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 serving-man 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 system 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.