Days and days went by now, and no Satan. It was dull without him. But
the astrologer, who had returned from his excursion to the moon, went
about the village, braving public opinion, and getting a stone in
the middle of his back now and then when some witch-hater got a safe
chance to throw it and dodge out of sight. Meantime two influences had
been working well for Marget. That Satan, who was quite indifferent
to her, had stopped going to her house after a visit or two had hurt
her pride, and she had set herself the task of banishing him from her
heart. Reports of Wilhelm Meidling’s dissipation brought to her from
time to time by old Ursula had touched her with remorse, jealousy of
Satan being the cause of it; and so now, these two matters working upon
her together, she was getting a good profit out of the combination--her
interest in Satan was steadily cooling, her interest in Wilhelm as
steadily warming. All that was needed to complete her conversion
was that Wilhelm should brace up and do something that should cause
favorable talk and incline the public toward him again.
The opportunity came now. Marget sent and asked him to defend her
uncle in the approaching trial, and he was greatly pleased, and
stopped drinking and began his preparations with diligence. With more
diligence than hope, in fact, for it was not a promising case. He had
many interviews in his office with Seppi and me, and threshed out our
testimony pretty thoroughly, thinking to find some valuable grains
among the chaff, but the harvest was poor, of course.
If Satan would only come! That was my constant thought. He could
invent some way to win the case; for he had said it would be won, so
he necessarily knew how it could be done. But the days dragged on, and
still he did not come. Of course I did not doubt that it would win,
and that Father Peter would be happy for the rest of his life, since
Satan had said so; yet I knew I should be much more comfortable if he
would come and tell us how to manage it. It was getting high time for
Father Peter to have a saving change toward happiness, for by general
report he was worn out with his imprisonment and the ignominy that was
burdening him, and was like to die of his miseries unless he got relief
soon.
At last the trial came on, and the people gathered from all around to
witness it; among them many strangers from considerable distances. Yes,
everybody was there except the accused. He was too feeble in body for
the strain. But Marget was present, and keeping up her hope and her
spirit the best she could. The money was present, too. It was emptied
on the table, and was handled and caressed and examined by such as were
privileged.
The astrologer was put in the witness-box. He had on his best hat and
robe for the occasion.
_Question._ You claim that this money is yours?
_Answer._ I do.
_Q._ How did you come by it?
_A._ I found the bag in the road when I was returning from a journey.
_Q._ When?
_A._ More than two years ago.
_Q._ What did you do with it?
_A._ I brought it home and hid it in a secret place in my observatory,
intending to find the owner if I could.
_Q._ You endeavored to find him?
_A._ I made diligent inquiry during several months, but nothing came of
it.
_Q._ And then?
_A._ I thought it not worth while to look further, and was minded to
use the money in finishing the wing of the foundling-asylum connected
with the priory and nunnery. So I took it out of its hiding-place and
counted it to see if any of it was missing. And then--
_Q._ Why do you stop? Proceed.
_A._ I am sorry to have to say this, but just as I had finished and
was restoring the bag to its place, I looked up and there stood Father
Peter behind me.
Several murmured, “That looks bad,” but others answered, “Ah, but he is
such a liar!”
_Q._ That made you uneasy?
_A._ No; I thought nothing of it at the time, for Father Peter often
came to me unannounced to ask for a little help in his need.
Marget blushed crimson at hearing her uncle falsely and impudently
charged with begging, especially from one he had always denounced as a
fraud, and was going to speak, but remembered herself in time and held
her peace.
_Q._ Proceed.
_A._ In the end I was afraid to contribute the money to the
foundling-asylum, but elected to wait yet another year and continue
my inquiries. When I heard of Father Peter’s find I was glad, and no
suspicions entered my mind; when I came home a day or two later and
discovered that my own money was gone I still did not suspect until
three circumstances connected with Father Peter’s good fortune struck
me as being singular coincidences.
_Q._ Pray name them.
_A._ Father Peter had found his money in a path--I had found mine in a
road. Father Peter’s find consisted exclusively of gold ducats--mine
also. Father Peter found eleven hundred and seven ducats--I exactly
the same.
This closed his evidence, and certainly it made a strong impression on
the house; one could see that.
Wilhelm Meidling asked him some questions, then called us boys, and we
told our tale. It made the people laugh, and we were ashamed. We were
feeling pretty badly, anyhow, because Wilhelm was hopeless, and showed
it. He was doing as well as he could, poor young fellow, but nothing
was in his favor, and such sympathy as there was was now plainly not
with his client. It might be difficult for court and people to believe
the astrologer’s story, considering his character, but it was almost
impossible to believe Father Peter’s. We were already feeling badly
enough, but when the astrologer’s lawyer said he believed he would
not ask us any questions--for our story was a little delicate and it
would be cruel for him to put any strain upon it--everybody tittered,
and it was almost more than we could bear. Then he made a sarcastic
little speech, and got so much fun out of our tale, and it seemed so
ridiculous and childish and every way impossible and foolish, that it
made everybody laugh till the tears came; and at last Marget could not
keep up her courage any longer, but broke down and cried, and I was so
sorry for her.
Now I noticed something that braced me up. It was Satan standing
alongside of Wilhelm! And there was such a contrast!--Satan looked so
confident, had such a spirit in his eyes and face, and Wilhelm looked
so depressed and despondent. We two were comfortable now, and judged
that he would testify and persuade the bench and the people that black
was white and white black, or any other color he wanted it. We glanced
around to see what the strangers in the house thought of him, for he
was beautiful, you know--stunning, in fact--but no one was noticing
him; so we knew by that that he was invisible.
The lawyer was saying his last words; and while he was saying them
Satan began to melt into Wilhelm. He melted into him and disappeared;
and then there was a change, when his spirit began to look out of
Wilhelm’s eyes.
That lawyer finished quite seriously, and with dignity. He pointed to
the money, and said:
“The love of it is the root of all evil. There it lies, the ancient
tempter, newly red with the shame of its latest victory--the dishonor
of a priest of God and his two poor juvenile helpers in crime. If it
could but speak, let us hope that it would be constrained to confess
that of all its conquests this was the basest and the most pathetic.”
He sat down. Wilhelm rose and said:
“From the testimony of the accuser I gather that he found this money
in a road more than two years ago. Correct me, sir, if I misunderstood
you.”
The astrologer said his understanding of it was correct.
“And the money so found was never out of his hands thenceforth up to a
certain definite date--the last day of last year. Correct me, sir, if I
am wrong.”
The astrologer nodded his head. Wilhelm turned to the bench and said:
“If I prove that this money here was not that money, then it is not
his?”
“Certainly not; but this is irregular. If you had such a witness it
was your duty to give proper notice of it and have him here to--” He
broke off and began to consult with the other judges. Meantime that
other lawyer got up excited and began to protest against allowing new
witnesses to be brought into the case at this late stage.
The judges decided that his contention was just and must be allowed.
“But this is not a new witness,” said Wilhelm. “It has already been
partly examined. I speak of the coin.”
“The coin? What can the coin say?”
“It can say it is not the coin that the astrologer once possessed. It
can say it was not in existence last December. By its date it can say
this.”
And it was so! There was the greatest excitement in the court while
that lawyer and the judges were reaching for coins and examining them
and exclaiming. And everybody was full of admiration of Wilhelm’s
brightness in happening to think of that neat idea. At last order was
called and the court said:
“All of the coins but four are of the date of the present year. The
court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused, and its deep regret
that he, an innocent man, through an unfortunate mistake, has suffered
the undeserved humiliation of imprisonment and trial. The case is
dismissed.”
So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer thought it
couldn’t. The court rose, and almost everybody came forward to shake
hands with Marget and congratulate her, and then to shake with Wilhelm
and praise him; and Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing
around looking on full of interest, and people walking through him
every which way, not knowing he was there. And Wilhelm could not
explain why he only thought of the date on the coins at the last
moment, instead of earlier; he said it just occurred to him, all of
a sudden, like an inspiration, and he brought it right out without
any hesitation, for, although he didn’t examine the coins, he seemed,
somehow, to know it was true. That was honest of him, and like him;
another would have pretended he had thought of it earlier, and was
keeping it back for a surprise.
He had dulled down a little now; not much, but still you could notice
that he hadn’t that luminous look in his eyes that he had while Satan
was in him. He nearly got it back, though, for a moment when Marget
came and praised him and thanked him and couldn’t keep him from seeing
how proud she was of him. The astrologer went off dissatisfied and
cursing, and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away.
It was Father Peter’s for good and all, now.
Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself away to the jail
to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right. Marget and
the rest of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of
rejoicing.
Well, what Satan had done was this: he had appeared before that poor
prisoner, exclaiming, “The trial is over, and you stand forever
disgraced as a thief--by verdict of the court!”
The shock unseated the old man’s reason. When we arrived, ten minutes
later, he was parading pompously up and down and delivering commands to
this and that and the other constable or jailer, and calling them Grand
Chamberlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of the Fleet,
Field Marshal in Command, and all such fustian, and was as happy as a
bird. He thought he was Emperor!
Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed everybody
was moved almost to heartbreak. He recognized Marget, but could not
understand why she should cry. He patted her on the shoulder and said:
“Don’t do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it is not
becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble--it shall be
mended; there is nothing the Emperor cannot do.” Then he looked around
and saw old Ursula with her apron to her eyes. He was puzzled at that,
and said, “And what is the matter with you?”
Through her sobs she got out words explaining that she was distressed
to see him--“so.” He reflected over that a moment, then muttered, as
if to himself: “A singular old thing, the Dowager Duchess--means well,
but is always snuffling and never able to tell what it is about. It is
because she doesn’t know.” His eye fell on Wilhelm. “Prince of India,”
he said, “I divine that it is you that the Crown Princess is concerned
about. Her tears shall be dried; I will no longer stand between you;
she shall share your throne; and between you you shall inherit mine.
There, little lady, have I done well? You can smile now--isn’t it so?”
He petted Marget and kissed her, and was so contented with himself and
with everybody that he could not do enough for us all, but began to
give away kingdoms and such things right and left, and the least that
any of us got was a principality. And so at last, being persuaded to go
home, he marched in imposing state; and when the crowds along the way
saw how it gratified him to be hurrahed at, they humored him to the top
of his desire, and he responded with condescending bows and gracious
smiles, and often stretched out a hand and said, “Bless you, my people!”
As pitiful a sight as ever I saw. And Marget, and old Ursula crying all
the way.
On my road home I came upon Satan, and reproached him with deceiving
me with that lie. He was not embarrassed, but said, quite simply and
composedly:
“Ah, you mistake; it was the truth. I said he would be happy the rest
of his days, and he will, for he will always think he is the Emperor,
and his pride in it and his joy in it will endure to the end. He is
now, and will remain, the one utterly happy person in this empire.”
“But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn’t you have done it
without depriving him of his reason?”
It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.
“What an ass you are!” he said. “Are you so unobservant as not to have
found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination?
No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what
a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of
those. The few that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the
rest are no happier than the sane. Of course, no man is entirely in
his right mind at any time, but I have been referring to the extreme
cases. I have taken from this man that trumpery thing which the race
regards as a Mind; I have replaced his tin life with a silver-gilt
fiction; you see the result--and you criticize! I said I would make him
permanently happy, and I have done it. I have made him happy by the
only means possible to his race--and you are not satisfied!” He heaved
a discouraged sigh, and said, “It seems to me that this race is hard to
please.”
There it was, you see. He didn’t seem to know any way to do a person
a favor except by killing him or making a lunatic out of him. I
apologized, as well as I could; but privately I did not think much of
his processes--at that time.
* * * * *
Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of continuous
and uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself from cradle to grave
with shams and delusions which it mistook for realities, and this
made its entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it
imagined it had and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It
regarded itself as gold, and was only brass. One day when he was in
this vein he mentioned a detail--the sense of humor. I cheered up then,
and took issue. I said we possessed it.
“There spoke the race!” he said; “always ready to claim what it
hasn’t got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings for a ton of
gold-dust. You have a mongrel perception of humor, nothing more; a
multitude of you possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a
thousand low-grade and trivial things--broad incongruities, mainly;
grotesqueries, absurdities, evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten
thousand high-grade comicalities which exist in the world are sealed
from their dull vision. Will a day come when the race will detect the
funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them--and by laughing at
them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has, unquestionably
one really effective weapon--laughter. Power, money, persuasion,
supplication, persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug--push it
a little--weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can
blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter
nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other
weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a
race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage.”
* * * * *
We were traveling at the time and stopped at a little city in India
and looked on while a juggler did his tricks before a group of
natives. They were wonderful, but I knew Satan could beat that game,
and I begged him to show off a little, and he said he would. He
changed himself into a native in turban and breech-cloth, and very
considerately conferred on me a temporary knowledge of the language.
The juggler exhibited a seed, covered it with earth in a small
flower-pot, then put a rag over the pot; after a minute the rag began
to rise; in ten minutes it had risen a foot; then the rag was removed
and a little tree was exposed, with leaves upon it and ripe fruit. We
ate the fruit, and it was good. But Satan said:
“Why do you cover the pot? Can’t you grow the tree in the sunlight?”
“No,” said the juggler; “no one can do that.”
“You are only an apprentice; you don’t know your trade. Give me the
seed. I will show you.” He took the seed and said, “What shall I raise
from it?”
“It is a cherry seed; of course you will raise a cherry.”
“Oh no; that is a trifle; any novice can do that. Shall I raise an
orange-tree from it?”
“Oh yes!” and the juggler laughed.
“And shall I make it bear other fruits as well as oranges?”
“If God wills!” and they all laughed.
Satan put the seed in the ground, put a handful of dust on it, and
said, “Rise!”
A tiny stem shot up and began to grow, and grew so fast that in five
minutes it was a great tree, and we were sitting in the shade of it.
There was a murmur of wonder, then all looked up and saw a strange and
pretty sight, for the branches were heavy with fruits of many kinds
and colors--oranges, grapes, bananas, peaches, cherries, apricots, and
so on. Baskets were brought, and the unlading of the tree began; and
the people crowded around Satan and kissed his hand, and praised him,
calling him the prince of jugglers. The news went about the town, and
everybody came running to see the wonder--and they remembered to bring
baskets, too. But the tree was equal to the occasion; it put out new
fruits as fast as any were removed; baskets were filled by the score
and by the hundred, but always the supply remained undiminished. At
last a foreigner in white linen and sun-helmet arrived, and exclaimed,
angrily:
“Away from here! Clear out, you dogs; the tree is on my lands and is my
property.”
The natives put down their baskets and made humble obeisance. Satan
made humble obeisance, too, with his fingers to his forehead, in the
native way, and said:
“Please let them have their pleasure for an hour, sir--only that, and
no longer. Afterward you may forbid them; and you will still have more
fruit than you and the state together can consume in a year.”
This made the foreigner very angry, and he cried out, “Who are you, you
vagabond, to tell your betters what they may do and what they mayn’t!”
and he struck Satan with his cane and followed this error with a kick.
The fruits rotted on the branches, and the leaves withered and fell.
The foreigner gazed at the bare limbs with the look of one who is
surprised, and not gratified. Satan said:
“Take good care of the tree, for its health and yours are bound
together. It will never bear again, but if you tend it well it will
live long. Water its roots once in each hour every night--and do it
yourself; it must not be done by proxy, and to do it in daylight will
not answer. If you fail only once in any night, the tree will die, and
you likewise. Do not go home to your own country any more--you would
not reach there; make no business or pleasure engagements which require
you to go outside your gate at night--you cannot afford the risk; do
not rent or sell this place--it would be injudicious.”
The foreigner was proud and wouldn’t beg, but I thought he looked as if
he would like to. While he stood gazing at Satan we vanished away and
landed in Ceylon.
I was sorry for that man; sorry Satan hadn’t been his customary self
and killed him or made him a lunatic. It would have been a mercy. Satan
overheard the thought, and said:
“I would have done it but for his wife, who has not offended me. She is
coming to him presently from their native land, Portugal. She is well,
but has not long to live, and has been yearning to see him and persuade
him to go back with her next year. She will die without knowing he
can’t leave that place?”
“He won’t tell her?”
“He? He will not trust that secret with any one; he will reflect that
it could be revealed in sleep, in the hearing of some Portuguese
guest’s servant some time or other.”
“Did none of those natives understand what you said to him?”
“None of them understood, but he will always be afraid that some of
them did. That fear will be torture to him, for he has been a harsh
master to them. In his dreams he will imagine them chopping his tree
down. That will make his days uncomfortable--I have already arranged
for his nights.”
It grieved me, though not sharply, to see him take such a malicious
satisfaction in his plans for this foreigner.
“Does he believe what you told him, Satan?”
“He thought he didn’t, but our vanishing helped. The tree, where there
had been no tree before--that helped. The insane and uncanny variety of
fruits--the sudden withering--all these things are helps. Let him think
as he may, reason as he may, one thing is certain, he will water the
tree. But between this and night he will begin his changed career with
a very natural precaution--for him.”
“What is that?”
“He will fetch a priest to cast out the tree’s devil. You are such a
humorous race--and don’t suspect it.”
“Will he tell the priest?”
“No. He will say a juggler from Bombay created it, and that he wants
the juggler’s devil driven out of it, so that it will thrive and
be fruitful again. The priest’s incantations will fail; then the
Portuguese will give up that scheme and get his watering-pot ready.”
“But the priest will burn the tree. I know it; he will not allow it to
remain.”
“Yes, and anywhere in Europe he would burn the man, too. But in India
the people are civilized, and these things will not happen. The man
will drive the priest away and take care of the tree.”
I reflected a little, then said, “Satan, you have given him a hard
life, I think.”
“Comparatively. It must not be mistaken for a holiday.”
We flitted from place to place around the world as we had done before,
Satan showing me a hundred wonders, most of them reflecting in some
way the weakness and triviality of our race. He did this now every few
days--not out of malice--I am sure of that--it only seemed to amuse and
interest him, just as a naturalist might be amused and interested by a
collection of ants.