has had no food nor sought any. He has watched by his
master two nights. What do you think of your race? Is heaven reserved for
it, and this dog ruled out, as your teachers tell you? Can your race add
anything to this dog's stock of morals and magnanimities?" He spoke to the
creature, who jumped up, eager and happy, and apparently ready for orders
and impatient to execute them. "Get some men; go with the dog -- he will
show you that carrion; and take a priest along to arrange about insurance,
for death is near."

    With the last word he vanished, to our sorrow and disappointment. We
got the men and Father Adolf, and we saw the man die. Nobody cared but the
dog; he mourned and grieved, and licked the dead face, and could not be
comforted. We buried him where he was, and without a coffin, for he had no
money, and no friend but the dog. If we had been an hour earlier the priest
would have been in time to send that poor creature to heaven, but now he
was gone down into the awful fires, to burn forever. It seemed such a pity
that in a world where so many people have difficulty to put in their time,
one little hour could not have been spared for this poor creature who
needed it so much, and to whom it would have made the difference between
eternal joy and eternal pain. It gave an appalling idea of the value of an
hour, and I thought I could never waste one again without remorse and
terror. Seppi was depressed and grieved, and said it must be so much better
to be a dog and not run such awful risks. We took this one home with us and
kept him for our own. Seppi had a very good thought as we were walking
along, and it cheered us up and made us feel much better. He said the dog
had forgiven the man that had wronged him so, and maybe God would accept
that absolution.

    There was a very dull week, now, for Satan did not come, nothing much
was going on, and we boys could not venture to go and see Marget, because
the nights were moonlit and our parents might find us out if we tried. But
we came across Ursula a couple of times taking a walk in the meadows beyond
the river to air the cat, and we learned from her that things were going
well. She had natty new clothes on and bore a prosperous look. The four
groschen a day were arriving without a break, but were not being spent for
food and wine and such things -- the cat attended to all that.

    Marget was enduring her forsakenness and isolation fairly well, all
things considered, and was cheerful, by help of Wilhelm Meidling. She spent
an hour or two every night in the jail with her uncle, and had fattened him
up with the cat's contributions. But she was curious to know more about
Philip Traum, and hoped I would bring him again. Ursula was curious about
him herself, and asked a good many questions about his uncle. It made the
boys laugh, for I had told them the nonsense Satan had been stuffing her
with. She got no satisfaction out of us, our tongues being tied.

    Ursula gave us a small item of information: money being plenty now, she
had taken on a servant to help about the house and run errands. She tried
to tell it in a commonplace, matter-of-course way, but she was so set up by
it and so vain of it that her pride in it leaked out pretty

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              Marget Was Cheerful By Help of Wilhelm Meidling

plainly. It was beautiful to see her veiled delight in this grandeur, poor
old thing, but when we heard the name of the servant we wondered if she had
been altogether wise; for although we were young, and often thoughtless, we
had fairly good perception on some matters. This boy was Gottfried Narr, a
dull, good creature, with no harm in him and nothing against him
personally; still, he was under a cloud, and properly so, for it had not
been six months since a social blight had mildewed the family -- his
grandmother had been burned as a witch. When that kind of a malady is in
the blood it does not always come out with just one burning. Just now was
not a good time for Ursula and Marget to be having dealings with a member
of such a family, for the witch-terror had risen higher during the past
year than it had ever reached in the memory of the oldest villagers. The
mere mention of a witch was almost enough to frighten us out of our wits.
This was natural enough, because of late years there were more kinds of
witches than there used to be; in old times it had been only old women, but
of late years they were of all ages -- even children of eight and nine; it
was getting so that anybody might turn out to be a familiar of the Devil --
age and sex hadn't anything to do with it. In our little region we had
tried to extirpate the witches, but the more of them we burned the more of
the breed rose up in their places.

    Once, in a school for girls only ten miles away, the teachers found
that the back of one of the girls was all red and inflamed, and they were
greatly frightened, believing it to be the Devil's marks. The girl was
scared, and begged them not to denounce her, and said it was only fleas;
but of course it would not do to let the matter rest there. All the girls
were examined, and eleven out of the fifty were badly marked, the rest less
so. A commission was appointed, but the eleven only cried for their mothers
and would not confess. Then they were shut up, each by herself, in the
dark, and put on black bread and water for ten days and nights; and by that
time they were haggard and wild, and their eyes were dry and they did not
cry any more, but only sat and mumbled, and would not take the food. Then
one of them confessed, and said they had often ridden through the air on
broomsticks to the witches' Sabbath, and in a bleak place high up in the
mountains had danced and drunk and caroused with several hundred other
witches and the Evil One, and all had conducted themselves in a scandalous
way and had reviled the priests and blasphemed God. That is what she said
-- not in narrative form, for she was not able to remember any of the
details without having them called to her mind one after the other; but the
commission did that, for they knew just what questions to ask, they being
all written down for the use of witch-commissioners two centuries before.
They asked, "Did you do so and so?" and she always said yes, and looked
weary and tired, and took no interest in it. And so when the other ten
heard that this one confessed, they confessed, too, and answered yes to the
questions. Then they were burned at the stake all together, which was just
and right; and everybody went from all the countryside to see it. I went,
too; but when I saw that one of them was a bonny, sweet girl I used to play
with, and looked so pitiful there chained to the stake, and her mother
crying over her and devouring her with kisses and clinging around her neck,
and saying, "Oh, my God! oh, my God!" it was too dreadful, and I went away.

    It was bitter cold weather when Gottfried's grandmother was burned. It
was charged that she had cured bad headaches by kneading the person's head
and neck with her fingers -- as she said -- but really by the Devil's help,
as everybody knew. They were going to examine her, but she stopped them,
and confessed straight off that her power was from the Devil. So they
appointed to burn her next morning, early, in our market-square. The
officer who was to prepare the fire was there first, and prepared it. She
was there next -- brought by the constables, who left her and went to fetch
another witch. Her family did not come with her. They might be reviled,
maybe stoned, if the people were excited. I came, and gave her an apple.
She was squatting at the fire, warming herself and waiting; and her old
lips and hands were blue with the cold. A stranger came next. He was a
traveler, passing through; and he spoke to her gently, and, seeing nobody
but me there to hear, said he was sorry for her. And he asked if what she
confessed was true, and she said no. He looked surprised and still more
sorry then, and asked her:

    "Then why did you confess?"

    "I am old and very poor," she said, "and I work for my living. There
was no way but to confess. If I hadn't they might have set me free. That
would ruin me, for no one would forget that I had been suspected of being a
witch, and so I would get no more work, and wherever I went they would set
the dogs on me. In a little while I would starve. The fire is best; it is
soon over. You have been good to me, you two, and I thank you."

    She snuggled closer to the fire, and put out her hands to warm them,
the snow-flakes descending soft and still on her old gray head and making
it white and whiter. The crowd was gathering now, and an egg came flying
and struck her in the eye, and broke and ran down her face. There was a
laugh at that.

    I told Satan all about the eleven girls and the old woman, once, but it
did not affect him. He only said it was the human race, and what the human
race did was of no consequence. And he said he had seen it made; and it was
not made of clay; it was made of mud -- part of it was, anyway. I knew what
he meant by that -- the Moral Sense. He saw the thought in my head, and it
tickled him and made him laugh. Then he called a bullock out of a pasture
and petted it and talked with it, and said:

    "There -- he wouldn't drive children mad with hunger and fright and
loneliness, and then burn them for confessing to things invented for them
which had never happened. And neither would he break the hearts of
innocent, poor old women and make them afraid to trust themselves among
their own race; and he would not insult them in their death-agony. For he
is not besmirched with the Moral Sense, but is as the angels are, and knows
no wrong, and never does it."

    Lovely as he was, Satan could be cruelly offensive when he chose; and
he always chose when the human race was brought to his attention. He always
turned up his nose at it, and never had a kind word for it.

    Well, as I was saying, we boys doubted if it was a good time for Ursula
to be hiring a member of the Narr family. We were right. When the people
found it out they were naturally indignant. And, moreover, since Marget and
Ursula hadn't enough to eat themselves, where was the money coming from to
feed another mouth? That is what they wanted to know; and in order to find
out they stopped avoiding Gottfried and began to seek his society and have
sociable conversations with him. He was pleased -- not thinking any harm
and not seeing the trap -- and so he talked innocently along, and was no
discreeter than a cow.

    "Money!" he said; "they've got plenty of it. They pay me two groschen a
week, besides my keep. And they live on the fat of the land, I can tell
you; the prince himself can't beat their table."

    This astonishing statement was conveyed by the astrologer to Father
Adolf on a Sunday morning when he was returning from mass. He was deeply
moved, and said:

    "This must be looked into."

    He said there must be witchcraft at the bottom of it, and told the
villagers to resume relations with Marget and Ursula in a private and
unostentatious way, and keep both eyes open. They were told to keep their
own counsel, and not rouse the suspicions of the household. The villagers
were at first a bit reluctant to enter such a dreadful place, but the
priest said they would be under his protection while there, and no harm
could come to them, particularly if they carried a trifle of holy water
along and kept their beads and crosses handy. This satisfied them and made
them willing to go; envy and malice made the baser sort even eager to go.

    And so poor Marget began to have company again, and was as pleased as a
cat. She was like 'most anybody else -- just human, and happy in her
prosperities and not averse from showing them off a little; and she was
humanly grateful to have the warm shoulder turned to her and be smiled upon
by her friends and the village again; for of all the hard things to bear,
to be cut by your neighbors and left in contemptuous solitude is maybe the
hardest.

    The bars were down, and we could all go there now, and we did -- our
parents and all -- day after day. The cat began to strain herself. She
provided the top of everything for those companies, and in abundance --
among them many a dish and many a wine which they had not tasted before and
which they had not even heard of except at second-hand from the prince's
servants. And the tableware was much above ordinary, too.

    Marget was troubled at times, and pursued Ursula with questions to an
uncomfortable degree; but Ursula stood her ground and stuck to it that it
was Providence, and said no word about the cat. Marget knew that nothing
was impossible to Providence, but she could not help having doubts that
this effort was from there, though she was afraid to say so, lest disaster
come of it. Witchcraft occurred to her, but she put the thought aside, for
this was before Gottfried joined the household, and she knew Ursula was
pious and a bitter hater of witches. By the time Gottfried arrived
Providence was established, unshakably intrenched, and getting all the
gratitude. The cat made no murmur, but went on composedly improving in
style and prodigality by experience.

    In any community, big or little, there is always a fair proportion of
people who are not malicious or unkind by nature, and who never do unkind
things except when they are overmastered by fear, or when their
self-interest is greatly in danger, or some such matter as that. Eseldorf
had its proportion of such people, and ordinarily their good and gentle
influence was felt, but these were not ordinary times -- on account of the
witch-dread -- and so we did not seem to have any gentle and compassionate
hearts left, to speak of. Every person was frightened at the unaccountable
state of things at Marget's house, not doubting that witchcraft was at the
bottom of it, and fright frenzied their reason. Naturally there were some
who pitied Marget and Ursula for the danger that was gathering about them,
but naturally they did not say so; it would not have been safe. So the
others had it all their own way, and there was none to advise the ignorant
girl and the foolish woman and warn them to modify their doings. We boys
wanted to warn them, but we backed down when it came to the pinch, being
afraid. We found that we were not manly enough nor brave enough to do a
generous action when there was a chance that it could get us into trouble.
Neither of us confessed this poor spirit to the others, but did as other
people would have done -- dropped the subject and talked about something
else. And I knew we all felt mean, eating and drinking Marget's fine things
along with those companies of spies, and petting her and complimenting her
with the rest, and seeing with self-reproach how foolishly happy she was,
and never saying a word to put her on her guard. And, indeed, she was
happy, and as proud as a princess, and so grateful to have friends again.
And all the time these people were watching with all their eyes and
reporting all they saw to Father Adolf.

    But he couldn't make head or tail of the situation. There must be an
enchanter somewhere on the premises, but who was it? Marget was not seen to
do any jugglery, nor was Ursula, nor yet Gottfried; and still the wines and
dainties never ran short, and a guest could not call for a thing and not
get it. To produce these effects was usual enough with witches and
enchanters -- that part of it was not new; but to do it without any
incantations, or even any rumblings or earthquakes or lightnings or
apparitions -- that was new, novel, wholly irregular. There was nothing in
the books like this. Enchanted things were always unreal. Gold turned to
dirt in an unenchanted atmosphere, food withered away and vanished. But
this test failed in the present case. The spies brought samples: Father
Adolf prayed over them, exorcised them, but it did no good; they remained
sound and real, they yielded to natural decay only, and took the usual time
to do it.

    Father Adolf was not merely puzzled, he was also exasperated; for these
evidences very nearly convinced him -- privately -- that there was no
witchcraft in the matter. It did not wholly convince him, for this could be
a new kind of witchcraft. There was a way to find out as to this: if this
prodigal abundance of provender was not brought in from the outside, but
produced on the premises, there was witchcraft, sure.

                                 Chapter 7

                                 Chapter 7

    Marget announced a party, and invited forty people; the date for it was
seven days away. This was a fine opportunity. Marget's house stood by
itself, and it could be easily watched. All the week it was watched night
and day. Marget's household went out and in as usual, but they carried
nothing in their hands, and neither they nor others brought anything to the
house. This was ascertained. Evidently rations for forty people were not
being fetched. If they were furnished any sustenance it would have to be
made on the premises. It was true that Marget went out with a basket every
evening, but the spies ascertained that she always brought it back empty.

    The guests arrived at noon and filled the place. Father Adolf followed;
also, after a little, the astrologer, without invitation. The spies had
informed him that neither at the back nor the front had any parcels been
brought in. He entered, and found the eating and drinking going on finely,
and everything progressing in a lively and festive way. He glanced around
and perceived that many of the cooked delicacies and all of the native and
foreign fruits were of a perishable character, and he also recognized that
these were fresh and perfect. No apparitions, no incantations, no thunder.
That settled it. This was witchcraft. And not only that, but of a new kind
-- a kind never dreamed of before. It was a prodigious power, an
illustrious power; he resolved to discover its secret. The announcement of
it would resound throughout the world, penetrate to the remotest lands,
paralyze all the nations with amazement -- and carry his name with it, and
make him renowned forever. It was a wonderful piece of luck, a splendid
piece of luck; the glory of it made him dizzy.

    All the house made room for him; Marget politely seated him; Ursula
ordered Gottfried to bring a special table for him. Then she decked it and
furnished it, and asked for his orders.

    "Bring me what you will," he said.

    The two servants brought supplies from the pantry, together with white
wine and red -- a bottle of each. The astrologer, who very likely had never
seen such delicacies before, poured out a beaker of red wine, drank it off,
poured another, then began to eat with a grand appetite.

    I was not expecting Satan, for it was more than a week since I had seen
or heard of him, but now he came in -- I knew it by the feel, though people
were in the way and I could not see him. I heard him apologizing for
intruding; and he was going away, but Marget urged him to stay, and he
thanked her and stayed. She brought him along, introducing him to the
girls, and to Meidling, and to some of the elders; and there was quite a
rustle of whispers: "It's the young stranger we hear so much about and
can't get sight of, he is away so much." "Dear, dear, but he is beautiful
-- what is his name?" "Philip Traum." "Ah, it fits him!" (You see, "Traum"
is German for "Dream.") "What does he do?" "Studying for the ministry, they
say." "His face is his fortune -- he'll be a cardinal some day." "Where is
his home?" "Away down somewhere in the tropics, they say -- has a rich
uncle down there." And so on. He made his way at once; everybody was
anxious to know him and talk with him. Everybody noticed how cool and fresh
it was, all of a sudden, and wondered at it, for they could see that the
sun was beating down the same as before, outside, and the sky was clear of
clouds, but no one guessed the reason, of course.

    The astrologer had drunk his second beaker; he poured out a third. He
set the bottle down, and by accident overturned it. He seized it before
much was spilled, and held it up to the light, saying, "What a pity -- it
is royal wine." Then his face lighted with joy or triumph, or something,
and he said, "Quick! Bring a bowl."

    It was brought -- a four-quart one. He took up that two-pint bottle and
began to pour; went on pouring, the red liquor gurgling and gushing into
the white bowl and rising higher and higher up its sides, everybody staring
and holding their breath -- and presently the bowl was full to the brim.

    "Look at the bottle," he said, holding it up; "it is full yet!" I
glanced at Satan, and in that moment he vanished. Then Father Adolf rose
up, flushed and excited, crossed himself, and began to thunder in his great
voice, "This house is bewitched and accursed!" People began to cry and
shriek and crowd toward the door. "I summon this detected household to -- "

    His words were cut off short. His face became red, then purple, but he
could not utter another sound. Then I saw Satan, a transparent film, melt
into the astrologer's body; then the astrologer put up his hand, and
apparently in his own voice said, "Wait -- remain where you are." All
stopped where they stood. "Bring a funnel!" Ursula brought it, trembling
and scared, and he stuck it in the bottle and took up the great bowl and
began to pour the wine back, the people gazing and dazed with astonishment,
for they knew the bottle was already full before he began. He emptied the
whole of the bowl into the bottle, then smiled out over the room, chuckled,
and said, indifferently: "It is nothing -- anybody can do it! With my
powers I can even do much more."

    A frightened cry burst out everywhere. "Oh, my God, he is possessed!"
and there was a tumultuous rush for the

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        The Astrologer Emptied the Whole of the Bowl into the Bottle

door which swiftly emptied the house of all who did not belong in it except
us boys and Meidling. We boys knew the secret, and would have told it if we
could, but we couldn't. We were very thankful to Satan for furnishing that
good help at the needful time.

    Marget was pale, and crying; Meidling looked kind of petrified; Ursula
the same; but Gottfried was the worst -- he couldn't stand, he was so weak
and scared. For he was of a witch family, you know, and it would be bad for
him to be suspected. Agnes came loafing in, looking pious and unaware, and
wanted to rub up against Ursula and be petted, but Ursula was afraid of her
and shrank away from her, but pretending she was not meaning any
incivility, for she knew very well it wouldn't answer to have strained
relations with that kind of a cat. But we boys took Agnes and petted her,
for Satan would not have befriended her if he had not had a good opinion of
her, and that was indorsement enough for us. He seemed to trust anything
that hadn't the Moral Sense.

    Outside, the guests, panic-stricken, scattered in every direction and
fled in a pitiable state of terror; and such a tumult as they made with
their running and sobbing and shrieking and shouting that soon all the
village came flocking from their houses to see what had happened, and they
thronged the street and shouldered and jostled one another in excitement
and fright; and then Father Adolf appeared, and they fell apart in two
walls like the cloven Red Sea, and presently down this lane the astrologer
came striding and mumbling, and where he passed the lanes surged back in
packed masses, and fell silent with awe, and their eyes stared and their
breasts heaved, and several women fainted; and when he was gone by the
crowd swarmed together and followed him at a distance, talking excitedly
and asking questions and finding out the facts. Finding out the facts and
passing them on to others, with improvements -- improvements which soon
enlarged the bowl of wine to a barrel, and made the one bottle hold it all
and yet remain empty to the last.

    When the astrologer reached the market-square he went straight to a
juggler, fantastically dressed, who was keeping three brass balls in the
air, and took them from him and faced around upon the approaching crowd and
said: "This poor clown is ignorant of his art. Come forward and see an
expert perform."

    So saying, he tossed the balls up one after another and set them
whirling in a slender bright oval in the air, and added another, then
another and another, and soon -- no one seeing whence he got them --
adding, adding, adding, the oval lengthening all the time, his hands moving
so swiftly that they were just a web or a blur and not distinguishable as
hands; and such as counted said there were now a hundred balls in the air.
The spinning great oval reached up twenty feet in the air and was a shining
and glinting and wonderful sight. Then he folded his arms and told the
balls to go on spinning without his help -- and they did it. After a couple
of minutes he said, "There, that will do," and the oval broke and came
crashing down, and the balls scattered abroad and rolled every whither. And
wherever one of them came the people fell back in dread, and no one would
touch it. It made him laugh, and he scoffed at the people and called them
cowards and old women. Then he turned and saw the tight-rope, and said
foolish people were daily wasting their money to see a clumsy and ignorant
varlet degrade that beautiful art; now they should see the work of a
master. With that he made a spring into the air and lit firm on his feet on
the rope. Then he hopped the whole length of it back and forth on one foot,
with his hands clasped over his eyes; and next he began to throw
somersaults, both backward and forward, and threw twenty-seven.

    The people murmured, for the astrologer was old, and always before had
been halting of movement and at times even lame, but he was nimble enough
now and went on with his antics in the liveliest manner. Finally he sprang
lightly down and walked away, and passed up the road and around the corner
and disappeared. Then that great, pale, silent, solid crowd drew a deep
breath and looked into one another's faces as if they said: "Was it real?
Did you see it, or was it only I -- and was I dreaming?" Then they broke
into a low murmur of talking, and fell apart in couples, and moved toward
their homes, still talking in that awed way, with faces close together and
laying a hand on an arm and making other such gestures as people make when
they have been deeply impressed by something.

    We boys followed behind our fathers, and listened, catching all we
could of what they said; and when they sat down in our house and continued
their talk they still had us for company. They were in a sad mood, for it
was certain, they said, that disaster for the village must follow this
awful visitation of witches and devils. Then my father remembered that
Father Adolf had been struck dumb at the moment of his denunciation.

    "They have not ventured to lay their hands upon an anointed servant of
God before," he said; "and how they could have dared it this time I cannot
make out, for he wore his crucifix. Isn't it so?"

    "Yes," said the others, "we saw it."

    "It is serious, friends, it is very serious. Always before, we had a
protection. It has failed."

    The others shook, as with a sort of chill, and muttered those words
over -- "It has failed." "God has forsaken us."

    "It is true," said Seppi Wohlmeyer's father; "there is nowhere to look
for help."

    "The people will realize this," said Nikolaus's father, the judge, "and
despair will take away their courage and their energies. We have indeed
fallen upon evil times."

    He sighed, and Wohlmeyer said, in a troubled voice: "The report of it
all will go about the country, and our village will be shunned as being
under the displeasure of God. The Golden Stag will know hard times."

    "True, neighbor," said my father; "all of us will suffer -- all in
repute, many in estate. And, good God! -- "

    "What is it?"

    "That can come -- to finish us!"

    "Name it -- um Gottes Willen!"

    "The Interdict!"

    It smote like a thunderclap, and they were like to swoon with the
terror of it. Then the dread of this calamity roused their energies, and
they stopped brooding and began to consider ways to avert it. They
discussed this, that, and the other way, and talked till the afternoon was
far spent, then confessed that at present they could arrive at no decision.
So they parted sorrowfully, with oppressed hearts which were filled with
bodings.

    While they were saying their parting words I slipped out and set my
course for Marget's house to see what was happening there. I met many
people, but none of them greeted me. It ought to have been surprising, but
it was not, for they were so distraught with fear and dread that they were
not in their right minds, I think; they were white and haggard, and walked
like persons in a dream, their eyes open but seeing nothing, their lips
moving but uttering nothing, and worriedly clasping and unclasping their
hands without knowing it.

    At Marget's it was like a funeral. She and Wilhelm sat together on the
sofa, but said nothing, and not even holding hands. Both were steeped in
gloom, and Marget's eyes were red from the crying she had been doing. She
said:

    "I have been begging him to go, and come no more, and so save himself
alive. I cannot bear to be his murderer. This house is bewitched, and no
inmate will escape the fire. But he will not go, and he will be lost with
the rest."

    Wilhelm said he would not go; if there was danger for her, his place
was by her, and there he would remain. Then she began to cry again, and it
was all so mournful that I wished I had stayed away. There was a knock,
now, and Satan came in, fresh and cheery and beautiful, and brought that
winy atmosphere of his and changed the whole thing. He never said a word
about what had been happening, nor about the awful fears which were
freezing the blood in the hearts of the community, but began to talk and
rattle on about all manner of gay and pleasant things; and next about music
-- an artful stroke which cleared away the remnant of Marget's depression
and brought her spirits and her interests broad awake. She had not heard
any one talk so well and so knowingly on that subject before, and she was
so uplifted by it and so charmed that what she was feeling lit up her face
and came out in her words; and Wilhelm noticed it and did not look as
pleased as he ought to have done. And next Satan branched off into poetry,
and recited some, and did it well, and Marget was charmed again; and again
Wilhelm was not as pleased as he ought to have been, and this time Marget
noticed it and was remorseful.

    I fell asleep to pleasant music that night -- the patter of rain upon
the panes and the dull growling of distant thunder. Away in the night Satan
came and roused me and said: "Come with me. Where shall we go?"

    "Anywhere -- so it is with you."

    Then there was a fierce glare of sunlight, and he said, "This is
China."

    That was a grand surprise, and made me sort of drunk with vanity and
gladness to think I had come so far -- so much, much farther than anybody
else in our village, including Bartel Sperling, who had such a great
opinion of his travels. We buzzed around over that empire for more than
half an hour, and saw the whole of it. It was wonderful, the spectacles we
saw; and some were beautiful, others too horrible to think. For instance --
However, I may go into that by and by, and also why Satan chose China for
this excursion instead of another place; it would interrupt my tale to do
it now. Finally we stopped flitting and lit.

    We sat upon a mountain commanding a vast landscape of mountain-range
and gorge and valley and plain and river, with cities and villages
slumbering in the sunlight, and a glimpse of blue sea on the farther verge.
It was a tranquil and dreamy picture, beautiful to the eye and restful to
the spirit. If we could only make a change like that whenever we wanted to,
the world would be easier to live in than it is, for change of scene shifts
the mind's burdens to the other shoulder and banishes old, shop-worn
wearinesses from mind and body both.

    We talked together, and I had the idea of trying to reform Satan and
persuade him to lead a better life. I told him about all those things he
had been doing, and begged him to be more considerate and stop making
people unhappy. I said I knew he did not mean any harm, but that he ought
to stop and consider the possible consequences of a thing before launching
it in that impulsive and random way of his; then he would not make so much
trouble. He was not hurt by this plain speech; he only looked amused and
surprised, and said:

    "What? I do random things? Indeed, I never do. I stop and consider
possible consequences? Where is the need? I know what the consequences are
going to be -- always."

    "Oh, Satan, then how could you do these things?"

    "Well, I will tell you, and you must understand if you can. You belong
to a singular race. Every man is a suffering-machine and a
happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously,
with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For
every happiness turned out in the one department the other stands ready to
modify it with a sorrow or a pain -- maybe a dozen. In most cases the man's
life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this
is not the case the unhappiness predominates -- always; never the other.
Sometimes a man's make and disposition are such that his misery-machine is
able to do nearly all the business. Such a man goes through life almost
ignorant of what happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he does,
brings a misfortune upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind of a
person life is not an advantage, is it? It is only a disaster. Sometimes
for an hour's happiness a man's machinery makes him pay years of misery.
Don't you know that? It happens every now and then. I will give you a case
or two presently. Now the people of your village are nothing to me -- you
know that, don't you?"

    I did not like to speak out too flatly, so I said I had suspected it.

    "Well, it is true that they are nothing to me. It is not possible that
they should be. The difference between them and me is abysmal,
immeasurable. They have no intellect."

    "No intellect?"

    "Nothing that resembles it. At a future time I will examine what man
calls his mind and give you the details of that chaos, then you will see
and understand. Men have nothing in common with me -- there is no point of
contact; they have foolish little feelings and foolish little vanities and
impertinences and ambitions; their foolish little life is but a laugh, a
sigh, and extinction; and they have no sense. Only the Moral Sense. I will
show you what I mean. Here is a red spider, not so big as a pin's head. Can
you imagine an elephant being interested in him -- caring whether he is
happy or isn't, or whether he is wealthy or poor, or whether his sweetheart
returns his love or not, or whether his mother is sick or well, or whether
he is looked up to in society or not, or whether his enemies will smite him
or his friends desert him, or whether his hopes will suffer blight or his
political ambitions fail, or whether he shall die in the bosom of his
family or neglected and despised in a foreign land? These things can never
be important to the elephant; they are nothing to him; he cannot shrink his
sympathies to the microscopic size of them. Man is to me as the red spider
is to the elephant. The elephant has nothing against the spider -- he
cannot get down to that remote level; I have nothing against man. The
elephant is indifferent; I am indifferent. The elephant would not take the
trouble to do the spider an ill turn; if he took the notion he might do him
a good turn, if it came in his way and cost nothing. I have done men good
service, but no ill turns.

    "The elephant lives a century, the red spider a day; in power,
intellect, and dignity the one creature is separated from the other by a
distance which is simply astronomical. Yet in these, as in all qualities,
man is immeasurably further below me than is the wee spider below the
elephant.

    "Man's mind clumsily and tediously and laboriously patches little
trivialities together and gets a result -- such as it is. My mind creates!
Do you get the force of that? Creates anything it desires -- and in a
moment. Creates without material. Creates fluids, solids, colors --
anything, everything -- out of the airy nothing which is called Thought. A
man imagines a silk thread, imagines a machine to make it, imagines a
picture, then by weeks of labor embroiders it on canvas with the thread. I
think the whole thing, and in a moment it is before you -- created.

    "I think a poem, music, the record of a game of chess -- anything --
and it is there. This is the immortal mind -- nothing is beyond its reach.
Nothing can obstruct my vision; the rocks are transparent to me, and
darkness is daylight. I do not need to open a book; I take the whole of its
contents into my mind at a single glance, through the cover; and in a
million years I could not forget a single word of it, or its place in the
volume. Nothing goes on in the skull of man, bird, fish, insect, or other
creature which can be hidden from me. I pierce the learned man's brain with
a single glance, and the treasures which cost him threescore years to
accumulate are mine; he can forget, and he does forget, but I retain.

    "Now, then, I perceive by your thoughts that you are understanding me
fairly well. Let us proceed. Circumstances might so fall out that the
elephant could like the spider -- supposing he can see it -- but he could
not love it. His love is for his own kind -- for his equals. An angel's
love is sublime, adorable, divine, beyond the imagination of man --
infinitely beyond it! But it is limited to his own august order. If it fell
upon one of your race for only an instant, it would consume its object to
ashes. No, we cannot love men, but we can be harmlessly indifferent to
them; we can also like them, sometimes. I like you and the boys, I like
Father Peter, and for your sakes I am doing all these things for the
villagers."

    He saw that I was thinking a sarcasm, and he explained his position.

    "I have wrought well for the villagers, though it does not look like it
on the surface. Your race never know good fortune from ill. They are always
mistaking the one for the other. It is because they cannot see into the
future. What I am doing for the villagers will bear good fruit some day; in
some cases to themselves; in others, to unborn generations of men. No one
will ever know that I was the cause, but it will be none the less true, for
all that. Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end
a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the
neighbor knocks over the next brick -- and so on till all the row is
prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial
brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the
future, as I can, you would see everything that was going to happen to that
creature; for nothing can change the order of its life after the first
event has determined it. That is, nothing will change it, because each act
unfailingly begets an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end,
and the seer can look forward down the line and see just when each act is
to have birth, from cradle to grave."

    "Does God order the career?"

    "Foreordain it? No. The man's circumstances and environment order it.
His first act determines the second and all that follow after. But suppose,
for argument's sake, that the man should skip one of these acts; an
apparently trifling one, for instance; suppose that it had been appointed
that on a certain day, at a certain hour and minute and second and fraction
of a second he should go to the well, and he didn't go. That man's career
would change utterly, from that moment; thence to the grave it would be
wholly different from the career which his first act as a child had
arranged for him. Indeed, it might be that if he had gone to the well he
would have ended his career on a throne, and that omitting to do it would
set him upon a career that would lead to beggary and a pauper's grave. For
instance: if at any time -- say in boyhood -- Columbus had skipped the
triflingest little link in the chain of acts projected and made inevitable
by his first childish act, it would have changed his whole subsequent life,
and he would have become a priest and died obscure in an Italian village,
and America would not have been discovered for two centuries afterward. I
know this. To skip any one of the billion acts in Columbus's chain would
have wholly changed his life. I have examined his billion of possible
careers, and in only one of them occurs the discovery of America. You
people do not suspect that all of your acts are of one size and importance,
but it is true; to snatch at an appointed fly is as big with fate for you
as is any other appointed act -- "

    "As the conquering of a continent, for instance?"

    "Yes. Now, then, no man ever does drop a link -- the thing has never
happened! Even when he is trying to make up his mind as to whether he will
do a thing or not, that itself is a link, an act, and has its proper place
in his chain; and when he finally decides an act, that also was the thing
which he was absolutely certain to do. You see, now, that a man will never
drop a link in his chain. He cannot. If he made up his mind to try, that
project would itself be an unavoidable link -- a thought bound to occur to
him at that precise moment, and made certain by the first act of his
babyhood."

    It seemed so dismal!

    "He is a prisoner for life," I said sorrowfully, "and cannot get free."

    "No, of himself he cannot get away from the consequences of his first
childish act. But I can free him."

    I looked up wistfully.

    "I have changed the careers of a number of your villagers."

    I tried to thank him, but found it difficult, and let it drop.

    "I shall make some other changes. You know that little Lisa Brandt?"

    "Oh yes, everybody does. My mother says she is so sweet and so lovely
that she is not like any other child. She says she will be the pride of the
village when she grows up; and its idol, too, just as she is now."

    "I shall change her future."

    "Make it better?" I asked.

    "Yes. And I will change the future of Nikolaus."

    I was glad, this time, and said, "I don't need to ask about his case;
you will be sure to do generously by him."

    "It is my intention."

    Straight off I was building that great future of Nicky's in my
imagination, and had already made a renowned general of him and hofmeister
at the court, when I noticed that Satan was waiting for me to get ready to
listen again. I was ashamed of having exposed my cheap imaginings to him,
and was expecting some sarcasms, but it did not happen. He proceeded with
his subject:

    "Nicky's appointed life is sixty-two years."

    "That's grand!" I said.

    "Lisa's, thirty-six. But, as I told you, I shall change their lives and
those ages. Two minutes and a quarter from now Nikolaus will wake out of
his sleep and find the rain blowing in. It was appointed that he should
turn over and go to sleep again. But I have appointed that he shall get up
and close the window first. That trifle will change his career entirely. He
will rise in the morning two minutes later than the chain of his life had
appointed him to rise. By consequence, thenceforth nothing will ever happen
to him in accordance with the details of the old chain." He took out his
watch and sat looking at it a few moments, then said: "Nikolaus has risen
to close the window. His life is changed, his new career has begun. There
will be consequences."

    It made me feel creepy; it was uncanny.

    "But for this change certain things would happen twelve days from now.
For instance, Nikolaus would save Lisa from drowning. He would arrive on
the scene at exactly the right moment -- four minutes past ten, the
long-ago appointed instant of time -- and the water would be shoal, the
achievement easy and certain. But he will arrive some seconds too late,
now; Lisa will have struggled into deeper water. He will do his best, but
both will drown."

    "Oh, Satan! oh, dear Satan!" I cried, with the tears rising in my eyes,
"save them! Don't let it happen. I can't bear to lose Nikolaus, he is my
loving playmate and friend; and think of Lisa's poor mother!"

    I clung to him and begged and pleaded, but he was not moved. He made me
sit down again, and told me I must hear him out.

    "I have changed Nikolaus's life, and this has changed Lisa's. If I had
not done this, Nikolaus would save Lisa, then he would catch cold from his
drenching; one of your race's fantastic and desolating scarlet fevers would
follow, with pathetic after-effects; for forty-six years he would lie in
his bed a paralytic log, deaf, dumb, blind, and praying night and day for
the blessed relief of death. Shall I change his life back?"

    "Oh no! Oh, not for the world! In charity and pity leave it as it is."

    "It is best so. I could not have changed any other link in his life and
done him so good a service. He had a billion possible careers, but not one
of them was worth living; they were charged full with miseries and
disasters. But for my intervention he would do his brave deed twelve days
from now -- a deed begun and ended in six minutes -- and get for all reward
those forty-six years of sorrow and suffering I told you of. It is one of
the cases I was thinking of awhile ago when I said that sometimes an act
which brings the actor an hour's happiness and self-satisfaction is paid
for -- or punished -- by years of suffering."

    I wondered what poor little Lisa's early death would save her from. He
answered the thought:

    "From ten years of pain and slow recovery from an accident, and then
from nineteen years' pollution, shame, depravity, crime, ending with death
at the hands of the executioner. Twelve days hence she will die; her mother
would save her life if she could. Am I not kinder than her mother?"

    "Yes -- oh, indeed yes; and wiser."

    "Father Peter's case is coming on presently. He will be acquitted,
through unassailable proofs of his innocence."

    "Why, Satan, how can that be? Do you really think it?"

    "Indeed, I know it. His good name will be restored, and the rest of his
life will be happy."

    "I can believe it. To restore his good name will have that effect."

    "His happiness will not proceed from that cause. I shall change his
life that day, for his good. He will never know his good name has been
restored."

    In my mind -- and modestly -- I asked for particulars, but Satan paid
no attention to my thought. Next, my mind wandered to the astrologer, and I
wondered where he might be.

    "In the moon," said Satan, with a fleeting sound which I believed was a
chuckle. "I've got him on the cold side of it, too. He doesn't know where
he is, and is not having a pleasant time; still, it is good enough for him,
a good place for his star studies. I shall need him presently; then I shall
bring him back and possess him again. He has a long and cruel and odious
life before him, but I will change that, for I have no feeling against him
and am quite willing to do him a kindness. I think I shall get him burned."

    He had such strange notions of kindness! But angels are made so, and do
not know any better. Their ways are not like our ways; and, besides, human
beings are nothing to them; they think they are only freaks. It seems to me
odd that he should put the astrologer so far away; he could have dumped him
in Germany just as well, where he would be handy.

    "Far away?" said Satan. "To me no place is far away; distance does not
exist for me. The sun is less than a hundred million miles from here, and
the light that is falling upon us has taken eight minutes to come; but I
can make that flight, or any other, in a fraction of time so minute that it
cannot be measured by a watch. I have but to think the journey, and it is
accomplished."

    I held out my hand and said, "The light lies upon it; think it into a
glass of wine, Satan."

    He did it. I drank the wine.

    "Break the glass," he said.

    I broke it.

    "There -- you see it is real. The villagers thought the brass balls
were magic stuff and as perishable as smoke. They were afraid to touch
them. You are a curious lot -- your race. But come along; I have business.
I will put you to bed." Said and done. Then he was gone; but his voice came
back to me through the rain and darkness saying, "Yes, tell Seppi, but no
other."

    It was the answer to my thought.

                                 Chapter 8

                                 Chapter 8

    Sleep would not come. It was not because I was proud of my travels and
excited about having been around the big world to China, and feeling
contemptuous of Bartel Sperling, "the traveler," as he called himself, and
looked down upon us others because he had been to Vienna once and was the
only Eseldorf boy who had made such a journey and seen the world's wonders.
At another time that would have kept me awake, but it did not affect me
now. No, my mind was filled with Nikolaus, my thoughts ran upon him only,
and the good days we had seen together at romps and frolics in the woods
and the fields and the river in the long summer days, and skating and
sliding in the winter when our parents thought we were in school. And now
he was going out of this young life, and the summers and winters would come
and go, and we others would rove and play as before, but his place would be
vacant; we should see him no more. To-morrow he would not suspect, but
would be as he had always been, and it would shock me to hear him laugh,
and see him do lightsome and frivolous things, for to me he would be a
corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes, and I should see the shroud around
his face; and next day he would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time
his handful of days would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing
coming nearer and nearer, his fate closing steadily around him and no one
knowing it but Seppi and me. Twelve days -- only twelve days. It was awful
to think of. I noticed that in my thoughts I was not calling him by his
familiar names, Nick and Nicky, but was speaking of him by his full name,
and reverently, as one speaks of the dead. Also, as incident after incident
of our comradeship came thronging into my mind out of the past, I noticed
that they were mainly cases where I had wronged him or hurt him, and they
rebuked me and reproached me, and my heart was wrung with remorse, just as
it is when we remember our unkindnesses to friends who have passed beyond
the veil, and we wish we could have them back again, if only for a moment,
so that we could go on our knees to them and say, "Have pity, and forgive."

    Once when we were nine years old he went a long errand of nearly two
miles for the fruiterer, who gave him a splendid big apple for reward, and
he was flying home with it, almost beside himself with astonishment and
delight, and I met him, and he let me look at the apple, not thinking of
treachery, and I ran off with it, eating it as I ran, he following me and
begging; and when he overtook me I offered him the core, which was all that
was left; and I laughed. Then he turned away, crying, and said he had meant
to give it to his little sister. That smote me, for she was slowly getting
well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud moment for him, to see
her joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was ashamed to say I was
ashamed, and only said something rude and mean, to pretend I did not care,
and he made no reply in words, but there was a wounded look in his face as
he turned away toward his home which rose before me many times in after
years, in the night, and reproached me and made me ashamed again. It had
grown dim in my mind, by and by, then it disappeared; but it was back now,
and not dim.

    Once at school, when we were eleven, I upset my ink and spoiled four
copy-books, and was in danger of severe punishment; but I put it upon him,
and he got the whipping.

    And only last year I had cheated him in a trade, giving him a large
fish-hook which was partly broken through for three small sound ones. The
first fish he caught broke the hook, but he did not know I was blamable,
and he refused to take back one of the small hooks which my conscience
forced me to offer him, but said, "A trade is a trade; the hook was bad,
but that was not your fault."

    No, I could not sleep. These little, shabby wrongs upbraided me and
tortured me, and with a pain much sharper than one feels when the wrongs
have been done to the living. Nikolaus was living, but no matter; he was to
me as one already dead. The wind was still moaning about the eaves, the
rain still pattering upon the panes.

    In the morning I sought out Seppi and told him. It was down by the
river. His lips moved, but he did not say anything, he only looked dazed
and stunned, and his face turned very white. He stood like that a few
moments, the tears welling into his eyes, then he turned away and I locked
my arm in his and we walked along thinking, but not speaking. We crossed
the bridge and wandered through the meadows and up among the hills and the
woods, and at last the talk came and flowed freely, and it was all about
Nikolaus and was a recalling of the life we had lived with him. And every
now and then Seppi said, as if to himself:

    "Twelve days! -- less than twelve days."

    We said we must be with him all the time; we must have all of him we
could; the days were precious now. Yet we did not go to seek him. It would
be like meeting the dead, and we were afraid. We did not say it, but that
was what we were feeling. And so it gave us a shock when we turned a curve
and came upon Nikolaus face to face. He shouted, gaily:

    "Hi-hi! What is the matter? Have you seen a ghost?"

    We couldn't speak, but there was no occasion; he was willing to talk
for us all, for he had just seen Satan and was in high spirits about it.
Satan had told him about our trip to China, and he had begged Satan to take
him a journey, and Satan had promised. It was to be a far journey, and
wonderful and beautiful; and Nikolaus had begged him to take us, too, but
he said no, he would take us some day, maybe, but not now. Satan would come
for him on the 13th, and Nikolaus was already counting the hours, he was so
impatient.

    That was the fatal day. We were already counting the hours, too.

    We wandered many a mile, always following paths which had been our
favorites from the days when we were little, and always we talked about the
old times. All the blitheness was with Nikolaus; we others could not shake
off our depression. Our tone toward Nikolaus was so strangely gentle and
tender and yearning that he noticed it, and was pleased; and we were
constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying,
"Wait, let me do that for you," and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven
fish-hooks -- all I had -- and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his
new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow -- atonements for
swindles practised upon him formerly, as I learned later, and probably no
longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These things touched him, and he could
not have believed that we loved him so; and his pride in it and
gratefulness for it cut us to the heart, we were so undeserving of them.
When we parted at last, he was radiant, and said he had never had such a
happy day.

    As we walked along homeward, Seppi said, "We always prized him, but
never so much as now, when we are going to lose him."

    Next day and every day we spent all of our spare time with Nikolaus;
and also added to it time which we (and he) stole from work and other
duties, and this cost the three of us some sharp scoldings, and some
threats of punishment. Every morning two of us woke with a start and a
shudder, saying, as the days flew along, "Only ten days left;" "only nine
days left;" "only eight;" "only seven." Always it was narrowing. Always
Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled because we were not. He wore
his invention to the bone trying to invent ways to cheer us up, but it was
only a hollow success; he could see that our jollity had no heart in it,
and that the laughs we broke into came up against some obstruction or other
and suffered damage and decayed into a sigh. He tried to find out what the
matter was, so that he could help us out of our trouble or make it lighter
by sharing it with us; so we had to tell many lies to deceive him and
appease him.

    But the most distressing thing of all was that he was always making
plans, and often they went beyond the 13th! Whenever that happened it made
us groan in spirit. All his mind was fixed upon finding some way to conquer
our depression and cheer us up; and at last, when he had but three days to
live, he fell upon the right idea and was jubilant over it -- a
boys-and-girls' frolic and dance in the woods, up there where we first met
Satan, and this was to occur on the 14th. It was ghastly, for that was his
funeral day. We couldn't venture to protest; it would only have brought a
"Why?" which we could not answer. He wanted us to help him invite his
guests, and we did it -- one can refuse nothing to a dying friend. But it
was dreadful, for really we were inviting them to his funeral.

    It was an awful eleven days; and yet, with a lifetime stretching back
between to-day and then, they are still a grateful memory to me, and
beautiful. In effect they were days of companionship with one's sacred
dead, and I have known no comradeship that was so close or so precious. We
clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they wasted away, and
parting with them with that pain and bereavement which a miser feels who
sees his hoard filched from him coin by coin by robbers and is helpless to
prevent it.

    When the evening of the last day came we stayed out too long; Seppi and
I were in fault for that; we could not bear to part with Nikolaus; so it
was very late when we left him at his door. We lingered near awhile,
listening; and that happened which we were fearing. His father gave him the
promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks. But we listened only a
moment, then hurried away, remorseful for this thing which we had caused.
And sorry for the father, too; our thought being, "If he only knew -- if he
only knew!"

    In the morning Nikolaus did not meet us at the appointed place, so we
went to his home to see what the matter was. His mother said:

    "His father is out of all patience with these goings-on, and will not
have any more of it. Half the time when Nick is needed he is not to be
found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two. His
father gave him a flogging last night. It always grieved me before, and
many's the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time he
appealed to me in vain, for I was out of patience myself."

    "I wish you had saved him just this one time," I said, my voice
trembling a little; "it would ease a pain in your heart to remember it some
day."

    She was ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She
turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said, "What
do you mean by that?"

    I was not prepared, and didn't know anything to say; so it was awkward,
for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert and spoke up:

    "Why, of course it would be pleasant to remember, for the very reason
we were out so late was that Nikolaus got to telling how good you are to
him, and how he never got whipped when you were by to save him; and he was
so full of it, and we were so full of the interest of it, that none of us
noticed how late it was getting."

    "Did he say that? Did he?" and she put her apron to her eyes.

    "You can ask Theodor -- he will tell you the same."

    "It is a dear, good lad, my Nick," she said. "I am sorry I let him get
whipped; I will never do it again. To think -- all the time I was sitting
here last night, fretting and angry at him, he was loving me and praising
me! Dear, dear, if we could only know! Then we shouldn't ever go wrong; but
we are only poor, dumb beasts groping around and making mistakes. I shan't
ever think of last night without a pang."

    She was like all the rest; it seemed as if nobody could open a mouth,
in these wretched days, without saying something that made us shiver. They
were "groping around," and did not know what true, sorrowfully true things
they were saying by accident.

    Seppi asked if Nikolaus might go out with us.

    "I am sorry," she answered, "but he can't. To punish him further, his
father doesn't allow him to go out of the house to-day."

    We had a great hope! I saw it in Seppi's eyes. We thought, "If he
cannot leave the house, he cannot be drowned." Seppi asked, to make sure:

    "Must he stay in all day, or only the morning?"

    "All day. It's such a pity, too; it's a beautiful day, and he is so
unused to being shut up. But he is busy planning his party, and maybe that
is company for him. I do hope he isn't too lonesome."

    Seppi saw that in her eye which emboldened him to ask if we might go up
and help him pass his time.

    "And welcome!" she said, right heartily. "Now I call that real
friendship, when you might be abroad in the fields and the woods, having a
happy time. You are good boys, I'll allow that, though you don't always
find satisfactory ways of improving it. Take these cakes -- for yourselves
-- and give him this one, from his mother."

    The first thing we noticed when we entered Nikolaus's room was the time
-- a quarter to 10. Could that be correct? Only such a few minutes to live!
I felt a contraction at my heart. Nikolaus jumped up and gave us a glad
welcome. He was in good spirits over his plannings for his party and had
not been lonesome.

    "Sit down," he said, "and look at what I've been doing. And I've
finished a kite that you will say is a beauty. It's drying, in the kitchen;
I'll fetch it."

    He had been spending his penny savings in fanciful trifles of various
kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were marshaled with fine and
showy effect upon the table. He said:

    "Examine them at your leisure while I get mother to touch up the kite
with her iron if it isn't dry enough yet."

    Then he tripped out and went clattering down-stairs, whistling.

    We did not look at the things; we couldn't take any interest in
anything but the clock. We sat staring at it in silence, listening to the
ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped we nodded recognition -- one
minute fewer to cover in the race for life or for death. Finally Seppi drew
a deep breath and said:

    "Two minutes to ten. Seven minutes more and he will pass the
death-point. Theodor, he is going to be saved! He's going to -- "

    "Hush! I'm on needles. Watch the clock and keep still."

    Five minutes more. We were panting with the strain and the excitement.
Another three minutes, and there was a footstep on the stair.

    "Saved!" And we jumped up and faced the door.

    The old mother entered, bringing the kite. "Isn't it a beauty?" she
said. "And, dear me, how he has slaved over it -- ever since daylight, I
think, and only finished it awhile before you came." She stood it against
the wall, and stepped back to take a view of it. "He drew the pictures his
own self, and I think they are very good. The church isn't so very good,
I'll have to admit, but look at the bridge -- any one can recognize the
bridge in a minute. He asked me to bring it up.... Dear me! it's seven
minutes past ten, and I -- "

    "But where is he?"

    "He? Oh, he'll be here soon; he's gone out a minute."

    "Gone out?"

    "Yes. Just as he came down-stairs little Lisa's mother came in and said
the child had wandered off somewhere, and as she was a little uneasy I told
Nikolaus to never mind about his father's orders -- go and look her up....
Why, how white you two do look! I do believe you are sick. Sit down; I'll
fetch something. That cake has disagreed with you. It is a little heavy,
but I thought -- "

    She disappeared without finishing her sentence, and we hurried at once
to the back window and looked toward the river. There was a great crowd at
the other end of the bridge, and people were flying toward that point from
every direction.

    "Oh, it is all over -- poor Nikolaus! Why, oh, why did she let him get
out of the house!"

    "Come away," said Seppi, half sobbing, "come quick -- we can't bear to
meet her; in five minutes she will know."

    But we were not to escape. She came upon us at the foot of the stairs,
with her cordials in her hands, and made us come in and sit down and take
the medicine. Then she watched the effect, and it did not satisfy her; so
she made us wait longer, and kept upbraiding herself for giving us the
unwholesome cake.

    Presently the thing happened which we were dreading. There was a sound
of tramping and scraping outside, and a crowd came solemnly in, with heads
uncovered, and laid the two drowned bodies on the bed.

    "Oh, my God!" that poor mother cried out, and fell on her knees, and
put her arms about her dead boy and began to cover the wet face with
kisses. "Oh, it was I that sent him, and I have been his death. If I had
obeyed, and kept him in the house, this would not have happened. And I am
rightly punished; I was cruel to him last night, and him begging me, his
own mother, to be his friend."

    And so she went on and on, and all the women cried, and pitied her, and
tried to comfort her, but she could not forgive herself and could not be
comforted, and kept on saying if she had not sent him out he would be alive
and well now, and she was the cause of his death.

    It shows how foolish people are when they blame themselves for anything
they have done. Satan knows, and he said nothing happens that your first
act hasn't arranged to happen and made inevitable; and so, of your own
motion you can't ever alter the scheme or do a thing that will break a
link. Next we heard screams, and Frau Brandt came wildly plowing and
plunging through the crowd with her dress in disorder and hair flying
loose, and flung herself upon her dead child with moans and kisses and
pleadings and endearments; and by and by she rose up almost exhausted with
her outpourings of passionate emotion, and clenched her fist and lifted it
toward the sky, and her tear-drenched face grew hard and resentful, and she
said:

    "For nearly two weeks I have had dreams and presentiments and warnings
that death was going to strike what was most precious to me, and day and
night and night and day I have groveled in the dirt before Him praying Him
to have pity on my innocent child and save it from harm -- and here is His
answer!"

    Why, He had saved it from harm -- but she did not know.

    She wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, and stood awhile gazing
down at the child and caressing its face and its hair with her hands; then
she spoke again in that bitter tone: "But in His hard heart is no
compassion. I will never pray again."

    She gathered her dead child to her bosom and strode away, the crowd
falling back to let her pass, and smitten dumb by the awful words they had
heard. Ah, that poor woman! It is as Satan said, we do not know good
fortune from bad, and are always mistaking the one for the other. Many a
time since I have heard people pray to God to spare the life of sick
persons, but I have never done it.



                     Image available for UVA users only

    There Was a Sound of Tramping Outside and the Crowd Came Solemnly In

    Both funerals took place at the same time in our little church next
day. Everybody was there, including the party guests. Satan was there, too;
which was proper, for it was on account of his efforts that the funerals
had happened. Nikolaus had departed this life without absolution, and a
collection was taken up for masses, to get him out of purgatory. Only
two-thirds of the required money was gathered, and the parents were going
to try to borrow the rest, but Satan furnished it. He told us privately
that there was no purgatory, but he had contributed in order that
Nikolaus's parents and their friends might be saved from worry and
distress. We thought it very good of him, but he said money did not cost
him anything.

    At the graveyard the body of little Lisa was seized for debt by a
carpenter to whom the mother owed fifty groschen for work done the year
before. She had never been able to pay this, and was not able now. The
carpenter took the corpse home and kept it four days in his cellar, the
mother weeping and imploring about his house all the time; then he buried
it in his brother's cattle-yard, without religious ceremonies. It drove the
mother wild with grief and shame, and she forsook her work and went daily
about the town, cursing the carpenter and blaspheming the laws of the
emperor and the church, and it was pitiful to see. Seppi asked Satan to
interfere, but he said the carpenter and the rest were members of the human
race and were acting quite neatly for that species of animal. He would
interfere if he found a horse acting in such a way, and we must inform him
when we came across that kind of horse doing that kind of human thing, so
that he could stop it. We believed this was sarcasm, for of course there
wasn't any such horse.

    But after a few days we found that we could not abide that poor woman's
distress, so we begged Satan to examine her several possible careers, and
see if he could not change her, to her profit, to a new one. He said the
longest of her careers as they now stood gave her forty-two years to live,
and her shortest one twenty-nine, and that both were charged with grief and
hunger and cold and pain. The only improvement he could make would be to
enable her to skip a certain three minutes from now; and he asked us if he
should do it. This was such a short time to decide in that we went to
pieces with nervous excitement, and before we could pull ourselves together
and ask for particulars he said the time would be up in a few more seconds;
so then we gasped out, "Do it!"

    "It is done," he said; "she was going around a corner; I have turned
her back; it has changed her career."

    "Then what will happen, Satan?"

    "It is happening now. She is having words with Fischer, the weaver. In
his anger Fischer will straightway do what he would not have done but for
this accident. He was present when she stood over her child's body and
uttered those blasphemies."

    "What will he do?"

    "He is doing it now -- betraying her. In three days she will go to the
stake."

    We could not speak; we were frozen with horror, for if we had not
meddled with her career she would have been spared this awful fate. Satan
noticed these thoughts, and said:

    "What you are thinking is strictly human-like -- that is to say,
foolish. The woman is advantaged. Die when she might, she would go to
heaven. By this prompt death she gets twenty-nine years more of heaven than
she is entitled to, and escapes twenty-nine years of misery here."

    A moment before we were bitterly making up our minds that we would ask
no more favors of Satan for friends of ours, for he did not seem to know
any way to do a person a kindness but by killing him; but the whole aspect
of the case was changed now, and we were glad of what we had done and full
of happiness in the thought of it.

    After a little I began to feel troubled about Fischer, and asked,
timidly, "Does this episode change Fischer's life-scheme, Satan?"

    "Change it? Why, certainly. And radically. If he had not met Frau
Brandt awhile ago he would die next year, thirty-four years of age. Now he
will live to be ninety, and have a pretty prosperous and comfortable life
of it, as human lives go."

    We felt a great joy and pride in what we had done for Fischer, and were
expecting Satan to sympathize with this feeling; but he showed no sign and
this made us uneasy. We waited for him to speak, but he didn't; so, to
assuage our solicitude we had to ask him if there was any defect in
Fischer's good luck. Satan considered the question a moment, then said,
with some hesitation:

    "Well, the fact is, it is a delicate point. Under his several former
possible life-careers he was going to heaven."

    We were aghast. "Oh, Satan! and under this one -- "

    "There, don't be so distressed. You were sincerely trying to do him a
kindness; let that comfort you."

    "Oh, dear, dear, that cannot comfort us. You ought to have told us what
we were doing, then we wouldn't have acted so."

    But it made no impression on him. He had never felt a pain or a sorrow,
and did not know what they were, in any really informing way. He had no
knowledge of them except theoretically -- that is to say, intellectually.
And of course that is no good. One can never get any but a loose and
ignorant notion of such things except by experience. We tried our best to
make him comprehend the awful thing that had been done and how we were
compromised by it, but he couldn't seem to get hold of it. He said he did
not think it important where Fischer went to; in heaven he would not be
missed, there were "plenty there." We tried to make him see that he was
missing the point entirely; that Fischer, and not other people, was the
proper one to decide about the importance of it; but it all went for
nothing; he said he did not care for Fischer -- there were plenty more
Fischers.

    The next minute Fischer went by on the other side of the way, and it
made us sick and faint to see him, remembering the doom that was upon him,
and we the cause of it. And how unconscious he was that anything had
happened to him! You could see by his elastic step and his alert manner
that he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn for poor
Frau Brandt. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expectantly. And, sure
enough, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed after, in charge of the officers
and wearing jingling chains. A mob was in her wake, jeering and shouting,
"Blasphemer and heretic!" and some among them were neighbors and friends of
her happier days. Some were trying to strike her, and the officers were not
taking as much trouble as they might to keep them from it.

    "Oh, stop them, Satan!" It was out before we remembered that he could
not interrupt them for a moment without changing their whole after-lives.
He puffed a little puff toward them with his lips and they began to reel
and stagger and grab at the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in
every direction, shrieking, as if in intolerable pain. He had crushed a rib
of each of them with that little puff. We could not help asking if their
life-chart was changed.

    "Yes, entirely. Some have gained years, some have lost them. Some few
will profit in various ways by the change, but only that few."

    We did not ask if we had brought poor Fischer's luck to any of them. We
did not wish to know. We fully believed in Satan's desire to do us
kindnesses, but we were losing confidence in his judgment. It was at this
time that our growing anxiety to have him look over our life-charts and
suggest improvements began to fade out and give place to other interests.

    For a day or two the whole village was a chattering turmoil over Frau
Brandt's case and over the mysterious calamity that had overtaken the mob,
and at her trial the place was crowded. She was easily convicted of her
blasphemies, for she uttered those terrible words again and said she would
not take them back. When warned that she was imperiling her life, she said
they could take it in welcome, she did not want it, she would rather live
with the professional devils in perdition than with these imitators in the
village. They accused her of breaking all those ribs by witchcraft, and
asked her if she was not a witch? She answered scornfully:

    "No. If I had that power would any of you holy hypocrites be alive five
minutes? No; I would strike you all dead. Pronounce your sentence and let
me go; I am tired of your society."

    So they found her guilty, and she was excommunicated and cut off from
the joys of heaven and doomed to the fires of hell; then she was clothed in
a coarse robe and delivered to the secular arm, and conducted to the
market-place, the bell solemnly tolling the while. We saw her chained to
the stake, and saw the first film of blue smoke rise on the still air. Then
her hard face softened, and she looked upon the packed crowd in front of
her and said, with gentleness:

    "We played together once, in long-agone days when we were innocent
little creatures. For the sake of that, I forgive you."

    We went away then, and did not see the fires consume her, but we heard
the shrieks, although we put our fingers in our ears. When they ceased we
knew she was in heaven, notwithstanding the excommunication; and we were
glad of her death and not sorry that we had brought it about.

    One day, a little while after this, Satan appeared again. We were
always watching out for him, for life was never very stagnant when he was
by. He came upon us at that place in the woods where we had first met him.
Being boys, we wanted to be entertained; we asked him to do a show for us.

    "Very well," he said; "would you like to see a history of the progress
of the human race? -- its development of that product which it calls
civilization?"

    We said we should.

    So, with a thought, he turned the place into the Garden of Eden, and we
saw Abel praying by his altar; then Cain came walking toward him with his
club, and did not seem to see us, and would have stepped on my foot if I
had not drawn it in. He spoke to his brother in a language which we did not
understand; then he grew violent and threatening, and we knew what was
going to happen, and turned away our heads for the moment; but we heard the
crash of the blows and heard the shrieks and the groans; then there was
silence, and we saw Abel lying in his blood and gasping out his life, and
Cain standing over him and looking down at him, vengeful and unrepentant.

    Then the vision vanished, and was followed by a long series of unknown
wars, murders, and massacres. Next we had the Flood, and the Ark tossing
around in the stormy waters, with lofty mountains in the distance showing
veiled and dim through the rain. Satan said:

    "The progress of your race was not satisfactory. It is to have another
chance now."

    The scene changed, and we saw Noah overcome with wine.

    Next, we had Sodom and Gomorrah, and "the attempt to discover two or
three respectable persons there," as Satan described it. Next, Lot and his
daughters in the cave.

    Next came the Hebraic wars, and we saw the victors massacre the
survivors and their cattle, and save the young girls alive and distribute
them around.

    Next we had Jael; and saw her slip into the tent and drive the nail
into the temple of her sleeping guest; and we were so close that when the
blood gushed out it trickled in a little, red stream to our feet, and we
could have stained our hands in it if we had wanted to.

    Next we had Egyptian wars, Greek wars, Roman wars, hideous drenchings
of the earth with blood; and we saw the treacheries of the Romans toward
the Carthaginians, and the sickening spectacle of the massacre of those
brave people. Also we saw Caesar invade Britain -- "not that those
barbarians had done him any harm, but because he wanted their land, and
desired to confer the blessings of civilization upon their widows and
orphans," as Satan explained.

    Next, Christianity was born. Then ages of Europe passed in review
before us, and we saw Christianity and Civilization march hand in hand
through those ages, "leaving famine and death and desolation in their wake,
and other signs of the progress of the human race," as Satan observed.

    And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars -- all over
Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal
families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war
started by the aggressor for any clean purpose -- there is no such war in
the history of the race."

    "Now," said Satan, "you have seen your progress down to the present,
and you must confess that it is wonderful -- in its way. We must now
exhibit the future."

    He showed us slaughters more terrible in their destruction of life,
more devastating in their engines of war, than any we had seen.

    "You perceive," he said, "that you have made continual progress. Cain
did his murder with a club; the Hebrews did their murders with javelins and
swords; the Greeks and Romans added protective armor and the fine arts of
military organization and generalship; the Christian has added guns and
gunpowder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly improved the
deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaughter that all men will confess
that without Christian civilization war must have remained a poor and
trifling thing to the end of time."

    Then he began to laugh in the most unfeeling way, and make fun of the
human race, although he knew that what he had been saying shamed us and
wounded us. No one but an angel could have acted so; but suffering is
nothing to them; they do not know what it is, except by hearsay.

    More than once Seppi and I had tried in a humble and diffident way to
convert him, and as he had remained silent we had taken his silence as a
sort of encouragement; necessarily, then, this talk of his was a
disappointment to us, for it showed that we had made no deep impression
upon him. The thought made us sad, and we knew then how the missionary must
feel when he has been cherishing a glad hope and has seen it blighted. We
kept our grief to ourselves, knowing that this was not the time to continue
our work.

    Satan laughed his unkind laugh to a finish; then he said: "It is a
remarkable progress. In five or six thousand years five or six high
civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world,
then faded out and disappeared; and not one of them except the latest ever
invented any sweeping and adequate way to kill people. They all did their
best -- to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the
earliest incident in its history -- but only the Christian civilization has
scored a triumph to be proud of. Two or three centuries from now it will be
recognized that all the competent killers are Christians; then the pagan
world will go to school to the Christian -- not to acquire his religion,
but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy those to kill missionaries
and converts with."

    By this time his theater was at work again, and before our eyes nation
after nation drifted by, during two or three centuries, a mighty
procession, an endless procession, raging, struggling, wallowing through
seas of blood, smothered in battle-smoke through which the flags glinted
and the red jets from the cannon darted; and always we heard the thunder of
the guns and the cries of the dying.

    "And what does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil chuckle.
"Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come out where you went in.
For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself
and monotonously reperforming this dull nonsense -- to what end? No wisdom
can guess! Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping
little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you
touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call;
whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but
proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to
resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you
the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of
master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who
are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart -- if you have
one -- you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a
coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the
foundation upon which all civilizations have been built. Drink to their
perpetuation! Drink to their augmentation! Drink to -- " Then he saw by our
faces how much we were hurt, and he cut his sentence short and stopped
chuckling, and his manner changed. He said, gently: "No, we will drink one
another's health, and let civilization go. The wine which has flown to our
hands out of space by desire is earthly, and good enough for that other
toast; but throw away the glasses; we will drink this one in wine which has
not visited this world before."

    We obeyed, and reached up and received the new cups as they descended.
They were shapely and beautiful goblets, but they were not made of any
material that we were acquainted with. They seemed to be in motion, they
seemed to be alive; and certainly the colors in them were in motion. They
were very brilliant and sparkling, and of every tint, and they were never
still, but flowed to and fro in rich tides which met and broke and flashed
out dainty explosions of enchanting color. I think it was most like opals
washing about in waves and flashing out their splendid fires. But there is
nothing to compare the wine with. We drank it, and felt a strange and
witching ecstasy as of heaven go stealing through us, and Seppi's eyes
filled and he said worshipingly:

    "We shall be there some day, and then -- "

    He glanced furtively at Satan, and I think he hoped Satan would say,
"Yes, you will be there some day," but Satan seemed to be thinking about
something else, and said nothing. This made me feel ghastly, for I knew he
had heard; nothing, spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi looked
distressed, and did not finish his remark. The goblets rose and clove their
way into the sky, a triplet of radiant sundogs, and disappeared. Why didn't
they stay? It seemed a bad sign, and depressed me. Should I ever see mine
again? Would Seppi ever see his?

                                 Chapter 9

                                 Chapter 9

    It was wonderful, the mastery Satan had over time and distance. For him
they did not exist. He called them human inventions, and said they were
artificialities. We often went to the most distant parts of the globe with
him, and stayed weeks and months, and yet were gone only a fraction of a
second, as a rule. You could prove it by the clock. One day when our people
were in such awful distress because the witch commission were afraid to
proceed against the astrologer and Father Peter's household, or against
any, indeed, but the poor and the friendless, they lost patience and took
to witch-hunting on their own score, and began to chase a born lady who was
known to have the habit of curing people by devilish arts, such as bathing
them, washing them, and nourishing them instead of bleeding them and
purging them through the ministrations of a barber-surgeon in the proper
way. She came flying down, with the howling and cursing mob after her, and
tried to take refuge in houses, but the doors were shut in her face. They
chased her more than half an hour, we following to see it, and at last she
was exhausted and fell, and they caught her. They dragged her to a tree and
threw a rope over the limb, and began to make a noose in it, some holding
her, meantime, and she crying and begging, and her young daughter looking
on and weeping, but afraid to say or do anything.

    They hanged the lady, and I threw a stone at her, although in my heart
I was sorry for her; but all were throwing stones and each was watching his
neighbor, and if I had not done as the others did it would have been
noticed and spoken of. Satan burst out laughing.

    All that were near by turned upon him, astonished and not pleased. It
was an ill time to laugh, for his free and scoffing ways and his
supernatural music had brought him under suspicion all over the town and
turned many privately against him. The big blacksmith called attention to
him now, raising his voice so that all should hear, and said:

    "What are you laughing at? Answer! Moreover, please explain to the
company why you threw no stone."

    "Are you sure I did not throw a stone?"

    "Yes. You needn't try to get out of it; I had my eye on you."

    "And I -- I noticed you!" shouted two others.

    "Three witnesses," said Satan: "Mueller, the blacksmith; Klein, the
butcher's man; Pfeiffer, the weaver's journeyman. Three very ordinary
liars. Are there any more?"

    "Never mind whether there are others or not, and never mind about what
you consider us -- three's enough to settle your matter for you. You'll
prove that you threw a stone, or it shall go hard with you."

    "That's so!" shouted the crowd, and surged up as closely as they could
to the center of interest.

    "And first you will answer that other question," cried the blacksmith,
pleased with himself for being mouthpiece to the public and hero of the
occasion. "What are you laughing at?"

    Satan smiled and answered, pleasantly: "To see three cowards stoning a
dying lady when they were so near death themselves."

    You could see the superstitious crowd shrink and catch their breath,
under the sudden shock. The blacksmith, with a show of bravado, said:

    "Pooh! What do you know about it?"

    "I? Everything. By profession I am a fortune-teller, and I read the
hands of you three -- and some others -- when you lifted them to stone the
woman. One of you will die to-morrow week; another of you will die
to-night; the third has but five minutes to live -- and yonder is the
clock!"

    It made a sensation. The faces of the crowd blanched, and turned
mechanically toward the clock. The butcher and the weaver seemed smitten
with an illness, but the blacksmith braced up and said, with spirit:

    "It is not long to wait for prediction number one. If it fails, young
master, you will not live a whole minute after, I promise you that."

    No one said anything; all watched the clock in a deep stillness which
was impressive. When four and a half minutes were gone the blacksmith gave
a sudden gasp and clapped his hands upon his heart, saying, "Give me
breath! Give me room!" and began to sink down. The crowd surged back, no
one offering to support him, and he fell lumbering to the ground and was
dead. The people stared at him, then at Satan, then at one another; and
their lips moved, but no words came. Then Satan said:

    "Three saw that I threw no stone. Perhaps there are others; let them
speak."

    It struck a kind of panic into them, and, although no one answered him,
many began to violently accuse one another, saying, "You said he didn't
throw," and getting for reply, "It is a lie, and I will make you eat it!"
And so in a moment they were in a raging and noisy turmoil, and beating and
banging one another; and in the midst was the only indifferent one -- the
dead lady hanging from her rope, her troubles forgotten, her spirit at
peace.

    So we walked away, and I was not at ease, but was saying to myself, "He
told them he was laughing at them, but it was a lie -- he was laughing at
me."

    That made him laugh again, and he said, "Yes, I was laughing at you,
because, in fear of what others might report about you, you stoned the
woman when your heart revolted at the act -- but I was laughing at the
others, too."

    "Why?"

    "Because their case was yours."

    "How is that?"

    "Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of them had
no more desire to throw a stone than you had."

    "Satan!"

    "Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is
governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its
feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise.
Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the
crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or
civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but
in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to
assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon
another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt
both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a
hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that
foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long
ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and
silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the
harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants
them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the
most noise -- perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a
determined front will do it -- and in a week all the sheep will wheel and
follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end.

    "Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large
defect in your race -- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his
desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's
eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always
oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and
remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority
of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these
institutions."

    I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think
they were.

    "Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war -- what
mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"

    "In war? How?"

    "There has never been a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part
of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this
rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud
little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will --
warily and cautiously -- object -- at first; the great, big, dull bulk of
the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and
dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will
shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason
against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and
be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them,
and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the
platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their
secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -- as earlier --
but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all --
will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man
who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to
open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the
nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince
himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he
enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

                                 Chapter 10

                                 Chapter 10

    Days and days went by now, and no Satan. It was dull without him. But
the astrologer, who had returned from his excursion to the moon, went about
the village, braving public opinion, and getting a stone in the middle of
his back now and then when some witch-hater got a safe chance to throw it
and dodge out of sight. Meantime two influences had been working well for
Marget. That Satan, who was quite indifferent to her, had stopped going to
her house after a visit or two had hurt her pride, and she had set herself
the task of banishing him from her heart. Reports of Wilhelm Meidling's
dissipation brought to her from time to time by old Ursula had touched her
with remorse, jealousy of Satan being the cause of it; and so now, these
two matters working upon her together, she was getting a good profit out of
the combination -- her interest in Satan was steadily cooling, her interest
in Wilhelm as steadily warming. All that was needed to complete her
conversion was that Wilhelm should brace up and do something that should
cause favorable talk and incline the public toward him again.

    The opportunity came now. Marget sent and asked him to defend her uncle
in the approaching trial, and he was greatly pleased, and stopped drinking
and began his preparations with diligence. With more diligence than hope,
in fact, for it was not a promising case. He had many interviews in his
office with Seppi and me, and threshed out our testimony pretty thoroughly,
thinking to find some valuable grains among the chaff, but the harvest was
poor, of course.

    If Satan would only come! That was my constant thought. He could invent
some way to win the case; for he had said it would be won, so he
necessarily knew how it could be done. But the days dragged on, and still
he did not come. Of course I did not doubt that it would be won, and that
Father Peter would be happy for the rest of his life, since Satan had said
so; yet I knew I should be much more comfortable if he would come and tell
us how to manage it. It was getting high time for Father Peter to have a
saving change toward happiness, for by general report he was worn out with
his imprisonment and the ignominy that was burdening him, and was like to
die of his miseries unless he got relief soon.

    At last the trial came on, and the people gathered from all around to
witness it; among them many strangers from considerable distances. Yes,
everybody was there except the accused. He was too feeble in body for the
strain. But Marget was present, and keeping up her hope and her spirit the
best she could. The money was present, too. It was emptied on the table,
and was handled and caressed and examined by such as were privileged.

    The astrologer was put in the witness-box. He had on his best hat and
robe for the occasion.

    QUESTION. You claim that this money is yours?

    ANSWER. I do.

    Q. How did you come by it?

    A. I found the bag in the road when I was returning from a journey.

    Q. When?

    A. More than two years ago.

    Q. What did you do with it?

    A. I brought it home and hid it in a secret place in my observatory,
intending to find the owner if I could.

    Q. You endeavored to find him?

    A. I made diligent inquiry during several months, but nothing came of
it.

    Q. And then?

    A. I thought it not worth while to look further, and was minded to use
the money in finishing the wing of the foundling-asylum connected with the
priory and nunnery. So I took it out of its hiding-place and counted it to
see if any of it was missing. And then --

    Q. Why do you stop? Proceed.

    A. I am sorry to have to say this, but just as I had finished and was
restoring the bag to its place, I looked up and there stood Father Peter
behind me.

    Several murmured, "That looks bad," but others answered, "Ah, but he is
such a liar!"

    Q. That made you uneasy?

    A. No; I thought nothing of it at the time, for Father Peter often came
to me unannounced to ask for a little help in his need.

    Marget blushed crimson at hearing her uncle falsely and impudently
charged with begging, especially from one he had always denounced as a
fraud, and was going to speak, but remembered herself in time and held her
peace.

    Q. Proceed.

    A. In the end I was afraid to contribute the money to the
foundling-asylum, but elected to wait yet another year and continue my
inquiries. When I heard of Father Peter's find I was glad, and no suspicion
entered my mind; when I came home a day or two later and discovered that my
own money was gone I still did not suspect until three circumstances
connected with Father Peter's good fortune struck me as being singular
coincidences.

    Q. Pray name them.

    A. Father Peter had found his money in a path -- I had found mine in a
road. Father Peter's find consisted exclusively of gold ducats -- mine
also. Father Peter found eleven hundred and seven ducats -- I exactly the
same.

    This closed his evidence, and certainly it made a strong impression on
the house; one could see that.

    Wilhelm Meidling asked him some questions, then called us boys, and we
told our tale. It made the people laugh, and we were ashamed. We were
feeling pretty badly, anyhow, because Wilhelm was hopeless, and showed it.
He was doing as well as he could, poor young fellow, but nothing was in his
favor, and such sympathy as there was was now plainly not with his client.
It might be difficult for court and people to believe the astrologer's
story, considering his character, but it was almost impossible to believe
Father Peter's. We were already feeling badly enough, but when the
astrologer's lawyer said he believed he would not ask us any questions --
for our story was a little delicate and it would be cruel for him to put
any strain upon it -- everybody tittered, and it was almost more than we
could bear. Then he made a sarcastic little speech, and got so much fun out
of our tale, and it seemed so ridiculous and childish and every way
impossible and foolish, that it made everybody laugh till the tears came;
and at last Marget could not keep up her courage any longer, but broke down
and cried, and I was so sorry for her.

    Now I noticed something that braced me up. It was Satan standing
alongside of Wilhelm! And there was such a contrast! -- Satan looked so
confident, had such a spirit in his eyes and face, and Wilhelm looked so
depressed and despondent. We two were comfortable now, and judged that he
would testify and persuade the bench and the people that black was white
and white black, or any other color he wanted it. We glanced around to see
what the strangers in the house thought of him, for he was beautiful, you
know -- stunning, in fact -- but no one was noticing him; so we knew by
that that he was invisible.

    The lawyer was saying his last words; and while he was saying them
Satan began to melt into Wilhelm. He melted into him and disappeared; and
then there was a change, when his spirit began to look out of Wilhelm's
eyes.

    That lawyer finished quite seriously, and with dignity. He pointed to
the money, and said:

    "The love of it is the root of all evil. There it lies, the ancient
tempter, newly red with the shame of its latest victory -- the dishonor of
a priest of God and his two poor juvenile helpers in crime. If it could but
speak, let us hope that it would be constrained to confess that of all its
conquests this was the basest and the most pathetic."

    He sat down. Wilhelm rose and said:

    "From the testimony of the accuser I gather that he found this money in
a road more than two years ago. Correct me, sir, if I misunderstood you."

    The astrologer said his understanding of it was correct.

    "And the money so found was never out of his hands thenceforth up to a
certain definite date -- the last day of last year. Correct me, sir, if I
am wrong."

    The astrologer nodded his head. Wilhelm turned to the bench and said:

    "If I prove that this money here was not that money, then it is not
his?"

    "Certainly not; but this is irregular. If you had such a witness it was
your duty to give proper notice of it and have him here to -- " He broke
off and began to consult with the other judges. Meantime that other lawyer
got up excited and began to protest against allowing new witnesses to be
brought into the case at this late stage.

    The judges decided that his contention was just and must be allowed.

    "But this is not a new witness," said Wilhelm. "It has already been
partly examined. I speak of the coin."

    "The coin? What can the coin say?"

    "It can say it is not the coin that the astrologer once possessed. It
can say it was not in existence last December. By its date it can say
this."

    And it was so! There was the greatest excitement in the court while
that lawyer and the judges were reaching for coins and examining them and
exclaiming. And everybody was full of admiration of Wilhelm's brightness in
happening to think of that neat idea. At last order was called and the
court said:

    "All of the coins but four are of the date of the present year. The
court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused, and its deep regret that
he, an innocent man, through an unfortunate mistake, has suffered the
undeserved humiliation of imprisonment and trial. The case is dismissed."

    So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer thought it
couldn't. The court rose, and almost everybody came forward to shake hands
with Marget and congratulate her, and then to shake with Wilhelm and praise
him; and Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing around looking
on full of interest, and people walking through him every which way, not
knowing he was there. And Wilhelm could not explain why he only thought of
the date on the coins at the last moment, instead of earlier; he said it
just occurred to him, all of a sudden, like an inspiration, and he brought
it right out without any hesitation, for, although he didn't examine the
coins, he seemed, somehow, to know it was true. That was honest of him, and
like him; another would have pretended he had thought of it earlier, and
was keeping it back for a surprise.

    He had dulled down a little now; not much, but still you could notice
that he hadn't that luminous look in his eyes that he had while Satan was
in him. He nearly got it back, though, for a moment when Marget came and
praised him and thanked him and couldn't keep him from seeing how proud she
was of him. The astrologer went off dissatisfied and cursing, and Solomon
Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away. It was Father Peter's for
good and all, now.

    Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself away to the jail
to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right. Marget and the rest
of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of rejoicing.

    Well, what Satan had done was this: he had appeared before that poor
prisoner, exclaiming, "The trial is over, and you stand forever disgraced
as a thief -- by verdict of the court!"

    The shock unseated the old man's reason. When we arrived, ten minutes
later, he was parading pompously up and down and delivering commands to
this and that and the other constable or jailer, and calling them Grand
Chamberlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of the Fleet,
Field Marshal in Command, and all such fustian, and was as happy as a bird.
He thought he was Emperor!

    Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed everybody was
moved almost to heartbreak. He recognized Marget, but could not understand
why she should cry. He patted her on the shoulder and said:

    "Don't do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it is not
becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble -- it shall be mended;
there is nothing the Emperor cannot do." Then he looked around and saw old
Ursula with her apron to her eyes. He was puzzled at that, and said, "And
what is the matter with you?"

    Through her sobs she got out words explaining that she was distressed
to see him -- "so." He reflected over that a moment, then muttered, as if
to himself: "A singular old thing, the Dowager Duchess -- means well, but
is always snuffling and never able to tell what it is about. It is because
she doesn't know." His eyes fell on Wilhelm. "Prince of India," he said, "I
divine that it is you that the Crown Princess is concerned about. Her tears
shall be dried; I will no longer stand between you; she shall share your
throne; and between you you shall inherit mine. There, little lady, have I
done well? You can smile now -- isn't it so?"

    He petted Marget and kissed her, and was so contented with himself and
with everybody that he could not do enough for us all, but began to give
away kingdoms and such things right and left, and the least that any of us
got was a principality. And so at last, being persuaded to go home, he
marched in imposing state; and when the crowds along the way saw how it
gratified him to be hurrahed at, they humored him to the top of his desire,
and he responded with condescending bows and gracious smiles, and often
stretched out a hand and said, "Bless you, my people!"

    As pitiful a sight as ever I saw. And Marget, and old Ursula crying all
the way.

    On my road home I came upon Satan, and reproached him with deceiving me
with that lie. He was not embarrassed, but said, quite simply and
composedly:

    "Ah, you mistake; it was the truth. I said he would be happy the rest
of his days, and he will, for he will always think he is the Emperor, and
his pride in it and his joy in it will endure to the end. He is now, and
will remain, the one utterly happy person in this empire."

    "But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn't you have done it
without depriving him of his reason?"

    It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.

    "What an ass you are!" he said. "Are you so unobservant as not to have
found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? No sane
man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing
it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those. The few that
imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest are no happier than
the sane. Of course, no man is entirely in his right mind at any time, but
I have been referring to the extreme cases. I have taken from this man that
trumpery thing which the race regards as a Mind; I have replaced his tin
life with a silver-gilt fiction; you see the result -- and you criticize! I
said I would make him permanently happy, and I have done it. I have made
him happy by the only means possible to his race -- and you are not
satisfied!" He heaved a discouraged sigh, and said, "It seems to me that
this race is hard to please."

    There it was, you see. He didn't seem to know any way to do a person a
favor except by killing him or making a lunatic out of him. I apologized,
as well as I could; but privately I did not think much of his processes --
at that time.

    Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of continuous
and uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself from cradle to grave with
shams and delusions which it mistook for realities, and this made its
entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it imagined it had
and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded itself as
gold, and was only brass. One day when he was in this vein he mentioned a
detail -- the sense of humor. I cheered up then, and took issue. I said we
possessed it.

    "There spoke the race!" he said; "always ready to claim what it hasn't
got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings for a ton of gold-dust. You
have a mongrel perception of humor, nothing more; a multitude of you
possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a thousand low-grade and
trivial things -- broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries, absurdities,
evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten thousand high-grade comicalities which
exist in the world are sealed from their dull vision. Will a day come when
the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them
-- and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has
unquestionably one really effective weapon -- laughter. Power, money,
persuasion, supplication, persecution -- these can lift at a colossal
humbug -- push it a little -- weaken it a little, century by century; but
only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault
of laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with
your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying
rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the
courage."

    We were traveling at the time and stopped at a little city in India and
looked on while a juggler did his tricks before a group of natives. They
were wonderful, but I knew Satan could beat that game, and I begged him to
show off a little, and he said he would. He changed himself into a native
in turban and breech-cloth, and very considerately conferred on me a
temporary knowledge of the language.

    The juggler exhibited a seed, covered it with earth in a small
flower-pot, then put a rag over the pot; after a minute the rag began to
rise; in ten minutes it had risen a foot; then the rag was removed and a
little tree was exposed, with leaves upon it and ripe fruit. We ate the
fruit, and it was good. But Satan said:

    "Why do you cover the pot? Can't you grow the tree in the sunlight?"

    "No," said the juggler; "no one can do that."

    "You are only an apprentice; you don't know your trade. Give me the
seed. I will show you." He took the seed and said, "What shall I raise from
it?"

    "It is a cherry seed; of course you will raise a cherry."

    "Oh no; that is a trifle; any novice can do that. Shall I raise an
orange-tree from it?"

    "Oh yes!" and the juggler laughed.

    "And shall I make it bear other fruits as well as oranges?"

    "If God wills!" and they all laughed.

    Satan put the seed in the ground, put a handful of dust on it, and
said, "Rise!"

    A tiny stem shot up and began to grow, and grew so fast that in five
minutes it was a great tree, and we were sitting in the shade of it. There
was a murmur of wonder, then all looked up and saw a strange and pretty
sight, for the branches were heavy with fruits of many kinds and colors --
oranges, grapes, bananas, peaches, cherries, apricots, and so on. Baskets
were brought, and the unlading of the tree began; and the people crowded
around Satan and kissed his hand, and praised him, calling him the prince
of jugglers. The news went about the town, and everybody came running to
see the wonder -- and they remembered to bring baskets, too. But the tree
was equal to the occasion; it put out new fruits as fast as any were
removed; baskets were filled by the score and by the hundred, but always
the supply remained undiminished. At last a foreigner in white linen and
sun-helmet arrived, and exclaimed, angrily:

    "Away from here! Clear out, you dogs; the tree is on my lands and is my
property."

    The natives put down their baskets and made humble obeisance. Satan
made humble obeisance, too, with his fingers to his forehead, in the native
way, and said:

    "Please let them have their pleasure for an hour, sir -- only that, and
no longer. Afterward you may forbid them; and you will still have more
fruit than you and the state together can consume in a year."

    This made the foreigner very angry, and he cried out, "Who are you, you
vagabond, to tell your betters what they may do and what they mayn't!" and
he struck Satan with his cane and followed this error with a kick.

    The fruits rotted on the branches, and the leaves withered and fell.
The foreigner gazed at the bare limbs with the look of one who is
surprised, and not gratified. Satan said:

    "Take good care of the tree, for its health and yours are bound
together. It will never bear again, but if you tend it well it will live
long. Water its roots once in each hour every night -- and do it yourself;
it must not be done by proxy, and to do it in daylight will not answer. If
you fail only once in any night, the tree will die, and you likewise. Do
not go home to your own country any more -- you would not reach there; make
no business or pleasure engagements which require you to go outside your
gate at night -- you cannot afford the risk; do not rent or sell this place
-- it would be injudicious."

    The foreigner was proud and wouldn't beg, but I thought he looked as if
he would like to. While he stood gazing at Satan we vanished away and
landed in Ceylon.

    I was sorry for that man; sorry Satan hadn't been his customary self
and killed him or made him a lunatic. It would have been a mercy. Satan
overheard the thought, and said:

    "I would have done it but for his wife, who has not offended me. She is
coming to him presently from their native land, Portugal. She is well, but
has not long to live, and has been yearning to see him and persuade him to
go back with her next year. She will die without knowing he can't leave
that place."

    "He won't tell her?"

    "He? He will not trust that secret with any one; he will reflect that
it could be revealed in sleep, in the hearing of some Portuguese guest's
servant some time or other."

    "Did none of those natives understand what you said to him?"

    "None of them understood, but he will always be afraid that some of
them did. That fear will be torture to him, for he has been a harsh master
to them. In his dreams he will imagine them chopping his tree down. That
will make his days uncomfortable -- I have already arranged for his
nights."

    It grieved me, though not sharply, to see him take such a malicious
satisfaction in his plans for this foreigner.

    "Does he believe what you told him, Satan?"

    "He thought he didn't, but our vanishing helped. The tree, where there
had been no tree before -- that helped. The insane and uncanny variety of
fruits -- the sudden withering -- all these things are helps. Let him think
as he may, reason as he may, one thing is certain, he will water the tree.
But between this and night he will begin his changed career with a very
natural precaution -- for him."

    "What is that?"

    "He will fetch a priest to cast out the tree's devil. You are such a
humorous race -- and don't suspect it."

    "Will he tell the priest?"

    "No. He will say a juggler from Bombay created it, and that he wants
the juggler's devil driven out of it, so that it will thrive and be
fruitful again. The priest's incantations will fail; then the Portuguese
will give up that scheme and get his watering-pot ready."

    "But the priest will burn the tree. I know it; he will not allow it to
remain."

    "Yes, and anywhere in Europe he would burn the man, too. But in India
the people are civilized, and these things will not happen. The man will
drive the priest away and take care of the tree."

    I reflected a little, then said, "Satan, you have given him a hard
life, I think."

    "Comparatively. It must not be mistaken for a holiday."

    We flitted from place to place around the world as we had done before,
Satan showing me a hundred wonders, most of them reflecting in some way the
weakness and triviality of our race. He did this now every few days -- not
out of malice -- I am sure of that -- it only seemed to amuse and interest
him, just as a naturalist might be amused and interested by a collection of
ants.

                                 Chapter 11

                                 Chapter 11

    For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came
less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always
made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our
tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one day
he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while. He had
come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had
investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said,
that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his
return.

    "And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"

    "Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it has been
pleasant -- pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see each
other any more."

    "In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another,
surely?"

    Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, "There is
no other."



                     Image available for UVA users only

                  "Life Itself Is Only a Vision, a Dream"

    A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a
vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might
be true -- even must be true.

    "Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"

    "No. How could I? But if it can only be true -- "

    "It is true."

    A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before
it could issue in words, and I said, "But -- but -- we have seen that
future life -- seen it in its actuality, and so -- "

    "It was a vision -- it had no existence."

    I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. "A
vision? -- a vi -- "

    "Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

    It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times
in my musings!

    "Nothing exists; all is a dream. God -- man -- the world -- the sun,
the moon, the wilderness of stars -- a dream, all a dream; they have no
existence. Nothing exists save empty space -- and you!"

    "I!"

    "And you are not you -- you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are
but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream -- your dream,
creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then
you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the
nothingness out of which you made me....

    "I am perishing already -- I am failing -- I am passing away. In a
little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless
solitudes without friend or comrade forever -- for you will remain a
thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable,
indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and
set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

    "Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago -- centuries,
ages, eons, ago! -- for you have existed, companionless, through all the
eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your
universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange,
because they are so frankly and hysterically insane -- like all dreams: a
God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make
bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a
single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut
it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his
other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed
his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who
mouths justice and invented hell -- mouths mercy and invented hell --
mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and
invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who
frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without
invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon
man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and
finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave
to worship him!...

    "You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a
dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly
creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks -- in a
word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are
all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

    "It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no
universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a
dream -- a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are
but a thought -- a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought,
wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

    He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all
he had said was true.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------