Next the tale tells how three inferior devils made a loud music with
bagpipes as Jurgen went into the Black House of Barathum, to talk
with Grandfather Satan.
Satan was like a man of sixty, or it might be sixty-two, in all
things save that he was covered with gray fur, and had horns like
those of a stag. He wore a breech-clout of very dark gray, and he
sat in a chair of black marble, on a daïs: his bushy tail, which was
like that of a squirrel, waved restlessly over his head as he looked
at Jurgen, without speaking, and without turning his mind from an
ancient thought. And his eyes were like light shining upon little
pools of ink, for they had no whites to them.
"What is the meaning of this insane country?" says Jurgen, plunging
at the heart of things. "There is no sense in it, and no fairness at
all."
"Ah," replied Satan, in his curious hoarse voice, "you may well say
that: and it is what I was telling my wife only last night."
"You have a wife, then!" says Jurgen, who was always interested in
such matters. "Why, but to be sure! either as a Christian or as a
married man, I should have comprehended this was Satan's due. And
how do you get on with her?"
"Pretty well," says Grandfather Satan: "but she does not understand
me."
"_Et tu, Brute!_" says Jurgen.
"And what does that mean?"
"It is an expression connotating astonishment over an event without
parallel. But everything in Hell seems rather strange, and the place
is not at all as it was rumored to be by the priests and the bishops
and the cardinals that used to be exhorting me in my fine palace at
Breschau."
"And where, did you say, is this palace?"
"In Noumaria, where I am the Emperor Jurgen. And I need not insult
you by explaining Breschau is my capital city, and is noted for
its manufacture of linen and woolen cloth and gloves and cameos
and brandy, though the majority of my subjects are engaged in
cattle-breeding and agricultural pursuits."
"Of course not: for I have studied geography. And, Jurgen, it is
often I have heard of you, though never of your being an emperor."
"Did I not say this place was not in touch with new ideas?"
"Ah, but you must remember that thoughtful persons keep out of Hell.
Besides, the war with Heaven prevents us from thinking of other
matters. In any event, you Emperor Jurgen, by what authority do you
question Satan, in Satan's home?"
"I have heard that word which the ass spoke with the cat," replied
Jurgen; for he recollected upon a sudden what Merlin had shown him.
Grandfather Satan nodded comprehendingly. "All honor be to Set and
Bast! and may their power increase. This, Emperor, is how my kingdom
came about."
Then Satan, sitting erect and bleak in his tall marble chair,
explained how he, and all the domain and all the infernal
hierarchies he ruled, had been created extempore by Koshchei, to
humor the pride of Jurgen's forefathers. "For they were exceedingly
proud of their sins. And Koshchei happened to notice Earth once upon
a time, with your forefathers walking about it exultant in the
enormity of their sins and in the terrible punishments they expected
in requital. Now Koshchei will do almost anything to humor pride,
because to be proud is one of the two things that are impossible to
Koshchei. So he was pleased, oh, very much pleased: and after he had
had his laugh out, he created Hell extempore, and made it just such
a place as your forefathers imagined it ought to be, in order to
humor the pride of your forefathers."
"And why is pride impossible to Koshchei?"
"Because he made things as they are; and day and night he
contemplates things as they are, having nothing else to look at.
How, then, can Koshchei be proud?"
"I see. It is as if I were imprisoned in a cell wherein there was
nothing, absolutely nothing, except my verses. I shudder to think of
it! But what is this other thing which is impossible to Koshchei?"
"I do not know. It is something that does not enter into Hell."
"Well, I wish I too had never entered here, and now you must assist
me to get out of this murky place."
"And why must I assist you?"
"Because," said Jurgen, and he drew out the cantrap of the Master
Philologist, "because at the death of Adrian the Fifth, Pedro
Juliani, who should be named John the Twentieth, was through an
error in the reckoning elevated to the papal chair as John the
Twenty-first. Do you not find my reason sufficient?"
"No," said Grandfather Satan, after thinking it over, "I cannot say
that I do. But, then, popes go to Heaven. It is considered to look
better, all around, and particularly by my countrymen, inasmuch as
many popes have been suspected of pro-Celestialism. So we admit none
of them into Hell, in order to be on the safe side, now that we are
at war. In consequence, I am no judge of popes and their affairs,
nor do I pretend to be."
And Jurgen perceived that again he had employed his cantrap
incorrectly or else that it was impotent to rescue people from
Satan. "But who would have thought," he reflected, "that Grandfather
Satan was such a simple old creature!"
"How long, then, must I remain here?" asks Jurgen, after a dejected
pause.
"I do not know," replies Satan. "It must depend entirely upon what
your father thinks about it--"
"But what has he to do with it?"
"--Since I and all else that is here are your father's absurd
notions, as you have so frequently proved by logic. And it is hardly
possible that such a clever fellow as you can be mistaken."
"Why, of course, that is not possible," says Jurgen. "Well, the
matter is rather complicated. But I am willing to taste any drink
once: and I shall manage to get justice somehow, even in this
unreasonable place where my father's absurd notions are the truth."
So Jurgen left the Black House of Barathum: and Jurgen also left
Grandfather Satan, erect and bleak in his tall marble chair, and
with his eyes gleaming in the dim light, as he sat there restively
swishing his soft bushy tail, and not ever turning his mind from an
ancient thought.
36.