 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.
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
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