initial commit of ebook 3186HEADmain

8 files changed, 13753 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/20080609-3186-h.zip b/old/20080609-3186-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..40ad3ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/20080609-3186-h.zip
diff --git a/old/20080609-3186.zip b/old/20080609-3186.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2833a02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/20080609-3186.zip
diff --git a/old/3186.txt b/old/3186.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08f8467
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/3186.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4598 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
+by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
+
+Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2006 [EBook #3186]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER AND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger and Be Wolf
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+
+by Mark Twain
+
+
+
+Contents:
+     The Mysterious Stranger
+     A Fable
+     Hunting The Deceitful Turkey
+     The Mcwilliamses And The Burglar Alarm
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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
+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 he 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
+
+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 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
+
+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.
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A FABLE
+
+Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and very beautiful
+picture placed it so that he could see it in the mirror.  He said, "This
+doubles the distance and softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was
+before."
+
+The animals out in the woods heard of this through the housecat, who was
+greatly admired by them because he was so learned, and so refined and
+civilized, and so polite and high-bred, and could tell them so much which
+they didn't know before, and were not certain about afterward.  They were
+much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they asked questions, so
+as to get at a full understanding of it.  They asked what a picture was,
+and the cat explained.
+
+"It is a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously flat,
+enchantingly flat and elegant.  And, oh, so beautiful!"
+
+That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they would give the
+world to see it.  Then the bear asked:
+
+"What is it that makes it so beautiful?"
+
+"It is the looks of it," said the cat.
+
+This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they were more
+excited than ever.  Then the cow asked:
+
+"What is a mirror?"
+
+"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat.  "You look in it, and there you
+see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and
+inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and
+round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy."
+
+The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to throw doubts.
+He said there had never been anything as beautiful as this before, and
+probably wasn't now.  He said that when it took a whole basketful of
+sesquipedalian adjectives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for
+suspicion.
+
+It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect upon the
+animals, so the cat went off offended.  The subject was dropped for a
+couple of days, but in the meantime curiosity was taking a fresh start,
+aid there was a revival of interest perceptible.  Then the animals
+assailed the ass for spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure to
+them, on a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without any
+evidence that such was the case.  The ass was not, troubled; he was calm,
+and said there was one way to find out who was in the right, himself or
+the cat: he would go and look in that hole, and come back and tell what
+he found there.  The animals felt relieved and grateful, and asked him to
+go at once--which he did.
+
+But he did not know where he ought to stand; and so, through error, he
+stood between the picture and the mirror.  The result was that the
+picture had no chance, and didn't show up.  He returned home and said:
+
+"The cat lied.  There was nothing in that hole but an ass.  There wasn't
+a sign of a flat thing visible.  It was a handsome ass, and friendly, but
+just an ass, and nothing more."
+
+The elephant asked:
+
+"Did you see it good and clear?  Were you close to it?"
+
+"I saw it good and clear, O Hathi, King of Beasts.  I was so close that I
+touched noses with it."
+
+"This is very strange," said the elephant; "the cat was always truthful
+before--as far as we could make out.  Let another witness try.  Go,
+Baloo, look in the hole, and come and report."
+
+So the bear went.  When he came back, he said:
+
+"Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in the hole but a
+bear."
+
+Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals.  Each was now
+anxious to make the test himself and get at the straight truth.  The
+elephant sent them one at a time.
+
+First, the cow.  She found nothing in the hole but a cow.
+
+The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.
+
+The lion found nothing in it but a lion.
+
+The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.
+
+The camel found a camel, and nothing more.
+
+Then Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if he had to go
+and fetch it himself.  When he returned, he abused his whole subjectry
+for liars, and was in an unappeasable fury with the moral and mental
+blindness of the cat.  He said that anybody but a near-sighted fool could
+see that there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.
+
+                            MORAL, BY THE CAT
+
+You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it
+and the mirror of your imagination.  You may not see your ears, but they
+will be there.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY
+
+When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with the rifle, the
+youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun--a small single-barrelled shotgun
+which was properly suited to our size and strength; it was not much
+heavier than a broom.  We carried it turn about, half an hour at a time.
+I was not able to hit anything with it, but I liked to try.  Fred and I
+hunted feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild
+turkeys, and such things.  My uncle and the big boys were good shots.
+They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they
+didn't wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them.  When the dogs treed a
+squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and
+flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way
+--and not quite succeeding.  You could see his wee little ears sticking
+up. You couldn't see his nose, but you knew where it was.  Then the
+hunter, despising a "rest" for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim
+at the limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel's
+nose, and down tumbled the animal, unwounded,  but unconscious; the dogs
+gave him a shake and he was dead.  Sometimes when the distance was great
+and the wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet would hit the
+squirrel's head; the dogs could do as they pleased with that one--the
+hunter's pride was hurt, and he wouldn't allow it to go into the gamebag.
+
+In the first faint gray of the dawn the stately wild turkeys would be
+stalking around in great flocks, and ready to be sociable and answer
+invitations to come and converse with other excursionists of their kind.
+The hunter concealed himself and imitated the turkey-call by sucking the
+air through the leg-bone of a turkey which had previously answered a call
+like that and lived only just long enough to regret it.  There is nothing
+that furnishes a perfect turkey-call except that bone.  Another of
+Nature's treacheries, you see.  She is full of them; half the time she
+doesn't know which she likes best--to betray her child or protect it.
+In the case of the turkey she is badly mixed: she gives it a bone to be
+used in getting it into trouble, and she also furnishes it with a trick
+for getting itself out of the trouble again.  When a mamma-turkey answers
+an invitation and finds she has made a mistake in accepting it, she does
+as the mamma-partridge does--remembers a previous engagement--and goes
+limping and scrambling away, pretending to be very lame; and at the same
+time she is saying to her not-visible children, "Lie low, keep still,
+don't expose yourselves; I shall be back as soon as I have beguiled this
+shabby swindler out of the country."
+
+When a person is ignorant and confiding, this immoral device can have
+tiresome results.  I followed an ostensibly lame turkey over a
+considerable part of the United States one morning, because I believed in
+her and could not think she would deceive a mere boy, and one who was
+trusting her and considering her honest.  I had the single-barrelled
+shotgun, but my idea was to catch her alive.  I often got within rushing
+distance of her, and then made my rush; but always, just as I made my
+final plunge and put my hand down where her back had been, it wasn't
+there; it was only two or three inches from there and I brushed the
+tail-feathers as I landed on my stomach--a very close call, but still not
+quite close enough; that is, not close enough for success, but just close
+enough to convince me that I could do it next time.  She always waited
+for me, a little piece away, and let on to be resting and greatly
+fatigued; which was a lie, but I believed it, for I still thought her
+honest long after I ought to have begun to doubt her, suspecting that
+this was no way for a high-minded bird to be acting.  I followed, and
+followed, and followed, making my periodical rushes, and getting up and
+brushing the dust off, and resuming the voyage with patient confidence;
+indeed, with a confidence which grew, for I could see by the change of
+climate and vegetation that we were getting up into the high latitudes,
+and as she always looked a little tireder and a little more discouraged
+after each rush, I judged that I was safe to win, in the end, the
+competition being purely a matter of staying power and the advantage
+lying with me from the start because she was lame.
+
+Along in the afternoon I began to feel fatigued myself.  Neither of us
+had had any rest since we first started on the excursion, which was
+upwards of ten hours before, though latterly we had paused awhile after
+rushes, I letting on to be thinking about something else; but neither of
+us sincere, and both of us waiting for the other to call game but in no
+real hurry about it, for indeed those little evanescent snatches of rest
+were very grateful to the feelings of us both; it would naturally be so,
+skirmishing along like that ever since dawn and not a bite in the
+meantime; at least for me, though sometimes as she lay on her side
+fanning herself with a wing and praying for strength to get out of this
+difficulty a grasshopper happened along whose time had come, and that was
+well for her, and fortunate, but I had nothing--nothing the whole day.
+
+More than once, after I was very tired, I gave up taking her alive, and
+was going to shoot her, but I never did it, although it was my right, for
+I did not believe I could hit her; and besides, she always stopped and
+posed, when I raised the gun, and this made me suspicious that she knew
+about me and my marksmanship, and so I did not care to expose myself to
+remarks.
+
+I did not get her, at all.  When she got tired of the game at last, she
+rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft with the rush and whir of a
+shell and lit on the highest limb of a great tree and sat down and
+crossed her legs and smiled down at me, and seemed gratified to see me so
+astonished.
+
+I was ashamed, and also lost; and it was while wandering the woods
+hunting for myself that I found a deserted log cabin and had one of the
+best meals there that in my life-days I have eaten.  The weed-grown
+garden was full of ripe tomatoes, and I ate them ravenously, though I had
+never liked them before.  Not more than two or three times since have I
+tasted anything that was so delicious as those tomatoes.  I surfeited
+myself with them, and did not taste another one until I was in middle
+life.  I can eat them now, but I do not like the look of them.  I suppose
+we have all experienced a surfeit at one time or another.  Once, in
+stress of circumstances, I ate part of a barrel of sardines, there being
+nothing else at hand, but since then I have always been able to get along
+without sardines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM
+
+The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from weather to
+crops, from crops to literature, from literature to scandal, from scandal
+to religion; then took a random jump, and landed on the subject of
+burglar alarms.  And now for the first time Mr. McWilliams showed
+feeling.  Whenever I perceive this sign on this man's dial, I comprehend
+it, and lapse into silence, and give him opportunity to unload his heart.
+Said he, with but ill-controlled emotion:
+
+"I do not go one single cent on burglar alarms, Mr. Twain--not a single
+cent--and I will tell you why.  When we were finishing our house, we
+found we had a little cash left over, on account of the plumber not
+knowing it.  I was for enlightening the heathen with it, for I was always
+unaccountably down on the heathen somehow; but Mrs. McWilliams said no,
+let's have a burglar alarm.  I agreed to this compromise.  I will explain
+that whenever I want a thing, and Mrs. McWilliams wants another thing,
+and we decide upon the thing that Mrs. McWilliams wants--as we always do
+--she calls that a compromise.  Very well: the man came up from New York
+and put in the alarm, and charged three hundred and twenty-five dollars
+for it, and said we could sleep without uneasiness now.  So we did for
+awhile--say a month.  Then one night we smelled smoke, and I was advised
+to get up and see what the matter was.  I lit a candle, and started
+toward the stairs, and met a burglar coming out of a room with a basket
+of tinware, which he had mistaken for solid silver in the dark.  He was
+smoking a pipe.  I said, 'My friend, we do not allow smoking in this
+room.'  He said he was a stranger, and could not be expected to know the
+rules of the house: said he had been in many houses just as good as this
+one, and it had never been objected to before.  He added that as far as
+his experience went, such rules had never been considered to apply to
+burglars, anyway.
+
+"I said: 'Smoke along, then, if it is the custom, though I think that the
+conceding of a privilege to a burglar which is denied to a bishop is a
+conspicuous sign of the looseness of the times.  But waiving all that,
+what business have you to be entering this house in this furtive and
+clandestine way, without ringing the burglar alarm?'
+
+"He looked confused and ashamed, and said, with embarrassment: 'I beg a
+thousand pardons.  I did not know you had a burglar alarm, else I would
+have rung it.  I beg you will not mention it where my parents may hear of
+it, for they are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of
+the hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization might all
+too rudely sunder the frail bridge which hangs darkling between the pale
+and evanescent present and the solemn great deeps of the eternities.  May
+I trouble you for a match?'
+
+"I said: 'Your sentiments do you honor, but if you will allow me to say
+it, metaphor is not your best hold.  Spare your thigh; this kind light
+only on the box, and seldom there, in fact, if my experience may be
+trusted.  But to return to business: how did you get in here?'
+
+"'Through a second-story window.'
+
+"It was even so.  I redeemed the tinware at pawnbroker's rates, less cost
+of advertising, bade the burglar good-night, closed the window after him,
+and retired to headquarters to report.  Next morning we sent for the
+burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm
+did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was
+attached to the alarm.  This was simply idiotic; one might as well have
+no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs.  The expert
+now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred
+dollars for it, and went his way.  By and by, one night, I found a
+burglar in the third story, about to start down a ladder with a lot of
+miscellaneous property.  My first impulse was to crack his head with a
+billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this attention, because
+he was between me and the cue rack.  The second impulse was plainly the
+soundest, so I refrained, and proceeded to compromise.  I redeemed the
+property at former rates, after deducting ten per cent. for use of
+ladder, it being my ladder, and, next day we sent down for the expert
+once more, and had the third story attached to the alarm, for three
+hundred dollars.
+
+"By this time the 'annunciator' had grown to formidable dimensions.  It
+had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the names of the various rooms
+and chimneys, and it occupied the space of an ordinary wardrobe.  The
+gong was the size of a wash-bowl, and was placed above the head of our
+bed.  There was a wire from the house to the coachman's quarters in the
+stable, and a noble gong alongside his pillow.
+
+"We should have been comfortable now but for one defect.  Every morning
+at five the cook opened the kitchen door, in the way of business, and rip
+went that gong!  The first time this happened I thought the last day was
+come sure.  I didn't think it in bed--no, but out of it--for the first
+effect of that frightful gong is to hurl you across the house, and slam
+you against the wall, and then curl you up, and squirm you like a spider
+on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen door.  In solid fact,
+there is no clamor that is even remotely comparable to the dire clamor
+which that gong makes.  Well, this catastrophe happened every morning
+regularly at five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you,
+when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in spots; it wakes
+you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of
+wide-awakeness subsequently--eighteen hours of the very most
+inconceivable wide-awakeness that you ever experienced in your life.
+A stranger died on our hands one time, aid we vacated and left him in our
+room overnight.  Did that stranger wait for the general judgment?  No,
+sir; he got up at five the next morning in the most prompt and
+unostentatious way.  I knew he would; I knew it mighty well.  He
+collected his life-insurance, and lived happy ever after, for there was
+plenty of proof as to the perfect squareness of his death.
+
+"Well, we were gradually fading toward a better land, on account of the
+daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the expert up again, and he ran a
+wire to the outside of the door, and placed a switch there, whereby
+Thomas, the butler, always made one little mistake--he switched the alarm
+off at night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at daybreak in
+the morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and
+enable that gong to slam us across the house, sometimes breaking a window
+with one or the other of us.  At the end of a week we recognized that
+this switch business was a delusion and a snare.  We also discovered that
+a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole time--not
+exactly to steal, for there wasn't much left now, but to hide from the
+police, for they were hot pressed, and they shrewdly judged that the
+detectives would never think of a tribe of burglars taking sanctuary in a
+house notoriously protected by the most imposing and elaborate burglar
+alarm in America.
+
+"Sent down for the expert again, and this time he struck a most dazzling
+idea--he fixed the thing so that opening the kitchen door would take off
+the alarm.  It was a noble idea, and he charged accordingly.  But you
+already foresee the result.  I switched on the alarm every night at
+bed-time, no longer trusting on Thomas's frail memory; and as soon as the
+lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door, thus taking
+the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do it in the morning.  You
+see how aggravatingly we were situated.  For months we couldn't have any
+company.  Not a spare bed in the house; all occupied by burglars.
+
+"Finally, I got up a cure of my own.  The expert answered the call, and
+ran another ground wire to the stable, and established a switch there, so
+that the coachman could put on and take off the alarm.  That worked first
+rate, and a season of peace ensued, during which we got to inviting
+company once more and enjoying life.
+
+"But by and by the irrepressible alarm invented a new kink.  One winter's
+night we were flung out of bed by the sudden music of that awful gong,
+and when we hobbled to the annunciator, turned up the gas, and saw the
+word 'Nursery' exposed, Mrs. McWilliams fainted dead away, and I came
+precious near doing the same thing myself.  I seized my shotgun, and
+stood timing the coachman whilst that appalling buzzing went on.  I knew
+that his gong had flung him out, too, and that he would be along with his
+gun as soon as he could jump into his clothes.  When I judged that the
+time was ripe, I crept to the room next the nursery, glanced through the
+window, and saw the dim outline of the coachman in the yard below,
+standing at present-arms and waiting for a chance.  Then I hopped into
+the nursery and fired, and in the same instant the coachman fired at the
+red flash of my gun.  Both of us were successful; I crippled a nurse, and
+he shot off all my back hair.  We turned up the gas, and telephoned for a
+surgeon.  There was not a sign of a burglar, and no window had been
+raised.  One glass was absent, but that was where the coachman's charge
+had come through.  Here was a fine mystery--a burglar alarm 'going off'
+at midnight of its own accord, and not a burglar in the neighborhood!
+
+"The expert answered the usual call, and explained that it was a 'False
+alarm.' Said it was easily fixed.  So he overhauled the nursery window,
+charged a remunerative figure for it, and departed.
+
+"What we suffered from false alarms for the next three years no
+stylographic pen can describe.  During the next three months I always
+flew with my gun to the room indicated, and the coachman always sallied
+forth with his battery to support me.  But there was never anything to
+shoot at--windows all tight and secure.  We always sent down for the
+expert next day, and he fixed those particular windows so they would keep
+quiet a week or so, and always remembered to send us a bill about like
+this:
+
+          Wire ............................$2.15
+          Nipple...........................  .75
+          Two hours' labor ................ 1.50
+          Wax..............................  .47
+          Tape.............................  .34
+          Screws...........................  .15
+          Recharging battery ..............  .98
+          Three hours' labor .............. 2.25
+          String...........................  .02
+          Lard ............................  .66
+          Pond's Extract .................. 1.25
+          Springs at 50.................... 2.00
+          Railroad fares................... 7.25
+
+
+"At length a perfectly natural thing came about--after we had answered
+three or four hundred false alarms--to wit, we stopped answering them.
+Yes, I simply rose up calmly, when slammed across the house by the alarm,
+calmly inspected the annunciator, took note of the room indicated; and
+then calmly disconnected that room from the alarm, and went back to bed
+as if nothing had happened.  Moreover, I left that room off permanently,
+and did not send for the expert.  Well, it goes without saying that in
+the course of time all the rooms were taken off, and the entire machine
+was out of service.
+
+"It was at this unprotected time that the heaviest calamity of all
+happened.  The burglars walked in one night and carried off the burglar
+alarm! yes, sir, every hide and hair of it: ripped it out, tooth and
+nail; springs, bells, gongs, battery, and all; they took a hundred and
+fifty miles of copper wire; they just cleaned her out, bag and baggage,
+and never left us a vestige of her to swear at--swear by, I mean.
+
+"We had a time of it to get her back; but we accomplished it finally, for
+money.  The alarm firm said that what we needed now was to have her put
+in right--with their new patent springs in the windows to make false
+alarms impossible, and their new patent clock attached to take off and
+put on the alarm morning and night without human assistance.  That seemed
+a good scheme.  They promised to have the whole thing finished in ten
+days.  They began work, and we left for the summer.  They worked a couple
+of days; then they left for the summer.  After which the burglars moved
+in, and began their summer vacation.  When we returned in the fall, the
+house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been
+at work.  We refurnished, and then sent down to hurry up the expert.  He
+came up and finished the job, and said: 'Now this clock is set to put on
+the alarm every night at 10, and take it off every morning at 5:45.  All
+you've got to do is to wind her up every week, and then leave her alone
+--she will take care of the alarm herself.'
+
+"After that we had a most tranquil season during three months.  The bill
+was prodigious, of course, and I had said I would not pay it until the
+new machinery had proved itself to be flawless.  The time stipulated was
+three months.  So I paid the bill, and the very next day the alarm went
+to buzzing like ten thousand bee swarms at ten o'clock in the morning.
+I turned the hands around twelve hours, according to instructions, and
+this took off the alarm; but there was another hitch at night, and I had
+to set her ahead twelve hours once more to get her to put the alarm on
+again.  That sort of nonsense went on a week or two, then the expert came
+up and put in a new clock.  He came up every three months during the next
+three years, and put in a new clock.  But it was always a failure.  His
+clocks all had the same perverse defect: they would put the alarm on in
+the daytime, and they would not put it on at night; and if you forced it
+on yourself, they would take it off again the minute your back was
+turned.
+
+"Now there is the history of that burglar alarm--everything just as it
+happened; nothing extenuated, and naught set down in malice.  Yes, sir,
+--and when I had slept nine years with burglars, and maintained an
+expensive burglar alarm the whole time, for their protection, not mine,
+and at my sole cost--for not a d---d cent could I ever get THEM to
+contribute--I just said to Mrs.  McWilliams that I had had enough of that
+kind of pie; so with her full consent I took the whole thing out and
+traded it off for a dog, and shot the dog.  I don't know what you think
+about it, Mr.  Twain; but I think those things are made solely in the
+interest of the burglars.  Yes, sir, a burglar alarm combines in its
+person all that is objectionable about a fire, a riot, and a harem, and
+at the same time had none of the compensating advantages, of one sort or
+another, that customarily belong with that combination.  Good-by: I get
+off here."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mysterious Stranger and Other
+Stories, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER AND ***
+
+***** This file should be named 3186.txt or 3186.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.net/3/1/8/3186/
+
+Produced by David Widger and Be Wolf
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.net/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.net
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/3186.zip b/old/3186.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e73118
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/3186.zip
diff --git a/old/mtmst10.txt b/old/mtmst10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0f54d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mtmst10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4584 @@
+Project Gutenberg Etext The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain
+#47 in our series by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.
+
+Please do not remove this.
+
+This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book.
+Do not change or edit it without written permission.  The words
+are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they
+need about what they can legally do with the texts.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
+organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541
+
+As of 12/12/00 contributions are only being solicited from people in:
+Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
+Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana,
+Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
+Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met,
+additions to this list will be made and fund raising
+will begin in the additional states.  Please feel
+free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+International donations are accepted,
+but we don't know ANYTHING about how 
+to make them tax-deductible, or 
+even if they CAN be made deductible, 
+and don't have the staff to handle it
+even if there are ways.
+
+These donations should be made to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+
+Title: The Mysterious Stranger
+
+Author: Mark Twain
+
+Release Date: April, 2002  [Etext #3186]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 02/25/01]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain
+*****This file should be named mtmst10.txt or mtmst10.zip*****
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, mtmst11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mtmst10a.txt
+
+This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+Proofreading by Be Wolf <yuching29@hotmail.com>
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
+of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after
+the official publication date.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement
+can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext02
+or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02
+
+Or /etext01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext
+files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
+Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
+Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana,
+Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
+Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met,
+additions to this list will be made and fund raising
+will begin in the additional states.
+
+These donations should be made to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
+EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541,
+has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal
+Revenue Service (IRS).  Donations are tax-deductible to the extent
+permitted by law.  As the requirements for other states are met,
+additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the
+additional states.
+
+All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation.  Mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Avenue
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109  [USA]
+
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Example command-line FTP session:
+
+ftp ftp.ibiblio.org
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc.
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may 
+receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the 
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this etext,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.  
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, 
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+Proofreading by Be Wolf <yuching29@hotmail.com>
+
+
+
+
+
+The Mysterious Stranger
+
+by Mark Twain
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+A FABLE
+HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY
+THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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.
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A FABLE
+
+Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and very beautiful
+picture placed it so that he could see it in the mirror.  He said, "This
+doubles the distance and softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was
+before."
+
+The animals out in the woods heard of this through the housecat, who was
+greatly admired by them because he was so learned, and so refined and
+civilized, and so polite and high-bred, and could tell them so much which
+they didn't know before, and were not certain about afterward.  They were
+much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they asked questions, so
+as to get at a full understanding of it.  They asked what a picture was,
+and the cat explained.
+
+"It is a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously flat,
+enchantingly flat and elegant.  And, oh, so beautiful!"
+
+That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they would give the
+world to see it.  Then the bear asked:
+
+"What is it that makes it so beautiful?"
+
+"It is the looks of it," said the cat.
+
+This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they were more
+excited than ever.  Then the cow asked:
+
+"What is a mirror?"
+
+"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat.  "You look in it, and there you
+see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and
+inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and
+round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy."
+
+The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to throw doubts.
+He said there had never been anything as beautiful as this before, and
+probably wasn't now.  He said that when it took a whole basketful of
+sesquipedalian adjectives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for
+suspicion.
+
+It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect upon the
+animals, so the cat went off offended.  The subject was dropped for a
+couple of days, but in the meantime curiosity was taking a fresh start,
+aid there was a revival of interest perceptible.  Then the animals
+assailed the ass for spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure to
+them, on a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without any
+evidence that such was the case.  The ass was not, troubled; he was calm,
+and said there was one way to find out who was in the right, himself or
+the cat: he would go and look in that hole, and come back and tell what
+he found there.  The animals felt relieved and grateful, and asked him to
+go at once--which he did.
+
+But he did not know where he ought to stand; and so, through error, he
+stood between the picture and the mirror.  The result was that the
+picture had no chance, and didn't show up.  He returned home and said:
+
+"The cat lied.  There was nothing in that hole but an ass.  There wasn't
+a sign of a flat thing visible.  It was a handsome ass, and friendly, but
+just an ass, and nothing more."
+
+The elephant asked:
+
+"Did you see it good and clear?  Were you close to it?"
+
+"I saw it good and clear, O Hathi, King of Beasts.  I was so close that I
+touched noses with it."
+
+"This is very strange," said the elephant; "the cat was always truthful
+before--as far as we could make out.  Let another witness try.  Go,
+Baloo, look in the hole, and come and report."
+
+So the bear went.  When he came back, he said:
+
+"Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in the hole but a
+bear."
+
+Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals.  Each was now
+anxious to make the test himself and get at the straight truth.  The
+elephant sent them one at a time.
+
+First, the cow.  She found nothing in the hole but a cow.
+
+The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.
+
+The lion found nothing in it but a lion.
+
+The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.
+
+The camel found a camel, and nothing more.
+
+Then Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if he had to go
+and fetch it himself.  When he returned, he abused his whole subjectry
+for liars, and was in an unappeasable fury with the moral and mental
+blindness of the cat.  He said that anybody but a near-sighted fool could
+see that there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.
+
+                            MORAL, BY THE CAT
+
+You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it
+and the mirror of your imagination.  You may not see your ears, but they
+will be there.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY
+
+When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with the rifle, the
+youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun--a small single-barrelled shotgun
+which was properly suited to our size and strength; it was not much
+heavier than a broom.  We carried it turn about, half an hour at a time.
+I was not able to hit anything with it, but I liked to try.  Fred and I
+hunted feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild
+turkeys, and such things.  My uncle and the big boys were good shots.
+They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they
+didn't wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them.  When the dogs treed a
+squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and
+flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way--
+and not quite succeeding.  You could see his wee little ears sticking up.
+You couldn't see his nose, but you knew where it was.  Then the hunter,
+despising a "rest" for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim at the
+limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel's nose, and
+down tumbled the animal, unwounded,  but unconscious; the dogs gave him a
+shake and he was dead.  Sometimes when the distance was great and the
+wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet would hit the squirrel's
+head; the dogs could do as they pleased with that one--the hunter's pride
+was hurt, and he wouldn't allow it to go into the gamebag.
+
+In the first faint gray of the dawn the stately wild turkeys would be
+stalking around in great flocks, and ready to be sociable and answer
+invitations to come and converse with other excursionists of their kind.
+The hunter concealed himself and imitated the turkey-call by sucking the
+air through the leg-bone of a turkey which had previously answered a call
+like that and lived only just long enough to regret it.  There is nothing
+that furnishes a perfect turkey-call except that bone.  Another of
+Nature's treacheries, you see.  She is full of them; half the time she
+doesn't know which she likes best--to betray her chid or protect it.
+In the case of the turkey she is badly mixed: she gives it a bone to be
+used in getting it into trouble, and she also furnishes it with a trick
+for getting itself out of the trouble again.  When a mamma-turkey answers
+an invitation and finds she has made a mistake in accepting it, she does
+as the mamma-partridge does--remembers a previous engagement--and goes
+limping and scrambling away, pretending to be very lame; and at the same
+time she is saying to her not-visible children, "Lie low, keep still,
+don't expose yourselves; I shall be back as soon as I have beguiled this
+shabby swindler out of the country."
+
+When a person is ignorant and confiding, this immoral device can have
+tiresome results.  I followed an ostensibly lame turkey over a
+considerable part of the United States one morning, because I believed in
+her and could not think she would deceive a mere boy, and one who was
+trusting her and considering her honest.  I had the single-barrelled
+shotgun, but my idea was to catch her alive.  I often got within rushing
+distance of her, and then made my rush; but always, just as I made my
+final plunge and put my hand down where her back had been, it wasn't
+there; it was only two or three inches from there and I brushed the tail-
+feathers as I landed on my stomach--a very close call, but still not
+quite close enough; that is, not close enough for success, but just close
+enough to convince me that I could do it next time.  She always waited
+for me, a little piece away, and let on to be resting and greatly
+fatigued; which was a lie, but I believed it, for I still thought her
+honest long after I ought to have begun to doubt her, suspecting that
+this was no way for a high-minded bird to be acting.  I followed, and
+followed, and followed, making my periodical rushes, and getting up and
+brushing the dust off, and resuming the voyage with patient confidence;
+indeed, with a confidence which grew, for I could see by the change of
+climate and vegetation that we were getting up into the high latitudes,
+and as she always looked a little tireder and a little more discouraged
+after each rush, I judged that I was safe to win, in the end, the
+competition being purely a matter of staying power and the advantage
+lying with me from the start because she was lame.
+
+Along in the afternoon I began to feel fatigued myself.  Neither of us
+had had any rest since we first started on the excursion, which was
+upwards of ten hours before, though latterly we had paused awhile after
+rushes, I letting on to be thinking about something else; but neither of
+us sincere, and both of us waiting for the other to call game but in no
+real hurry about it, for indeed those little evanescent snatches of rest
+were very grateful to the feelings of us both; it would naturally be so,
+skirmishing along like that ever since dawn and not a bite in the
+meantime; at least for me, though sometimes as she lay on her side
+fanning herself with a wing and praying for strength to get out of this
+difficulty a grasshopper happened along whose time had come, and that was
+well for her, and fortunate, but I had nothing--nothing the whole day.
+
+More than once, after I was very tired, I gave up taking her alive, and
+was going to shoot her, but I never did it, although it was my right, for
+I did not believe I could hit her; and besides, she always stopped and
+posed, when I raised the gun, and this made me suspicious that she knew
+about me and my marksmanship, and so I did not care to expose myself to
+remarks.
+
+I did not get her, at all.  When she got tired of the game at last, she
+rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft with the rush and whir of a
+shell and lit on the highest limb of a great tree and sat down and
+crossed her legs and smiled down at me, and seemed gratified to see me so
+astonished.
+
+I was ashamed, and also lost; and it was while wandering the woods
+hunting for myself that I found a deserted log cabin and had one of the
+best meals there that in my life-days I have eaten.  The weed-grown
+garden was full of ripe tomatoes, and I ate them ravenously, though I had
+never liked them before.  Not more than two or three times since have I
+tasted anything that was so delicious as those tomatoes.  I surfeited
+myself with them, and did not taste another one until I was in middle
+life.  I can eat them now, but I do not like the look of them.  I suppose
+we have all experienced a surfeit at one time or another.  Once, in
+stress of circumstances, I ate part of a barrel of sardines, there being
+nothing else at hand, but since then I have always been able to get along
+without sardines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM
+
+The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from weather to
+crops, from crops to literature, from literature to scandal, from scandal
+to religion; then took a random jump, and landed on the subject of
+burglar alarms.  And now for the first time Mr. McWilliams showed
+feeling.  Whenever I perceive this sign on this man's dial, I comprehend
+it, and lapse into silence, and give him opportunity to unload his heart.
+Said he, with but ill-controlled emotion:
+
+"I do not go one single cent on burglar alarms, Mr. Twain--not a single
+cent--and I will tell you why.  When we were finishing our house, we
+found we had a little cash left over, on account of the plumber not
+knowing it.  I was for enlightening the heathen with it, for I was always
+unaccountably down on the heathen somehow; but Mrs. McWilliams said no,
+let's have a burglar alarm.  I agreed to this compromise.  I will explain
+that whenever I want a thing, and Mrs. McWilliams wants another thing,
+and we decide upon the thing that Mrs. McWilliams wants--as we always do
+--she calls that a compromise.  Very well: the man came up from New York
+and put in the alarm, and charged three hundred and twenty-five dollars
+for it, and said we could sleep without uneasiness now.  So we did for
+awhile--say a month.  Then one night we smelled smoke, and I was advised
+to get up and see what the matter was.  I lit a candle, and started
+toward the stairs, and met a burglar coming out of a room with a basket
+of tinware, which he had mistaken for solid silver in the dark.  He was
+smoking a pipe.  I said, 'My friend, we do not allow smoking in this
+room.'  He said he was a stranger, and could not be expected to know the
+rules of the house: said he had been in many houses just as good as this
+one, and it had never been objected to before.  He added that as far as
+his experience went, such rules had never been considered to apply to
+burglars, anyway.
+
+"I said: 'Smoke along, then, if it is the custom, though I think that the
+conceding of a privilege to a burglar which is denied to a bishop is a
+conspicuous sign of the looseness of the times.  But waiving all that,
+what business have you to be entering this house in this furtive and
+clandestine way, without ringing the burglar alarm?'
+
+"He looked confused and ashamed, and said, with embarrassment: 'I beg a
+thousand pardons.  I did not know you had a burglar alarm, else I would
+have rung it.  I beg you will not mention it where my parents may hear of
+it, for they are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of
+the hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization might all
+too rudely sunder the frail bridge which hangs darkling between the pale
+and evanescent present and the solemn great deeps of the eternities.  May
+I trouble you for a match?'
+
+"I said: 'Your sentiments do you honor, but if you will allow me to say
+it, metaphor is not your best hold.  Spare your thigh; this kind light
+only on the box, and seldom there, in fact, if my experience may be
+trusted.  But to return to business: how did you get in here?'
+
+"'Through a second-story window.'
+
+"It was even so.  I redeemed the tinware at pawnbroker's rates, less cost
+of advertising, bade the burglar good-night, closed the window after him,
+and retired to headquarters to report.  Next morning we sent for the
+burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm
+did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was
+attached to the alarm.  This was simply idiotic; one might as well have
+no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs.  The expert
+now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred
+dollars for it, and went his way.  By and by, one night, I found a
+burglar in the third story, about to start down a ladder with a lot of
+miscellaneous property.  My first impulse was to crack his head with a
+billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this attention, because
+he was between me and the cue rack.  The second impulse was plainly the
+soundest, so I refrained, and proceeded to compromise.  I redeemed the
+property at former rates, after deducting ten per cent. for use of
+ladder, it being my ladder, and, next day we sent down for the expert
+once more, and had the third story attached to the alarm, for three
+hundred dollars.
+
+"By this time the 'annunciator' had grown to formidable dimensions.  It
+had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the names of the various rooms
+and chimneys, and it occupied the space of an ordinary wardrobe.  The
+gong was the size of a wash-bowl, and was placed above the head of our
+bed.  There was a wire from the house to the coachman's quarters in the
+stable, and a noble gong alongside his pillow.
+
+"We should have been comfortable now but for one defect.  Every morning
+at five the cook opened the kitchen door, in the way of business, and rip
+went that gong!  The first time this happened I thought the last day was
+come sure.  I didn't think it in bed--no, but out of it--for the first
+effect of that frightful gong is to hurl you across the house, and slam
+you against the wall, and then curl you up, and squirm you like a spider
+on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen door.  In solid fact,
+there is no clamor that is even remotely comparable to the dire clamor
+which that gong makes.  Well, this catastrophe happened every morning
+regularly at five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you,
+when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in spots; it wakes
+you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of
+wide-awakeness subsequently--eighteen hours of the very most
+inconceivable wide-awakeness that you ever experienced in your life.
+A stranger died on our hands one time, aid we vacated and left him in our
+room overnight.  Did that stranger wait for the general judgment?  No,
+sir; he got up at five the next morning in the most prompt and
+unostentatious way.  I knew he would; I knew it mighty well.  He
+collected his life-insurance, and lived happy ever after, for there was
+plenty of proof as to the perfect squareness of his death.
+
+"Well, we were gradually fading toward a better land, on account of the
+daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the expert up again, and he ran a
+wire to the outside of the door, and placed a switch there, whereby
+Thomas, the butler, always made one little mistake--he switched the alarm
+off at night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at daybreak in
+the morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and
+enable that gong to slam us across the house, sometimes breaking a window
+with one or the other of us.  At the end of a week we recognized that
+this switch business was a delusion and a snare.  We also discovered that
+a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole time--not
+exactly to steal, for there wasn't much left now, but to hide from the
+police, for they were hot pressed, and they shrewdly judged that the
+detectives would never think of a tribe of burglars taking sanctuary in a
+house notoriously protected by the most imposing and elaborate burglar
+alarm in America.
+
+"Sent down for the expert again, and this time he struck a most dazzling
+idea--he fixed the thing so that opening the kitchen door would take off
+the alarm.  It was a noble idea, and he charged accordingly.  But you
+already foresee the result.  I switched on the alarm every night at bed-
+time, no longer trusting on Thomas's frail memory; and as soon as the
+lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door, thus taking
+the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do it in the morning.  You
+see how aggravatingly we were situated.  For months we couldn't have any
+company.  Not a spare bed in the house; all occupied by burglars.
+
+"Finally, I got up a cure of my own.  The expert answered the call, and
+ran another ground wire to the stable, and established a switch there, so
+that the coachman could put on and take off the alarm.  That worked first
+rate, and a season of peace ensued, during which we got to inviting
+company once more and enjoying life.
+
+"But by and by the irrepressible alarm invented a new kink.  One winter's
+night we were flung out of bed by the sudden music of that awful gong,
+and when we hobbled to the annunciator, turned up the gas, and saw the
+word 'Nursery' exposed, Mrs. McWilliams fainted dead away, and I came
+precious near doing the same thing myself.  I seized my shotgun, and
+stood timing the coachman whilst that appalling buzzing went on.  I knew
+that his gong had flung him out, too, and that he would be along with his
+gun as soon as he could jump into his clothes.  When I judged that the
+time was ripe, I crept to the room next the nursery, glanced through the
+window, and saw the dim outline of the coachman in the yard below,
+standing at present-arms and waiting for a chance.  Then I hopped into
+the nursery and fired, and in the same instant the coachman fired at the
+red flash of my gun.  Both of us were successful; I crippled a nurse, and
+he shot off all my back hair.  We turned up the gas, and telephoned for a
+surgeon.  There was not a sign of a burglar, and no window had been
+raised.  One glass was absent, but that was where the coachman's charge
+had come through.  Here was a fine mystery--a burglar alarm 'going off'
+at midnight of its own accord, and not a burglar in the neighborhood!
+
+"The expert answered the usual call, and explained that it was a 'False
+alarm.' Said it was easily fixed.  So he overhauled the nursery window,
+charged a remunerative figure for it, and departed.
+
+"What we suffered from false alarms for the next three years no
+stylographic pen can describe.  During the next three months I always
+flew with my gun to the room indicated, and the coachman always sallied
+forth with his battery to support me.  But there was never anything to
+shoot at--windows all tight and secure.  We always sent down for the
+expert next day, and he fixed those particular windows so they would keep
+quiet a week or so, and always remembered to send us a bill about like
+this:
+
+          Wire ............................$2.15
+          Nipple...........................  .75
+          Two hours' labor ................ 1.50
+          Wax..............................  .47
+          Tape.............................  .34
+          Screws...........................  .15
+          Recharging battery ..............  .98
+          Three hours' labor .............. 2.25
+          String...........................  .02
+          Lard ............................  .66
+          Pond's Extract .................. 1.25
+          Springs at 50.................... 2.00
+          Railroad fares................... 7.25
+
+
+"At length a perfectly natural thing came about--after we had answered
+three or four hundred false alarms--to wit, we stopped answering them.
+Yes, I simply rose up calmly, when slammed across the house by the alarm,
+calmly inspected the annunciator, took note of the room indicated; and
+then calmly disconnected that room from the alarm, and went back to bed
+as if nothing had happened.  Moreover, I left that room off permanently,
+and did not send for the expert.  Well, it goes without saying that in
+the course of time all the rooms were taken off, and the entire machine
+was out of service.
+
+"It was at this unprotected time that the heaviest calamity of all
+happened.  The burglars walked in one night and carried off the burglar
+alarm! yes, sir, every hide and hair of it: ripped it out, tooth and
+nail; springs, bells, gongs, battery, and all; they took a hundred and
+fifty miles of copper wire; they just cleaned her out, bag and baggage,
+and never left us a vestige of her to swear at--swear by, I mean.
+
+"We had a time of it to get her back; but we accomplished it finally, for
+money.  The alarm firm said that what we needed now was to have her put
+in right--with their new patent springs in the windows to make false
+alarms impossible, and their new patent clock attached to take off and
+put on the alarm morning and night without human assistance.  That seemed
+a good scheme.  They promised to have the whole thing finished in ten
+days.  They began work, and we left for the summer.  They worked a couple
+of days; then they left for the summer.  After which the burglars moved
+in, and began their summer vacation.  When we returned in the fall, the
+house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been
+at work.  We refurnished, and then sent down to hurry up the expert.  He
+came up and finished the job, and said: 'Now this clock is set to put on
+the alarm every night at 10, and take it off every morning at 5:45.  All
+you've got to do is to wind her up every week, and then leave her alone--
+she will take care of the alarm herself.'
+
+"After that we had a most tranquil season during three months.  The bill
+was prodigious, of course, and I had said I would not pay it until the
+new machinery had proved itself to be flawless.  The time stipulated was
+three months.  So I paid the bill, and the very next day the alarm went
+to buzzing like ten thousand bee swarms at ten o'clock in the morning.
+I turned the hands around twelve hours, according to instructions, and
+this took off the alarm; but there was another hitch at night, and I had
+to set her ahead twelve hours once more to get her to put the alarm on
+again.  That sort of nonsense went on a week or two, then the expert came
+up and put in a new clock.  He came up every three months during the next
+three years, and put in a new clock.  But it was always a failure.  His
+clocks all had the same perverse defect: they would put the alarm on in
+the daytime, and they would not put it on at night; and if you forced it
+on yourself, they would take it off again the minute your back was
+turned.
+
+"Now there is the history of that burglar alarm--everything just as it
+happened; nothing extenuated, and naught set down in malice.  Yes, sir,--
+and when I had slept nine years with burglars, and maintained an
+expensive burglar alarm the whole time, for their protection, not mine,
+and at my sole cost--for not a d---d cent could I ever get THEM to
+contribute--I just said to Mrs.  McWilliams that I had had enough of that
+kind of pie; so with her full consent I took the whole thing out and
+traded it off for a dog, and shot the dog.  I don't know what you think
+about it, Mr.  Twain; but I think those things are made solely in the
+interest of the burglars.  Yes, sir, a burglar alarm combines in its
+person all that is objectionable about a fire, a riot, and a harem, and
+at the same time had none of the compensating advantages, of one sort or
+another, that customarily belong with that combination.  Good-by: I get
+off here."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain
+
diff --git a/old/mtmst10.zip b/old/mtmst10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6a44a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mtmst10.zip
diff --git a/old/mtmst11.txt b/old/mtmst11.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd0caf2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mtmst11.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4571 @@
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain
+#47 in our series by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other
+Project Gutenberg file.
+
+We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your
+own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future
+readers.  Please do not remove this.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to
+view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission.
+The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the
+information they need to understand what they may and may not
+do with the etext.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and
+further information, is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
+organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541
+
+
+
+Title: The Mysterious Stranger
+
+Author: Mark Twain
+
+Release Date: April, 2002  [Etext #3186]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 25, 2001]
+[Most recently updated: November 29, 2001]
+
+Edition: 11
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain
+********This file should be named mtmst11.txt or mtmst11.zip*********
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, mtmst12.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mtmst11a.txt
+
+This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+Proofreading by Be Wolf <yuching29@hotmail.com>
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+etexts, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2001 as we release over 50 new Etext
+files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 4000+
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts.  We need
+funding, as well as continued efforts by volunteers, to maintain
+or increase our production and reach our goals.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of November, 2001, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware,
+Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
+Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon,
+Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,
+Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin,
+and Wyoming.
+
+*In Progress
+
+We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+All donations should be made to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fundraising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fundraising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this etext,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart
+and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.]
+[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales
+of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or
+software or any other related product without express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+Proofreading by Be Wolf <yuching29@hotmail.com>
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+
+by Mark Twain
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+A FABLE
+HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY
+THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM
+
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
+
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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
+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
+
+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 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
+
+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.
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A FABLE
+
+Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and very beautiful
+picture placed it so that he could see it in the mirror.  He said, "This
+doubles the distance and softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was
+before."
+
+The animals out in the woods heard of this through the housecat, who was
+greatly admired by them because he was so learned, and so refined and
+civilized, and so polite and high-bred, and could tell them so much which
+they didn't know before, and were not certain about afterward.  They were
+much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they asked questions, so
+as to get at a full understanding of it.  They asked what a picture was,
+and the cat explained.
+
+"It is a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously flat,
+enchantingly flat and elegant.  And, oh, so beautiful!"
+
+That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they would give the
+world to see it.  Then the bear asked:
+
+"What is it that makes it so beautiful?"
+
+"It is the looks of it," said the cat.
+
+This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they were more
+excited than ever.  Then the cow asked:
+
+"What is a mirror?"
+
+"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat.  "You look in it, and there you
+see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and
+inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and
+round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy."
+
+The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to throw doubts.
+He said there had never been anything as beautiful as this before, and
+probably wasn't now.  He said that when it took a whole basketful of
+sesquipedalian adjectives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for
+suspicion.
+
+It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect upon the
+animals, so the cat went off offended.  The subject was dropped for a
+couple of days, but in the meantime curiosity was taking a fresh start,
+aid there was a revival of interest perceptible.  Then the animals
+assailed the ass for spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure to
+them, on a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without any
+evidence that such was the case.  The ass was not, troubled; he was calm,
+and said there was one way to find out who was in the right, himself or
+the cat: he would go and look in that hole, and come back and tell what
+he found there.  The animals felt relieved and grateful, and asked him to
+go at once--which he did.
+
+But he did not know where he ought to stand; and so, through error, he
+stood between the picture and the mirror.  The result was that the
+picture had no chance, and didn't show up.  He returned home and said:
+
+"The cat lied.  There was nothing in that hole but an ass.  There wasn't
+a sign of a flat thing visible.  It was a handsome ass, and friendly, but
+just an ass, and nothing more."
+
+The elephant asked:
+
+"Did you see it good and clear?  Were you close to it?"
+
+"I saw it good and clear, O Hathi, King of Beasts.  I was so close that I
+touched noses with it."
+
+"This is very strange," said the elephant; "the cat was always truthful
+before--as far as we could make out.  Let another witness try.  Go,
+Baloo, look in the hole, and come and report."
+
+So the bear went.  When he came back, he said:
+
+"Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in the hole but a
+bear."
+
+Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals.  Each was now
+anxious to make the test himself and get at the straight truth.  The
+elephant sent them one at a time.
+
+First, the cow.  She found nothing in the hole but a cow.
+
+The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.
+
+The lion found nothing in it but a lion.
+
+The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.
+
+The camel found a camel, and nothing more.
+
+Then Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if he had to go
+and fetch it himself.  When he returned, he abused his whole subjectry
+for liars, and was in an unappeasable fury with the moral and mental
+blindness of the cat.  He said that anybody but a near-sighted fool could
+see that there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.
+
+                            MORAL, BY THE CAT
+
+You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it
+and the mirror of your imagination.  You may not see your ears, but they
+will be there.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY
+
+When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with the rifle, the
+youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun--a small single-barrelled shotgun
+which was properly suited to our size and strength; it was not much
+heavier than a broom.  We carried it turn about, half an hour at a time.
+I was not able to hit anything with it, but I liked to try.  Fred and I
+hunted feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild
+turkeys, and such things.  My uncle and the big boys were good shots.
+They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they
+didn't wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them.  When the dogs treed a
+squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and
+flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way--
+and not quite succeeding.  You could see his wee little ears sticking up.
+You couldn't see his nose, but you knew where it was.  Then the hunter,
+despising a "rest" for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim at the
+limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel's nose, and
+down tumbled the animal, unwounded,  but unconscious; the dogs gave him a
+shake and he was dead.  Sometimes when the distance was great and the
+wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet would hit the squirrel's
+head; the dogs could do as they pleased with that one--the hunter's pride
+was hurt, and he wouldn't allow it to go into the gamebag.
+
+In the first faint gray of the dawn the stately wild turkeys would be
+stalking around in great flocks, and ready to be sociable and answer
+invitations to come and converse with other excursionists of their kind.
+The hunter concealed himself and imitated the turkey-call by sucking the
+air through the leg-bone of a turkey which had previously answered a call
+like that and lived only just long enough to regret it.  There is nothing
+that furnishes a perfect turkey-call except that bone.  Another of
+Nature's treacheries, you see.  She is full of them; half the time she
+doesn't know which she likes best--to betray her chid or protect it.
+In the case of the turkey she is badly mixed: she gives it a bone to be
+used in getting it into trouble, and she also furnishes it with a trick
+for getting itself out of the trouble again.  When a mamma-turkey answers
+an invitation and finds she has made a mistake in accepting it, she does
+as the mamma-partridge does--remembers a previous engagement--and goes
+limping and scrambling away, pretending to be very lame; and at the same
+time she is saying to her not-visible children, "Lie low, keep still,
+don't expose yourselves; I shall be back as soon as I have beguiled this
+shabby swindler out of the country."
+
+When a person is ignorant and confiding, this immoral device can have
+tiresome results.  I followed an ostensibly lame turkey over a
+considerable part of the United States one morning, because I believed in
+her and could not think she would deceive a mere boy, and one who was
+trusting her and considering her honest.  I had the single-barrelled
+shotgun, but my idea was to catch her alive.  I often got within rushing
+distance of her, and then made my rush; but always, just as I made my
+final plunge and put my hand down where her back had been, it wasn't
+there; it was only two or three inches from there and I brushed the tail-
+feathers as I landed on my stomach--a very close call, but still not
+quite close enough; that is, not close enough for success, but just close
+enough to convince me that I could do it next time.  She always waited
+for me, a little piece away, and let on to be resting and greatly
+fatigued; which was a lie, but I believed it, for I still thought her
+honest long after I ought to have begun to doubt her, suspecting that
+this was no way for a high-minded bird to be acting.  I followed, and
+followed, and followed, making my periodical rushes, and getting up and
+brushing the dust off, and resuming the voyage with patient confidence;
+indeed, with a confidence which grew, for I could see by the change of
+climate and vegetation that we were getting up into the high latitudes,
+and as she always looked a little tireder and a little more discouraged
+after each rush, I judged that I was safe to win, in the end, the
+competition being purely a matter of staying power and the advantage
+lying with me from the start because she was lame.
+
+Along in the afternoon I began to feel fatigued myself.  Neither of us
+had had any rest since we first started on the excursion, which was
+upwards of ten hours before, though latterly we had paused awhile after
+rushes, I letting on to be thinking about something else; but neither of
+us sincere, and both of us waiting for the other to call game but in no
+real hurry about it, for indeed those little evanescent snatches of rest
+were very grateful to the feelings of us both; it would naturally be so,
+skirmishing along like that ever since dawn and not a bite in the
+meantime; at least for me, though sometimes as she lay on her side
+fanning herself with a wing and praying for strength to get out of this
+difficulty a grasshopper happened along whose time had come, and that was
+well for her, and fortunate, but I had nothing--nothing the whole day.
+
+More than once, after I was very tired, I gave up taking her alive, and
+was going to shoot her, but I never did it, although it was my right, for
+I did not believe I could hit her; and besides, she always stopped and
+posed, when I raised the gun, and this made me suspicious that she knew
+about me and my marksmanship, and so I did not care to expose myself to
+remarks.
+
+I did not get her, at all.  When she got tired of the game at last, she
+rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft with the rush and whir of a
+shell and lit on the highest limb of a great tree and sat down and
+crossed her legs and smiled down at me, and seemed gratified to see me so
+astonished.
+
+I was ashamed, and also lost; and it was while wandering the woods
+hunting for myself that I found a deserted log cabin and had one of the
+best meals there that in my life-days I have eaten.  The weed-grown
+garden was full of ripe tomatoes, and I ate them ravenously, though I had
+never liked them before.  Not more than two or three times since have I
+tasted anything that was so delicious as those tomatoes.  I surfeited
+myself with them, and did not taste another one until I was in middle
+life.  I can eat them now, but I do not like the look of them.  I suppose
+we have all experienced a surfeit at one time or another.  Once, in
+stress of circumstances, I ate part of a barrel of sardines, there being
+nothing else at hand, but since then I have always been able to get along
+without sardines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM
+
+The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from weather to
+crops, from crops to literature, from literature to scandal, from scandal
+to religion; then took a random jump, and landed on the subject of
+burglar alarms.  And now for the first time Mr. McWilliams showed
+feeling.  Whenever I perceive this sign on this man's dial, I comprehend
+it, and lapse into silence, and give him opportunity to unload his heart.
+Said he, with but ill-controlled emotion:
+
+"I do not go one single cent on burglar alarms, Mr. Twain--not a single
+cent--and I will tell you why.  When we were finishing our house, we
+found we had a little cash left over, on account of the plumber not
+knowing it.  I was for enlightening the heathen with it, for I was always
+unaccountably down on the heathen somehow; but Mrs. McWilliams said no,
+let's have a burglar alarm.  I agreed to this compromise.  I will explain
+that whenever I want a thing, and Mrs. McWilliams wants another thing,
+and we decide upon the thing that Mrs. McWilliams wants--as we always do
+--she calls that a compromise.  Very well: the man came up from New York
+and put in the alarm, and charged three hundred and twenty-five dollars
+for it, and said we could sleep without uneasiness now.  So we did for
+awhile--say a month.  Then one night we smelled smoke, and I was advised
+to get up and see what the matter was.  I lit a candle, and started
+toward the stairs, and met a burglar coming out of a room with a basket
+of tinware, which he had mistaken for solid silver in the dark.  He was
+smoking a pipe.  I said, 'My friend, we do not allow smoking in this
+room.'  He said he was a stranger, and could not be expected to know the
+rules of the house: said he had been in many houses just as good as this
+one, and it had never been objected to before.  He added that as far as
+his experience went, such rules had never been considered to apply to
+burglars, anyway.
+
+"I said: 'Smoke along, then, if it is the custom, though I think that the
+conceding of a privilege to a burglar which is denied to a bishop is a
+conspicuous sign of the looseness of the times.  But waiving all that,
+what business have you to be entering this house in this furtive and
+clandestine way, without ringing the burglar alarm?'
+
+"He looked confused and ashamed, and said, with embarrassment: 'I beg a
+thousand pardons.  I did not know you had a burglar alarm, else I would
+have rung it.  I beg you will not mention it where my parents may hear of
+it, for they are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of
+the hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization might all
+too rudely sunder the frail bridge which hangs darkling between the pale
+and evanescent present and the solemn great deeps of the eternities.  May
+I trouble you for a match?'
+
+"I said: 'Your sentiments do you honor, but if you will allow me to say
+it, metaphor is not your best hold.  Spare your thigh; this kind light
+only on the box, and seldom there, in fact, if my experience may be
+trusted.  But to return to business: how did you get in here?'
+
+"'Through a second-story window.'
+
+"It was even so.  I redeemed the tinware at pawnbroker's rates, less cost
+of advertising, bade the burglar good-night, closed the window after him,
+and retired to headquarters to report.  Next morning we sent for the
+burglar-alarm man, and he came up and explained that the reason the alarm
+did not 'go off' was that no part of the house but the first floor was
+attached to the alarm.  This was simply idiotic; one might as well have
+no armor on at all in battle as to have it only on his legs.  The expert
+now put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred
+dollars for it, and went his way.  By and by, one night, I found a
+burglar in the third story, about to start down a ladder with a lot of
+miscellaneous property.  My first impulse was to crack his head with a
+billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this attention, because
+he was between me and the cue rack.  The second impulse was plainly the
+soundest, so I refrained, and proceeded to compromise.  I redeemed the
+property at former rates, after deducting ten per cent. for use of
+ladder, it being my ladder, and, next day we sent down for the expert
+once more, and had the third story attached to the alarm, for three
+hundred dollars.
+
+"By this time the 'annunciator' had grown to formidable dimensions.  It
+had forty-seven tags on it, marked with the names of the various rooms
+and chimneys, and it occupied the space of an ordinary wardrobe.  The
+gong was the size of a wash-bowl, and was placed above the head of our
+bed.  There was a wire from the house to the coachman's quarters in the
+stable, and a noble gong alongside his pillow.
+
+"We should have been comfortable now but for one defect.  Every morning
+at five the cook opened the kitchen door, in the way of business, and rip
+went that gong!  The first time this happened I thought the last day was
+come sure.  I didn't think it in bed--no, but out of it--for the first
+effect of that frightful gong is to hurl you across the house, and slam
+you against the wall, and then curl you up, and squirm you like a spider
+on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen door.  In solid fact,
+there is no clamor that is even remotely comparable to the dire clamor
+which that gong makes.  Well, this catastrophe happened every morning
+regularly at five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you,
+when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in spots; it wakes
+you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of
+wide-awakeness subsequently--eighteen hours of the very most
+inconceivable wide-awakeness that you ever experienced in your life.
+A stranger died on our hands one time, aid we vacated and left him in our
+room overnight.  Did that stranger wait for the general judgment?  No,
+sir; he got up at five the next morning in the most prompt and
+unostentatious way.  I knew he would; I knew it mighty well.  He
+collected his life-insurance, and lived happy ever after, for there was
+plenty of proof as to the perfect squareness of his death.
+
+"Well, we were gradually fading toward a better land, on account of the
+daily loss of sleep; so we finally had the expert up again, and he ran a
+wire to the outside of the door, and placed a switch there, whereby
+Thomas, the butler, always made one little mistake--he switched the alarm
+off at night when he went to bed, and switched it on again at daybreak in
+the morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and
+enable that gong to slam us across the house, sometimes breaking a window
+with one or the other of us.  At the end of a week we recognized that
+this switch business was a delusion and a snare.  We also discovered that
+a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole time--not
+exactly to steal, for there wasn't much left now, but to hide from the
+police, for they were hot pressed, and they shrewdly judged that the
+detectives would never think of a tribe of burglars taking sanctuary in a
+house notoriously protected by the most imposing and elaborate burglar
+alarm in America.
+
+"Sent down for the expert again, and this time he struck a most dazzling
+idea--he fixed the thing so that opening the kitchen door would take off
+the alarm.  It was a noble idea, and he charged accordingly.  But you
+already foresee the result.  I switched on the alarm every night at bed-
+time, no longer trusting on Thomas's frail memory; and as soon as the
+lights were out the burglars walked in at the kitchen door, thus taking
+the alarm off without waiting for the cook to do it in the morning.  You
+see how aggravatingly we were situated.  For months we couldn't have any
+company.  Not a spare bed in the house; all occupied by burglars.
+
+"Finally, I got up a cure of my own.  The expert answered the call, and
+ran another ground wire to the stable, and established a switch there, so
+that the coachman could put on and take off the alarm.  That worked first
+rate, and a season of peace ensued, during which we got to inviting
+company once more and enjoying life.
+
+"But by and by the irrepressible alarm invented a new kink.  One winter's
+night we were flung out of bed by the sudden music of that awful gong,
+and when we hobbled to the annunciator, turned up the gas, and saw the
+word 'Nursery' exposed, Mrs. McWilliams fainted dead away, and I came
+precious near doing the same thing myself.  I seized my shotgun, and
+stood timing the coachman whilst that appalling buzzing went on.  I knew
+that his gong had flung him out, too, and that he would be along with his
+gun as soon as he could jump into his clothes.  When I judged that the
+time was ripe, I crept to the room next the nursery, glanced through the
+window, and saw the dim outline of the coachman in the yard below,
+standing at present-arms and waiting for a chance.  Then I hopped into
+the nursery and fired, and in the same instant the coachman fired at the
+red flash of my gun.  Both of us were successful; I crippled a nurse, and
+he shot off all my back hair.  We turned up the gas, and telephoned for a
+surgeon.  There was not a sign of a burglar, and no window had been
+raised.  One glass was absent, but that was where the coachman's charge
+had come through.  Here was a fine mystery--a burglar alarm 'going off'
+at midnight of its own accord, and not a burglar in the neighborhood!
+
+"The expert answered the usual call, and explained that it was a 'False
+alarm.' Said it was easily fixed.  So he overhauled the nursery window,
+charged a remunerative figure for it, and departed.
+
+"What we suffered from false alarms for the next three years no
+stylographic pen can describe.  During the next three months I always
+flew with my gun to the room indicated, and the coachman always sallied
+forth with his battery to support me.  But there was never anything to
+shoot at--windows all tight and secure.  We always sent down for the
+expert next day, and he fixed those particular windows so they would keep
+quiet a week or so, and always remembered to send us a bill about like
+this:
+
+          Wire ............................$2.15
+          Nipple...........................  .75
+          Two hours' labor ................ 1.50
+          Wax..............................  .47
+          Tape.............................  .34
+          Screws...........................  .15
+          Recharging battery ..............  .98
+          Three hours' labor .............. 2.25
+          String...........................  .02
+          Lard ............................  .66
+          Pond's Extract .................. 1.25
+          Springs at 50.................... 2.00
+          Railroad fares................... 7.25
+
+
+"At length a perfectly natural thing came about--after we had answered
+three or four hundred false alarms--to wit, we stopped answering them.
+Yes, I simply rose up calmly, when slammed across the house by the alarm,
+calmly inspected the annunciator, took note of the room indicated; and
+then calmly disconnected that room from the alarm, and went back to bed
+as if nothing had happened.  Moreover, I left that room off permanently,
+and did not send for the expert.  Well, it goes without saying that in
+the course of time all the rooms were taken off, and the entire machine
+was out of service.
+
+"It was at this unprotected time that the heaviest calamity of all
+happened.  The burglars walked in one night and carried off the burglar
+alarm! yes, sir, every hide and hair of it: ripped it out, tooth and
+nail; springs, bells, gongs, battery, and all; they took a hundred and
+fifty miles of copper wire; they just cleaned her out, bag and baggage,
+and never left us a vestige of her to swear at--swear by, I mean.
+
+"We had a time of it to get her back; but we accomplished it finally, for
+money.  The alarm firm said that what we needed now was to have her put
+in right--with their new patent springs in the windows to make false
+alarms impossible, and their new patent clock attached to take off and
+put on the alarm morning and night without human assistance.  That seemed
+a good scheme.  They promised to have the whole thing finished in ten
+days.  They began work, and we left for the summer.  They worked a couple
+of days; then they left for the summer.  After which the burglars moved
+in, and began their summer vacation.  When we returned in the fall, the
+house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been
+at work.  We refurnished, and then sent down to hurry up the expert.  He
+came up and finished the job, and said: 'Now this clock is set to put on
+the alarm every night at 10, and take it off every morning at 5:45.  All
+you've got to do is to wind her up every week, and then leave her alone--
+she will take care of the alarm herself.'
+
+"After that we had a most tranquil season during three months.  The bill
+was prodigious, of course, and I had said I would not pay it until the
+new machinery had proved itself to be flawless.  The time stipulated was
+three months.  So I paid the bill, and the very next day the alarm went
+to buzzing like ten thousand bee swarms at ten o'clock in the morning.
+I turned the hands around twelve hours, according to instructions, and
+this took off the alarm; but there was another hitch at night, and I had
+to set her ahead twelve hours once more to get her to put the alarm on
+again.  That sort of nonsense went on a week or two, then the expert came
+up and put in a new clock.  He came up every three months during the next
+three years, and put in a new clock.  But it was always a failure.  His
+clocks all had the same perverse defect: they would put the alarm on in
+the daytime, and they would not put it on at night; and if you forced it
+on yourself, they would take it off again the minute your back was
+turned.
+
+"Now there is the history of that burglar alarm--everything just as it
+happened; nothing extenuated, and naught set down in malice.  Yes, sir,--
+and when I had slept nine years with burglars, and maintained an
+expensive burglar alarm the whole time, for their protection, not mine,
+and at my sole cost--for not a d---d cent could I ever get THEM to
+contribute--I just said to Mrs.  McWilliams that I had had enough of that
+kind of pie; so with her full consent I took the whole thing out and
+traded it off for a dog, and shot the dog.  I don't know what you think
+about it, Mr.  Twain; but I think those things are made solely in the
+interest of the burglars.  Yes, sir, a burglar alarm combines in its
+person all that is objectionable about a fire, a riot, and a harem, and
+at the same time had none of the compensating advantages, of one sort or
+another, that customarily belong with that combination.  Good-by: I get
+off here."
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Mysterious Stranger
+by Mark Twain
+
diff --git a/old/mtmst11.zip b/old/mtmst11.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b00b9a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mtmst11.zip