The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (8 page)

The niece, Marget, denied it, and implored the Bishop to believe
her and spare her old uncle from poverty and disgrace; but Father
Adolf had been poisoning the Bishop against the old man a long
time privately, and he wouldn't listen; for he had a deep admiration
of Father Adolf's bravery toward the Devil, and an awe of him on
account of his having met the Devil face to face; and so he was a
slave to Father Adolf's influence. He suspended Father Peter, indefinitely, though he wouldn't go so far as to excommunicate him
on the evidence of only one witness; and now Father Peter had
been out a couple of years, and Father Adolf had his flock.

Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They
had been favorites, but of course that changed when they came
under the shadow of the Bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell
away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant. Marget was a
lovely girl of eighteen, when the trouble came, and she had the best
head in the village, and the most in it. She taught the spinet, and
earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry. But
her scholars fell off one by one, now; she was forgotten when there
were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young
fellows stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling -and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were sad and
forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone out
of their lives. Matters went worse and worse, all through the two
years. Clothes were wearing out, bread was harder and harder to
get. And now at last, the very end was come. Solomon Isaacs had
lent all the money he was willing to put on the house, and gave
notice that to-morrow he should foreclose.

T1REE of us boys were always together, and had been so from
the cradle, being fond of each other from the beginning, and this
affection deepening as the years went on-Nikolaus Baumann, 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 river-side, and
pleasure-boats for hire; and I was the third-Theodor Fischer, son
of the church organist, who was also leader of the village band,
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 castleFelix Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk
about old times and strange things, and smoke with him (he taught
us that), and 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 about ghosts and horrors of every kind, and of
battles and murders and mutilations, and such things, and made it
pleasant and cosy 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 by on the blast with his spectre 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 to not 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 floating 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 up
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 those 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 towards us through the trees,
and lie 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.

Ile was bent on putting us at ease, and he had the right art; one
could not remain timorous and doubtful 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 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 clay 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.
Ile 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 those 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 of 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. It was a
natural laugh, and pleasant and sociable, not boisterous, and had a
reassuring influence upon us; so I said there was nothing much the
matter, only it seemed a strange name for an angel. He asked why.

"Because its-its-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 hard. He did not seem to notice that, but
partly mended our halberdiers and things with a touch, handed
them to us to finish, 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 that is 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 questionI 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-best favorite among the
nursery-angels of our blood and lineage-to use a human phraseyes, from that time till 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 bumble-bee 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."