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DEVIL STORIES
AN ANTHOLOGY
SELECTED AND EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND CRITICAL COMMENTS
BY MAXIMILIAN J. RUDWIN
_"Mortal, mock not at the Devil,
Life is short and soon will fail,
And the 'fire everlasting'
Is no idle fairy-tale."_
--HEINE.
NEW YORK
ALFRED · A · KNOPF
MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEVIL LORE
ANTHOLOGIES OF DIABOLICAL LITERATURE EDITED BY MAXIMILIAN J. RUDWIN
I. DEVIL STORIES [First Series]
_In Preparation:_
DEVIL PLAYS
DEVIL ESSAYS
DEVIL LEGENDS
THE BOOK OF LADY LILITH
ANTHOLOGY OF SATANIC VERSE
BIBLIOGRAPHIA DIABOLICA
_BOOKS BY MAXIMILIAN J. RUDWIN_
The Prophet and Disputation
Scenes in the Religious Drama
of the German Middle Ages.
The Devil Scenes in the Religious
Drama of the German Middle
Ages.
The Devil in the German Religious
Plays of the Middle
Ages and the Reformation.
[Hesperia: Johns Hopkins
Studies in Modern Philology,
No. 6.]
The Origin of the German Carnival
Comedy.
_In Preparation:_
The Devil in Modern French
Literature.
TO ALL STUDENTS OF THE SUPERNATURAL IN LITERATURE
NOTE
The preparation of this book would have been out of the question
without the co-operation of authors and publishers. Proper
acknowledgment has been given on the first page of each selection to
the publishers who have granted us permission to reprint it. We take
this opportunity to express once more our deep appreciation of the
courtesies extended to us by all the parties concerned in the material
between the covers of this book. Special thanks are offered to Mr.
John Masefield for his permission to republish his story, and to
Messrs. Arthur Symons and Leo Wiener and to Miss Isabel F. Hapgood for
their permission to use their translations of the foreign stories
which we have selected. To Professor Henry Alfred Todd and Dr. Dorothy
Scarborough, of Columbia University, who have kindly read portions of
the manuscript, the editor is indebted for a number of helpful
suggestions. He adds his thanks to Professor Raymond Weeks, also of
Columbia University, who called his attention to the Daudet story, and
to his former colleague, Professor Otto A. Greiner, of Purdue
University, who was good enough to read part of the proofs.
THE PUBLISHER.
THE EDITOR.
CONTENTS
THE DEVIL IN A NUNNERY 1
_A Mediaeval Tale By Francis Oscar Mann_
BELPHAGOR, OR THE MARRIAGE OF THE DEVIL (1549) 14
_From the Italian of Niccolò Machiavelli_
THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER (1824) 28
_By Washington Irving_
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF SATAN (1828) 46
_From the German of Wilhelm Hauff_
ST. JOHN'S EVE (1830) 56
_From the Russian of Nikolái Vasilévich Gógol_
_Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood_
THE DEVIL'S WAGER (1833) 79
_By William Makepeace Thackeray_
THE PAINTER'S BARGAIN (1834) 93
_By William Makepeace Thackeray_
BON-BON (1835) 112
_By Edgar Allan Poe_
THE PRINTER'S DEVIL (1836) 136
_Anonymous_
THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW (1859) 149
_From the Spanish by Fernán Caballero_
_Translated by J. H. Ingram_
THE GENEROUS GAMBLER (1864) 162
_From the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire_
_Translated by Arthur Symons_
THE THREE LOW MASSES (1869) 167
_A Christmas Story From the French of Alphonse Daudet_
_Translated by Robert Routeledge_
DEVIL-PUZZLERS (1871) 179
_By Frederick Beecher Perkins_
THE DEVIL'S ROUND (1874) 203
_A Tale of Flemish Golf From the French of Charles Deulin_
_Translated by Isabel Bruce_
_With an introductory note by Andrew Lang_
THE LEGEND OF MONT ST.-MICHEL (1888) 222
_From the French of Guy de Maupassant_
THE DEMON POPE (1888) 228
_By Richard Garnett_
MADAM LUCIFER (1888) 242
_By Richard Garnett_
LUCIFER (1895) 250
_From the French of Anatole France_
_Translated by Alfred Allinson_
THE DEVIL (1899) 257
_From the Russian of Maxím Gorky_
_Translated by Leo Wiener_
THE DEVIL AND THE OLD MAN (1905) 268
_By John Masefield_
NOTES 279
INDEX 325
INTRODUCTION
Of all the myths which have come down to us from the East, and of all
the creations of Western fancy and belief, the Personality of Evil has
had the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the
greatest enigma that has ever confronted the human intelligence. So
large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also
say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom, no matter what
philosophy may teach us, must for ever remain an impossibility. As a
character in imaginative literature Lucifer has not his equal in
heaven above or on the earth beneath. In contrast to the idea of Good,
which is the more exalted in proportion to its freedom from
anthropomorphism, the idea of Evil owes to the presence of this
element its chief value as a poetic theme. The discrowned archangel
may have been inferior to St. Michael in military tactics, but he
certainly is his superior in matters literary. The fair angels--all
frankness and goodness--are beyond our comprehension, but the fallen
angels, with all their faults and sufferings, are kin to us.
There is a legend that the Devil has always had literary aspirations.
The German theosophist Jacob Böhme relates that when Satan was asked
to explain the cause of God's enmity to him and his consequent
downfall, he replied: "I wanted to be an author." Whether or not the
Devil has ever written anything over his own signature, he has
certainly helped others compose their greatest works. It is a
significant fact that the greatest imaginations have discerned an
attraction in Diabolus. What would the world's literature be if from
it we eliminated Dante's _Divine Comedy_, Calderón's _Marvellous
Magician_, Milton's _Paradise Lost_, Goethe's _Faust_, Byron's _Cain_,
Vigny's _Eloa_, and Lermontov's _Demon_? Sorry indeed would have been
the plight of literature without a judicious admixture of the
Diabolical. Without the Devil there would simply be no literature,
because without his intervention there would be no plot, and without a
plot the story of the world would lose its interest. Even now, when
the belief in the Devil has gone out of fashion, and when the very
mention of his name, far from causing men to cross themselves, brings
a smile to their faces, Satan has continued to be a puissant personage
in the realm of letters. As a matter of fact, Beelzebub has perhaps
received his greatest elaboration at the hands of writers who believed
in him just as little as Shakespeare did in the ghost of Hamlet's
father.
Commenting on Anatole France's _The Revolt of the Angels_, an American
critic has recently written: "It is difficult to rehabilitate
Beelzebub, not because people are of one mind concerning Beelzebub,
but because they are of no mind at all." How this demon must have
laughed when he read these lines! Why, he needs no rehabilitation. The
Devil has never been absent from the world of letters, just as he has
never been missing from the world of men. Since the days of Job, Satan
has taken a deep interest in the affairs of the human race; and while
most writers content themselves with recording his activities on this
planet, there never have been lacking men of sufficient courage to
call upon the prince of darkness in his proper dominions in order to
bring back to us, for our instruction and edification, a report of his
work there. The most distinguished poet his infernal Highness has ever
entertained at his court, it will be recalled, was Dante. The mark
which the scorching fires of hell left on Dante's face, was to his
contemporaries sufficient proof of the truth of his story.
The subject-matter of literature may always have been in a state of
flux, but the Devil has been present in all the stages of literary
evolution. All schools of literature in all ages and in all languages
set themselves, whether consciously or unconsciously, to represent and
interpret the Devil, and each school has treated him in its own
characteristic manner.
The Devil is an old character in literature. Perhaps he is as old as
literature itself. He is encountered in the story of the paradisiacal
sojourn of our first ancestors, and from that day on, Satan has
appeared unfailingly, in various forms and with various functions, in
all the literatures of the world. His person and his power continued
to develop and to multiply with the advance of the centuries, so that
in the Middle Ages the world fairly pullulated with demons. From his
minor place in the biblical books, the Devil grew to a position of
paramount importance in mediaeval literature. The Reformation, which
was a movement of progress in so many respects, left his position
intact. Indeed, it rather increased his power by withdrawing from the
saints the right of intercession in behalf of the sinners. Neither the
Renaissance of ancient learning nor the institution of modern science
could prevail against Satan. As a matter of fact, the growth of the
interest in the Devil has been on a level with the development of the
spirit of philosophical inquiry. French classicism, to be sure,
occasioned a setback for our hero. As a member of the Christian
hierarchy of supernatural personages, the Devil could not help but be
affected by the ban under which Boileau placed Christian
supernaturalism. But even the eighteenth century, a period so inimical
to the Supernatural, produced two master-devils in fiction: Le Sage's
Asmodeus and Cazotte's Beelzebub--worthy members of the august company
of literary Devils.
But as if to make amends for its long lack of appreciation of the
Devil's literary possibilities, France, in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, brought about a distinct reaction in his favour.
The sympathy extended by that country of revolutionary progress to all
victims and to all rebels, whether individuals or classes or nations,
could not well be denied to the celestial outlaw. The fighters for
political, social, intellectual, and emotional liberty on earth, could
not withhold their admiration from the angel who demanded freedom of
thought and independence of action in heaven. The rebel of the
Empyrean was hailed as the first martyr in the cause of liberty, and
his rehabilitation in heaven was demanded by the rebels on earth.
Satan became the symbol of the restless, hapless nineteenth century.
Through his mouth that age uttered its protest against the monarchs
of heaven and earth. The Romantic generation of 1830 thought the world
more than ever out of joint, and who was better fitted than the Devil
to express their dissatisfaction with the celestial government of
terrestrial affairs? Satan is the eternal Malcontent. To Hamlet,
Denmark seemed gloomy; to Satan, the whole world appears dark. The
admiration of the Romanticists for Satan was mixed with pity and
sympathy--so much his melancholy endeared him to their sympathies, so
kindred it seemed to their human weakness. The Romanticists felt a
deep admiration for solitary grandeur. This "knight of the doleful
countenance," laden with a curse and drawing misfortune in his train,
was the ideal Romantic hero. Was he not indeed the original _beau
ténébreux_? Thus Satan became the typical figure of that period and
its poetry. It has been well remarked that if Satan had not existed,
the Romanticists would have invented him. The Devil's influence on the
Romantic School was so strong and so sustained that soon it was named
after him. The terms Romantic and Satanic came to be wellnigh
synonymous. The interest which the French Romanticists showed in the
Devil, moreover, passed beyond the boundaries of France and the limits
of the nineteenth century. The Symbolists, for whom the mysteries of
Erebus had a potent attraction, were simply obsessed by Satan. But
even the Naturalists, who certainly were not haunted by phantoms,
often succumbed to his charms. Foreign writers turning for inspiration
to France, where the literature of the last century reached its
highest perfection, were also caught in the French enthusiasm for the
Devil.
Needless to say that this Devil is not the evil spirit of mediaeval
dogma. The Romantic Devil is an altogether new species of the _genus
diaboli_. There are fashions in Devils as in dresses, and what is a
Devil in one country or one century may not pass muster in another. It
is related that after the glory of Greece had departed, a mariner,
voyaging along her coast by night, heard from the woods the cry:
"Great Pan is dead!" But Pan was not dead; he had fallen asleep to
awake again as Satan. In like manner, when the eighteenth century
believed Satan to be dead, he was, as a matter of fact, only
recuperating his energies for a fresh start in a new form. His new
avatar was Prometheus. Satan continued to be the enemy of God, but he
was no longer the enemy of man. Instead of a demon of darkness he
became a god of grace. This champion of celestial combat was not
actuated by hatred and envy of man, as Christianity was thought to
teach us, but by love and pity for humankind. The strongest expression
of this idea of the Devil in modern literature has been given by
August Strindberg, whose Lucifer is a compound of Prometheus, Apollo
and Christ. However, this interpretation of the Devil, whatever value
it may have from the point of view of originality, is aesthetically as
well as theologically not acceptable. Such a revaluation of an old
value offends our intellect while it touches our heart. All successful
treatment of the Devil in literature and art must be made to
correspond with the norm of popular belief. In art we are all
orthodox, whatever our views may be in religion. This new conception
of Satan will be found chiefly in poetry, while the popular concept
has been continued in prose. But even here a gradual evolution of the
idea of the Devil will be observed. The nineteenth century Demon is an
improvement on his _confrère_ of the thirteenth. He differs from his
older brother as a cultivated flower from a wild blossom. The Devil as
a human projection is bound to partake in the progress of human
thought. Says Mephistopheles:
"Culture, which the whole world licks,
Also unto the Devil sticks."
The Devil advances with the progress of civilization, because he is
what men make him. He has benefited by the modern levelling tendency
in characterization. Nowadays supernatural personages, like their
human creators, are no longer painted either as wholly white or as
wholly black, but in various shades of grey. The Devil, as Renan has
aptly remarked, has chiefly benefited by this relativist point of
view. The Spirit of Evil is better than he was, because evil is no
longer so bad as it was. Satan, even in the popular mind, is no longer
a villain of the deepest dye. At his worst he is the general
mischief-maker of the universe, who loves to stir up the earth with
his pitch-fork. In modern literature the Devil's chief function is
that of a satirist. This fine critic directs the shafts of his sarcasm
against all the faults and foibles of men. He spares no human
institution. In religion, art, society, marriage--everywhere his
searching eye can detect the weak spots. The latest demonstration of
the Devil's ability as a satirist of men and morals is furnished by
Mark Twain in his posthumous romance _The Mysterious Stranger_.
The Devil Lore Series, which opens with this book of Devil Stories, is
to serve as documentary evidence of man's abiding interest in the
Devil. It will be a sort of portrait-gallery of the literary
delineations of Satan. The Anthologies of Diabolical Literature may be
considered, I trust, without any risk of offence to any theological or
philosophical prepossession. To those alike who accept and who reject
the belief in the Devil's spiritual entity apart from man's, there
must be profit and pleasure in the contemplation of his literary
incarnations. As regards the Devil's fitness as a literary character,
all intelligent men and women, believers and unbelievers, may be
assumed to have but one opinion.
This Series is wholly devoted to the Christian Devil with the total
disregard of his cousins in the other faiths. There will, however, be
found a strong Jewish element in Christian demonology. It must be
borne in mind that our literature has become saturated through
Christian channels with the traditions of the parent creed.
This collection has been limited to twenty tales. Within the bounds
thus set, an effort has been made to have this book as representative
of national and individual conceptions of the Devil as possible. The
tales have been taken from many times and tongues. Selection has been
made not only among writers, but also among the stories of each
writer. In two instances, however, where the choice was not so easy,
an author is represented by two specimens from his pen.
The stories have been arranged in chronological order to show the
constant and continuous appeal on the part of the Devil to our
story-writers. The mediaeval tale, although published last, was
placed first. For obvious reasons, this story has not been given in
its original form, but in its modernized version. While this is not
meant to be a nursery-book, it has been made _virginibus puerisque_,
and for this reason, selections from Boccaccio, Rabelais and Balzac
could not find their way into these pages. Moreover, as this volume
was limited to narratives in prose, devil's tales in verse by Chaucer,
Hans Sachs and La Fontaine could not be considered, either.
Nevertheless this collection is sufficiently comprehensive to please
all tastes in Devils. The reader will find between the covers of this
book Devils fascinating and fearful, Devils powerful and picturesque,
Devils serious and humorous, Devils pathetic and comic, Devils
phantastic and satiric, Devils gruesome and grotesque. I have tried,
though, to keep them all in good humour throughout the book, and can
accordingly assure the reader that he need fear no harm from an
intimate acquaintance with the diabolical company to which he is
herewith introduced.
MAXIMILIAN J. RUDWIN.
THE DEVIL IN A NUNNERY[1]
BY FRANCIS OSCAR MANN
[1] Taken by permission from _The Devil in a Nunnery and
other Mediaeval Tales_, by Francis Oscar Mann, published by
P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1914.
Buckingham is as pleasant a shire as a man shall see on a seven days'
journey. Neither was it any less pleasant in the days of our Lord King
Edward, the third of that name, he who fought and put the French to
shameful discomfiture at Crecy and Poitiers and at many another
hard-fought field. May God rest his soul, for he now sleeps in the
great Church at Westminster.
Buckinghamshire is full of smooth round hills and woodlands of
hawthorn and beech, and it is a famous country for its brooks and
shaded waterways running through the low hay meadows. Upon its hills
feed a thousand sheep, scattered like the remnants of the spring snow,
and it was from these that the merchants made themselves fat purses,
sending the wool into Flanders in exchange for silver crowns. There
were many strong castles there too, and rich abbeys, and the King's
Highway ran through it from North to South, upon which the pilgrims
went in crowds to worship at the Shrine of the Blessed Saint Alban.
Thereon also rode noble knights and stout men-at-arms, and these you
could follow with the eye by their glistening armour, as they wound
over hill and dale, mile after mile, with shining spears and shields
and fluttering pennons, and anon a trumpet or two sounding the same
keen note as that which rang out dreadfully on those bloody fields of
France. The girls used to come to the cottage doors or run to hide
themselves in the wayside woods to see them go trampling by; for
Buckinghamshire girls love a soldier above all men. Nor, I warrant
you, were jolly friars lacking in the highways and the by-ways and
under the hedges, good men of religion, comfortable of penance and
easy of life, who could tip a wink to a housewife, and drink and crack
a joke with the good man, going on their several ways with tight
paunches, skins full of ale and a merry salutation for every one. A
fat pleasant land was this Buckinghamshire; always plenty to eat and
drink therein, and pretty girls and lusty fellows; and God knows what
more a man can expect in a world where all is vanity, as the Preacher
truly says.
There was a nunnery at Maids Moreton, two miles out from Buckingham
Borough, on the road to Stony Stratford, and the place was called
Maids Moreton because of the nunnery. Very devout creatures were the
nuns, being holy ladies out of families of gentle blood. They
punctually fulfilled to the letter all the commands of the pious
founder, just as they were blazoned on the great parchment Regula,
which the Lady Mother kept on her reading-desk in her little cell. If
ever any of the nuns, by any chance or subtle machination of the Evil
One, was guilty of the smallest backsliding from the conduct that
beseemed them, they made full and devout confession thereof to the
Holy Father who visited them for this purpose. This good man loved
swan's meat and galingale, and the charitable nuns never failed to
provide of their best for him on his visiting days; and whatsoever
penance he laid upon them they performed to the utmost, and with due
contrition of heart.
From Matins to Compline they regularly and decently carried out the
services of Holy Mother Church. After dinner, one read aloud to them
from the Rule, and again after supper there was reading from the life
of some notable Saint or Virgin, that thereby they might find ensample
for themselves on their own earthly pilgrimage. For the rest, they
tended their herb garden, reared their chickens, which were famous for
miles around, and kept strict watch over their haywards and
swineherds. If time was when they had nothing more important on hand,
they set to and made the prettiest blood bandages imaginable for the
Bishop, the Bishop's Chaplain, the Archdeacon, the neighbouring Abbot
and other godly men of religion round about, who were forced often to
bleed themselves for their health's sake and their eternal salvation,
so that these venerable men in process of time came to have by them
great chests full of these useful articles. If little tongues wagged
now and then as the sisters sat at their sewing in the great hall, who
shall blame them, _Eva peccatrice_? Not I; besides, some of them were
something stricken in years, and old women are garrulous and hard to
be constrained from chattering and gossiping. But being devout women
they could have spoken no evil.
One evening after Vespers all these good nuns sat at supper, the
Abbess on her high dais and the nuns ranged up and down the hall at
the long trestled tables. The Abbess had just said "_Gratias_" and
the sisters had sung "_Qui vivit et regnat per omnia saecula
saeculorum, Amen_," when in came the Manciple mysteriously, and, with
many deprecating bows and outstretchings of the hands, sidled himself
up upon the dais, and, permission having been given him, spoke to the
Lady Mother thus:
"Madam, there is a certain pilgrim at the gate who asks refreshment
and a night's lodging." It is true he spoke softly, but little pink
ears are sharp of hearing, and nuns, from their secluded way of life,
love to hear news of the great world.
"Send him away," said the Abbess. "It is not fit that a man should lie
within this house."
"Madam, he asks food and a bed of straw lest he should starve of
hunger and exhaustion on his way to do penance and worship at the Holy
Shrine of the Blessed Saint Alban."
"What kind of pilgrim is he?"
"Madam, to speak truly, I know not; but he appears of a reverend and
gracious aspect, a young man well spoken and well disposed. Madam
knows it waxeth late, and the ways are dark and foul."
"I would not have a young man, who is given to pilgrimages and good
works, to faint and starve by the wayside. Let him sleep with the
haywards."
"But, Madam, he is a young man of goodly appearance and conversation;
saving your reverence, I would not wish to ask him to eat and sleep
with churls."
"He must sleep without. Let him, however, enter and eat of our poor
table."
"Madam, I will strictly enjoin him what you command. He hath with him,
however, an instrument of music and would fain cheer you with
spiritual songs."
A little shiver of anticipation ran down the benches of the great
hall, and the nuns fell to whispering.
"Take care, Sir Manciple, that he be not some light juggler, a singer
of vain songs, a mocker. I would not have these quiet halls disturbed
by wanton music and unholy words. God forbid." And she crossed
herself.
"Madam, I will answer for it."
The Manciple bowed himself from the dais and went down the middle of
the hall, his keys rattling at his belt. A little buzz of conversation
rose from the sisters and went up to the oak roof-trees, like the
singing of bees. The Abbess told her beads.
The hall door opened and in came the pilgrim. God knows what manner of
man he was; I cannot tell you. He certainly was lean and lithe like a
cat, his eyes danced in his head like the very devil, but his cheeks
and jaws were as bare of flesh as any hermit's that lives on roots and
ditchwater. His yellow-hosed legs went like the tune of a May game,
and he screwed and twisted his scarlet-jerkined body in time with
them. In his left hand he held a cithern, on which he twanged with his
right, making a cunning noise that titillated the back-bones of those
who heard it, and teased every delicate nerve in the body. Such a tune
would have tickled the ribs of Death himself. A queer fellow to go
pilgrimaging certainly, but why, when they saw him, all the young nuns
tittered and the old nuns grinned, until they showed their red gums,
it is hard to tell. Even the Lady Mother on the dais smiled, though
she tried to frown a moment later.
The pilgrim stepped lightly up to the dais, the infernal devil in his
legs making the nuns think of the games the village folk play all
night in the churchyard on Saint John's Eve.
"Gracious Mother," he cried, bowing deeply and in comely wise, "allow
a poor pilgrim on his way to confess and do penance at the shrine of
Saint Alban to take food in your hall, and to rest with the haywards
this night, and let me thereof make some small recompense with a few
sacred numbers, such as your pious founder would not have disdained to
hear."
"Young man," returned the Abbess, "right glad am I to hear that God
has moved thy heart to godly works and to go on pilgrimages, and
verily I wish it may be to thy soul's health and to the respite of thy
pains hereafter. I am right willing that thou shouldst refresh thyself
with meat and rest at this holy place."
"Madam, I thank thee from my heart, but as some slight token of
gratitude for so large a favour, let me, I pray thee, sing one or two
of my divine songs, to the uplifting of these holy Sisters' hearts."
Another burst of chatter, louder than before, from the benches in the
hall. One or two of the younger Sisters clapped their plump white
hands and cried, "Oh!" The Lady Abbess held up her hand for silence.
"Verily, I should be glad to hear some sweet songs of religion, and I
think it would be to the uplifting of these Sisters' hearts. But,
young man, take warning against singing any wanton lines of vain
imagination, such as the ribalds use on the highways, and the idlers
and haunters of taverns. I have heard them in my youth, although my
ears tingle to think of them now, and I should think it shame that any
such light words should echo among these sacred rafters or disturb the
slumber of our pious founder, who now sleeps in Christ. Let me remind
you of what saith Saint Jeremie, _Onager solitarius, in desiderio
animae suae, attraxit ventum amoris_; the wild ass of the wilderness,
in the desire of his heart, snuffeth up the wind of love; whereby that
holy man signifies that vain earthly love, which is but wind and air,
and shall avail nothing at all, when this weak, impure flesh is
sloughed away."
"Madam, such songs as I shall sing, I learnt at the mouth of our holy
parish priest, Sir Thomas, a man of all good learning and purity of
heart."
"In that case," said the Abbess, "sing in God's name, but stand at the
end of the hall, for it suits not the dignity of my office a man
should stand so near this dais."
Whereon the pilgrim, making obeisance, went to the end of the hall,
and the eyes of all the nuns danced after his dancing legs, and their
ears hung on the clear, sweet notes he struck out of his cithern as he
walked. He took his place with his back against the great hall door,
in such attitude as men use when they play the cithern. A little
trembling ran through the nuns, and some rose from their seats and
knelt on the benches, leaning over the table, the better to see and
hear him. Their eyes sparkled like dew on meadowsweet on a fair
morning.
Certainly his fingers were bewitched or else the devil was in his
cithern, for such sweet sounds had never been heard in the hall since
the day when it was built and consecrated to the service of the
servants of God. The shrill notes fell like a tinkling rain from the
high roof in mad, fantastic trills and dying falls that brought all
one's soul to one's lips to suck them in. What he sang about, God only
knows; not one of the nuns or even the holy Abbess herself could have
told you, although you had offered her a piece of the True Cross or a
hair of the Blessed Virgin for a single word. But a divine yearning
filled all their hearts; they seemed to hear ten thousand thousand
angels singing in choruses, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia; they floated
up on impalpable clouds of azure and silver, up through the blissful
paradises of the uppermost heaven; their nostrils were filled with the
odours of exquisite spices and herbs and smoke of incense; their eyes
dazzled at splendours and lights and glories; their ears were full of
gorgeous harmonies and all created concords of sweet sounds; the very
fibres of being were loosened within them, as though their souls would
leap forth from their bodies in exquisite dissolution. The eyes of the
younger nuns grew round and large and tender, and their breath almost
died upon their velvet lips. As for the old nuns, the great, salt
tears coursed down their withered cheeks and fell like rain on their
gnarled hands. The Abbess sat on her dais with her lips apart, looking
into space, ten thousand thousand miles away. But no one saw her and
she saw no one; every one had forgotten every one else in that
delicious intoxication.
Then with a shrill cry, full of human yearnings and desire, the
minstrel came to a sudden stop--
"Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
And the small rain will down rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again."
Silence!--not one of the holy Sisters spoke, but some sighed; some put
their hands over their hearts, and one put her hand in her hood, but
when she felt her hair shorn close to her scalp, drew it out again
sharply, as though she had touched red-hot iron, and cried, "O Jesu."
Sister Peronelle, a toothless old woman, began to speak in a cracked,
high voice, quickly and monotonously, as though she spoke in a dream.
Her eyes were wet and red, and her thin lips trembled. "God knows,"
she said, "I loved him; God knows it. But I bid all those who be maids
here, to be mindful of the woods. For they are green, but they are
deep and dark, and it is merry in the springtime with the thick turf
below and the good boughs above, all alone with your heart's
darling--all alone in the green wood. But God help me, he would not
stay any more than snow at Easter. I thought just now that I was back
with him in the woods. God keep all those that be maids from the green
woods."
The pretty Sister Ursula, who had only just finished her novitiate,
was as white as a sheet. Her breath came thickly and quick as though
she bore a great burden up hill. A great sigh made her comely
shoulders rise and fall. "Blessed Virgin," she cried. "Ah, ye ask too
much; I did not know; God help me, I did not know," and her grey eyes
filled with sudden tears, and she dropped her head on her arms on the
table, and sobbed aloud.
Then cried out Sister Katherine, who looked as old and dead as a twig
dropped from a tree of last autumn, and at whom the younger Sisters
privily mocked, "It is the wars, the wars, the cursed wars. I have
held his head in this lap, I tell you; I have kissed his soul into
mine. But now he lies dead, and his pretty limbs all dropped away into
earth. Holy Mother, have pity on me. I shall never kiss his sweet lips
again or look into his jolly eyes. My heart is broken long since. Holy
Mother! Holy Mother!"
"He must come oftener," said a plump Sister of thirty, with a little
nose turned up at the end, eyes black as sloes and lips round as a
plum. "I go to the orchard day after day, and gather my lap full of
apples. He is my darling. Why does he not come? I look for him every
time that I gather the ripe apples. He used to come; but that was in
the spring, and Our Lady knows that is long ago. Will it not be spring
again soon? I have gathered many ripe apples."
Sister Margarita rocked herself to and fro in her seat and crossed her
arms on her breast. She was singing quietly to herself.
"Lulla, lullay, thou tiny little child,
Lulla, lullay, lullay;
Suck at my breast that am thereat beguiled,
Lulla, lullay, lullay."
She moaned to herself, "I have seen the village women go to the well,
carrying their babies with them, and they laugh as they go by on the
way. Their babies hold them tight round the neck, and their mothers
comfort them, saying, 'Hey, hey, my little son; hey, hey, my
sweeting.' Christ and the blessed Saints know that I have never felt a
baby's little hand in my bosom--and now I shall die without it, for I
am old and past the age of bearing children."
"Lulla, lullay, thou tiny little boy,
Lulla, lullay, lullay;
To feel thee suck doth soothe my great annoy,
Lulla, lullay, lullay."
"I have heard them on a May morning, with their pipes and tabors and
jolly, jolly music," cried Sister Helen; "I have seen them too, and my
heart has gone with them to bring back the white hawthorn from the
woods. 'A man and a maid to a hawthorn bough,' as it says in the song.
They sing outside my window all Saint John's Eve so that I cannot say
my prayers for the wild thoughts they put into my brain, as they go
dancing up and down in the churchyard; I cannot forget the pretty
words they say to each other, 'Sweet love, a kiss'; 'kiss me, my love,
nor let me go'; 'As I went through the garden gate'; 'A bonny black
knight, a bonny black knight, and what will you give to me? A kiss,
and a kiss, and no more than a kiss, under the wild rose tree.' Oh,
Mary Mother, have pity on a poor girl's heart, I shall die, if no one
love me, I shall die."
"In faith, I am truly sorry, William," said Sister Agnes, who was
gaunt and hollow-eyed with long vigils and overfasting, for which the
good father had rebuked her time after time, saying that she
overtasked the poor weak flesh. "I am truly sorry that I could not
wait. But the neighbours made such a clamour, and my father and mother
buffeted me too sorely. It is under the oak tree, no more than a foot
deep, and covered with the red and brown leaves. It was a pretty sight
to see the red blood on its neck, as white as whalebone, and it
neither cried nor wept, so I put it down among the leaves, the pretty
poppet; and it was like thee, William, it was like thee. I am sorry I
did not wait, and now I'm worn and wan for thy sake, this many a long
year, and all in vain, for thou never comst. I am an old woman now,
and I shall soon be quiet and not complain any more."
Some of the Sisters were sobbing as if their hearts would break; some
sat quiet and still, and let the tears fall from their eyes unchecked;
some smiled and cried together; some sighed a little and trembled like
aspen leaves in a southern wind. The great candles in the hall were
burning down to their sockets. One by one they spluttered out. A
ghostly, flickering light fell upon the legend over the broad dais,
"_Connubium mundum sed virginitas paradisum complet_"--"Marriage
replenisheth the World, but virginity Paradise."
"Dong, dong, dong." Suddenly the great bell of the Nunnery began to
toll. With a cry the Abbess sprang to her feet; there were tear stains
on her white cheeks, and her hand shook as she pointed fiercely to the
door.
"Away, false pilgrim," she cried. "Silence, foul blasphemer! _Retro
me, Satanas._" She crossed herself again and again, saying _Pater
Noster_.
The nuns screamed and trembled with terror. A little cloud of blue
smoke arose from where the minstrel had stood. There was a little
tongue of flame, and he had disappeared. It was almost dark in the
hall. A few sobs broke the silence. The dying light of a single candle
fell on the form of the Lady Mother.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we shall fast and sing _Placebo_ and _Dirige_
and the _Seven Penitential Psalms_. May the Holy God have mercy upon
us for all we have done and said and thought amiss this night. Amen."
BELPHAGOR
BY NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI
We read in the ancient archives of Florence the following account, as
it was received from the lips of a very holy man, greatly respected by
every one for the sanctity of his manners at the period in which he
lived. Happening once to be deeply absorbed in his prayers, such was
their efficacy, that he saw an infinite number of condemned souls,
belonging to those miserable mortals who had died in their sins,
undergoing the punishment due to their offences in the regions below.
He remarked that the greater part of them lamented nothing so bitterly
as their folly in having taken wives, attributing to them the whole of
their misfortunes. Much surprised at this, Minos and Rhadamanthus,
with the rest of the infernal judges, unwilling to credit all the
abuse heaped upon the female sex, and wearied from day to day with its
repetition, agreed to bring the matter before Pluto. It was then
resolved that the conclave of infernal princes should form a committee
of inquiry, and should adopt such measures as might be deemed most
advisable by the court in order to discover the truth or falsehood of
the calumnies which they heard. All being assembled in council, Pluto
addressed them as follows: "Dearly beloved demons! though by celestial
dispensation and the irreversible decree of fate this kingdom fell to
my share, and I might strictly dispense with any kind of celestial or
earthly responsibility, yet, as it is more prudent and respectful to
consult the laws and to hear the opinion of others, I have resolved to
be guided by your advice, particularly in a case that may chance to
cast some imputation upon our government. For the souls of all men
daily arriving in our kingdom still continue to lay the whole blame
upon their wives, and as this appears to us impossible, we must be
careful how we decide in such a business, lest we also should come in
for a share of their abuse, on account of our too great severity; and
yet judgment must be pronounced, lest we be taxed with negligence and
with indifference to the interests of justice. Now, as the latter is
the fault of a careless, and the former of an unjust judge, we,
wishing to avoid the trouble and the blame that might attach to both,
yet hardly seeing how to get clear of it, naturally enough apply to
you for assistance, in order that you may look to it, and contrive in
some way that, as we have hitherto reigned without the slightest
imputation upon our character, we may continue to do so for the
future."
The affair appearing to be of the utmost importance to all the princes
present, they first resolved that it was necessary to ascertain the
truth, though they differed as to the best means of accomplishing this
object. Some were of opinion that they ought to choose one or more
from among themselves, who should be commissioned to pay a visit to
the world, and in a human shape endeavour personally to ascertain how
far such reports were grounded in truth. To many others it appeared
that this might be done without so much trouble merely by compelling
some of the wretched souls to confess the truth by the application of
a variety of tortures. But the majority being in favour of a journey
to the world, they abided by the former proposal. No one, however,
being ambitious of undertaking such a task, it was resolved to leave
the affair to chance. The lot fell upon the arch-devil Belphagor, who,
previous to the Fall, had enjoyed the rank of archangel in a higher
world. Though he received his commission with a very ill grace, he
nevertheless felt himself constrained by Pluto's imperial mandate, and
prepared to execute whatever had been determined upon in council. At
the same time he took an oath to observe the tenor of his
instructions, as they had been drawn up with all due solemnity and
ceremony for the purpose of his mission. These were to the following
effect:--_Imprimis_, that the better to promote the object in view, he
should be furnished with a hundred thousand gold ducats; secondly,
that he should make use of the utmost expedition in getting into the
world; thirdly, that after assuming the human form he should enter
into the marriage state; and lastly, that he should live with his wife
for the space of ten years. At the expiration of this period, he was
to feign death and return home, in order to acquaint his employers, by
the fruits of experience, what really were the respective conveniences
and inconveniences of matrimony. The conditions further ran, that
during the said ten years he should be subject to all kinds of
miseries and disasters, like the rest of mankind, such as poverty,
prisons, and diseases into which men are apt to fall, unless, indeed,
he could contrive by his own skill and ingenuity to avoid them. Poor
Belphagor having signed these conditions and received the money,
forthwith came into the world, and having set up his equipage, with a
numerous train of servants, he made a very splendid entrance into
Florence. He selected this city in preference to all others, as being
most favourable for obtaining an usurious interest of his money; and
having assumed the name of Roderigo, a native of Castile, he took a
house in the suburbs of Ognissanti. And because he was unable to
explain the instructions under which he acted, he gave out that he was
a merchant, who having had poor prospects in Spain, had gone to Syria,
and succeeded in acquiring his fortune at Aleppo, whence he had lastly
set out for Italy, with the intention of marrying and settling there,
as one of the most polished and agreeable countries he knew.