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.
[Illustration: MARGET WAS CHEERFUL BY HELP OF WILHELM MEIDLING]
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, not 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.