The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (9 page)

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, it 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 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 a hundred 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 could not get
away from that thought; we had seen these murders done and it
was our duty to tell, and let the law take its course.

But he went 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 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.

Ile had seen everything, he had been everywhere, he knew
everything, and he forgot nothing. What another must study, he
learned at a glance; there were no difficulties for him. And he made
things live before you when he told about them. He saw the world
made; he saw Adam created; he saw Samson surge against the
pillars and bring the temple down in ruins about him; he saw
Caesar's death; he told of the daily life in heaven, he had seen the
damned writhing in the red waves of hell; and he made us see all
these things, and it was as if we were on the spot and looking at
them with our own eyes. And we felt them, too, but there was no
sign that they were anything to him, beyond being mere entertainments. Those visions of hell, those poor babes and women and girls
and lads and men shrieking and supplicating in anguish-why, we
could hardly bear it, but he was as bland about it as if it had been so
many imitation rats in an artificial fire.

And always when he was talking about men and women here in the earth and their doings-even their grandest and sublimest-we
were secretly ashamed, for his manner showed that to him they and
their doings were of paltry poor consequence; often you would
think he was talking about flies, if you didn't know. Once he even
said, in so many words, that our people down here were quite
interesting to him, notwithstanding they were so dull and ignorant
and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and such a
shabby poor worthless lot all around. He said it in a quite matterof-course way and without any bitterness, just as a person might
talk about bricks or manure or any other thing that was of no
consequence and hadn't feelings. I could see he meant no offence,
but in my thoughts I set it down as not very good manners.

"Manners!" he said, "why it is merely the truth, and truth is
good manners; manners are a fiction. The castle is done! Do you
like it?"

Any one would have been obliged to like it. It was lovely to look
at, it was so shapely and fine, and so cunningly perfect in all its
particulars, even to the little flags waving from the turrets. Satan
said we must put the artillery in place, now, and station the halberdiers and deploy the cavalry. Our men and horses were a spectacle
to see, they were so little like what they were intended for; for of
course we had no art in making such things. Satan said they were
the worst he had seen; and when he touched them and made them
alive, it was just ridiculous the way they acted, on account of their
legs not being of uniform lengths. They reeled and sprawled
around as if they were drunk, and endangered everybody's lives
around them, and finally fell over and lay helpless and kicking. It
made us all laugh, though it was a shameful thing to see. The guns
were charged with dirt, to fire a salute; but they were so crooked
and so badly made that they all burst when they went off, and
killed some of the gunners and crippled the others. Satan said we
would have a storm, now, and an earthquake, if we liked, but we
must stand off a piece, out of danger. We wanted to call the people
away, too, but he said never mind them, they were of no consequence and we could make more, some time or other if we needed
them.

A small storm-cloud began to settle down black over the castle, and the miniature lightning and thunder began to play and the
ground to quiver and the wind to pipe and wheeze and the rain to
fall, and all the people flocked into the castle for shelter. The cloud
settled down blacker and blacker and one could see the castle only
dimly through it; the lightnings blazed out flash upon flash and
they pierced the castle and set it on fire and the flames shone out
red and fierce through the cloud, and the people came flying out,
shrieking, but Satan brushed them back, paying no attention to our
begging and crying and imploring; and in the midst of the howling
of the wind and volleying of the thunder the magazine blew up,
the earthquake rent the ground wide and the castle's wreck and
ruin tumbled into the chasm, which swallowed it from sight and
closed upon it, with all that innocent life, not one of the five
hundred poor creatures escaping.

Our hearts were broken, we could not keep from crying.

"Don't cry," Satan said, "they were of no value."

"But they are gone to hell!"

"Oh, it is no matter, we can make more."

It was of no use to try to move him; evidently he was wholly
without feeling, and could not understand. He was full of bubbling
spirits, and as gay as if this were a wedding instead of a fiendish
massacre. And he was bent on making us feel as he did, and of
course his magic accomplished his desire. It was no trouble to him,
he did whatever he pleased with us. In a little while we were
dancing on that grave, and he was playing to us on a strange sweet
instrument which he took out of his pocket; and the music-there
is no music like that, unless perhaps in heaven, and that was where
he brought it from, he said. It made one mad, for pleasure; and we
could not take our eyes from him, and the looks that went out of
our eyes came from our hearts, and their dumb speech was worship.
He brought the dance from heaven, too, and the bliss of paradise
was in it.

Presently he said he must go away on an errand. But we could
not bear the thought of it, and clung to him, and pleaded with him
to stay; and that pleased him, and he said so; and said he would not
go yet, but would wait a little while and we would sit down and talk a few minutes longer; and he told us Satan was only his real
name and he was to be known by it to us alone, but he had chosen
another one to be called by in presence of others; just a common
one, such as people have-Philip Traum.

It sounded so odd and mean for such a being! But it was his
decision, and we said nothing; his decision was sufficient.

We had seen wonders this day; and my thoughts began to run on
the pleasure it would be to tell of them when I got home; but he
noticed those thoughts, and said-

"No, all these matters are a secret between us four. I do not mind
your trying to tell them, if you like, but I will protect your tongues,
and nothing of the secret will escape from them."

It was a disappointment, but it couldn't be helped, and it cost us
a sigh or two. We talked pleasantly along, and he was always
reading our thoughts and responding to them, and it seemed to me
that this was the most wonderful of all the things he did; but he
interrupted my musings, and said-

"No, it would be wonderful for you, but it is not wonderful for
me. I am not limited, like you. I am not subject to human conditions; I can measure and understand your human weaknesses, for I
have studied them; but I have none of them. My flesh is not real,
although it is firm to the touch, my clothes are not real, I am a
spirit. Father Peter is coming." We looked around, but did not see
any one. "He is not in sight yet, but you will see him presently."

"Do you know him, Satan?"

"No.

"Won't you talk with him when he comes? He is not ignorant
and dull, like us, and he would so like to talk with you. Will you?"

"Another time, yes, but not now. I must go on my errand after a
little. There he is; now you can see him. Sit still, and don't say
anything."

We looked up and saw Father Peter approaching through the
chestnuts. We three were sitting together in the grass, and Satan
sat in front of us in the path. Father Peter came slowly along with
his head down, thinking, and stopped within a couple of yards of us
and took off }pis hat and got out his silk handkerchief and stood there mopping his face and looking as if he was going to speak to
us, but he didn't. Presently he muttered, "I can't think what
brought me here; it seems as if I was in my study a minute
ago-but I suppose I have been dreaming along for an hour and
have come all this stretch without noticing; for I am not myself in
these troubled days." Then he went mumbling along to himself
and walked straight through Satan, just as if nothing was there. It
made us catch our breath to see it. We had the impulse to cry out,
the way you nearly always do when a startling thing happens, but
something mysteriously restrained us and we remained quiet, only
breathing fast. Then the trees hid Father Peter after a little, and
Satan said-

"It is as I told you-I am only a spirit."

"Yes, one perceives it now," said Nikolaus, "but we are not
spirits. It is plain he did not see you, but were we invisible too? He
looked at us, but he didn't seem to see us."

"No, none of us was visible to him, for I wished it so."

It seemed almost too good to be true, that we were actually seeing
these romantic and wonderful things, and that it was not a dream.
And there he sat, looking just like anybody-so natural, and simple,
and charming, and chatting along again the same as ever, andwell, words cannot make you understand what we felt. It was an
ecstasy; and an ecstasy is a thing that will not go into words; it feels
like music, and one cannot tell about music so that another person
can get the feeling of it. He was back in the old ages once more,
now, and making them live before us. He had seen so much, so
much! It was just a wonder to look at him and try to think how it
must seem to have such experiences behind one.

But it made you seem sorrowfully trivial, and the creature of a
day, and such a short and paltry day, too. And he didn't say
anything to raise up your drooping pride any-no, not a word. He
always spoke of men in the same old indifferent way-just as one
speaks of bricks and manure-piles and such things; you could see
that they were of no consequence to him, one way or the other. He
didn't mean to hurt us, you could see that; just as we don't mean to insult a brick when we disparage it; a brick's emotions are nothing
to us; it never occurs to us to think whether it has any or not.

Once when he was bunching the most illustrious kings and
conquerors and poets and prophets and pirates and beggars together
-just a brick-pile-I was shamed into putting in a word for man,
and asked him why he made so much difference between men and
himself. He had to struggle with that a moment; he didn't seem to
understand how I could ask such a strange question. Then he said-

"The difference between man and me? The difference between a
mortal and an immortal? between a clod and a spirit?" He picked
up a wood-louse that was creeping along a piece of bark: "What is
the difference between Homer and this? between Caesar and this?"

I said-

"One cannot compare things which by their nature and by the
interval between them are not comparable."

"You have answered your own question," he said. "I will expand
it. Man is made of dirt-I saw him made. I am not made of dirt.
Man is a museum of disgusting diseases, a home of impurities; he
comes to-day and is gone to-morrow, he begins as dirt and departs as
a stench; I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables. And man has
the Moral Sense. You understand? he has the Moral Sense. That
would seem to be difference enough between us, all by itself."

He stopped there, as if that settled the matter. I was sorry, for at
that time I had put a dim idea of what the moral sense was. I
merely knew that we were proud of having it, and when he talked
like that about it it wounded me and I felt as a girl feels who thinks
her dearest finery is being admired, and then overhears strangers
making fun of it. For a while we were all silent, and I, for one, was
depressed. Then Satan began to chat again, and soon he was
sparkling along in such a cheerful and vivacious vein that my spirits
rose once more. He told some very cunning things that put us in a
gale of laughter; and when he was telling about the time that
Samson tied the torches to the foxes' tails and set them loose in the
Philistines' corn and was sitting on the fence slapping his thighs
and laughing, with the tears running down his cheeks, and lost his balance and fell off the fence, the memory of that picture got him
to laughing, too, and we did have a most lovely and jolly time. By
and by he said-