Chapter XV (2)

The devil once wandered over the cemetery in the darkness of an autumn night: he felt lonely and whistled softly as he looked around himself in search of a distraction. He whistled an old song--my father's favourite song,--

"When, in autumnal days,
A leaf from its branch is torn
And on high by the wind is borne."

And the wind sang with him, soughing over the graves and among the black crosses, and heavy autumnal clouds slowly crawled over the heaven and with their cold tears watered the narrow dwellings of the dead. The mournful trees in the cemetery timidly creaked under the strokes of the wind and stretched their bare branches to the speechless clouds. The branches were now and then caught by the crosses, and then a dull, shuffling, awful sound passed over the churchyard....

The devil was whistling, and he thought:

"I wonder how the dead feel in such weather! No doubt, the dampness goes down to them, and although they are secure against rheumatism ever since the day of their death, yet, I suppose, they do not feel comfortable. How, if I called one of them up and had a talk with him? It would be a little distraction for me, and, very likely, for him also. I will call him! Somewhere around here they have buried an old friend of mine, an author.... I used to visit him when he was alive ... why not renew our acquaintance? People of his kind are dreadfully exacting. I shall find out whether the grave satisfies him completely. But where is his grave?"

And the devil who, as is well known, knows everything, wandered for a long time about the cemetery, before he found the author's grave....

"Oh there!" he called out as he knocked with his claws at the heavy stone under which his acquaintance was put away.

"Get up!"

"What for?" came the dull answer from below.

"I need you."

"I won't get up."

"Why?"

"Who are you, anyway?"

"You know me."

"The censor?"

"Ha, ha, ha! No!"

"Maybe a secret policeman?"

"No, no!"

"Not a critic, either?"

"I am the devil."

"Well, I'll be out in a minute."

The stone lifted itself from the grave, the earth burst open, and a skeleton came out of it. It was a very common skeleton, just the kind that students study anatomy by: only it was dirty, had no wire connections, and in the empty sockets there shone a blue phosphoric light instead of eyes. It crawled out of the ground, shook its bones in order to throw off the earth that stuck to them, making a dry, rattling noise with them, and raising up its skull, looked with its cold, blue eyes at the murky, cloud-covered sky. "I hope you are well!" said the devil.

"How can I be?" curtly answered the author. He spoke in a strange, low voice, as if two bones were grating against each other.

"Oh, excuse my greeting!" the devil said pleasantly.

"Never mind!... But why have you raised me?"

"I just wanted to take a walk with you, though the weather is very bad.

"I suppose you are not afraid of catching a cold?" asked the devil.

"Not at all, I got used to catching colds during my lifetime."

"Yes, I remember, you died pretty cold."

"I should say I did! They had poured enough cold water over me all my life."

They walked beside each other over the narrow path, between graves and crosses. Two blue beams fell from the author's eyes upon the ground and lit the way for the devil. A drizzling rain sprinkled over them, and the wind freely passed between the author's bare ribs and through his breast where there was no longer a heart.

"We are going to town?" he asked the devil.

"What interests you there?"

"Life, my dear sir," the author said impassionately.

"What! It still has a meaning for you?"

"Indeed it has!"

"But why?"

"How am I to say it? A man measures all by the quantity of his effort, and if he carries a common stone down from the summit of Ararat, that stone becomes a gem to him."

"Poor fellow!" smiled the devil.

"But also happy man!" the author retorted coldly.

The devil shrugged his shoulders.

They left the churchyard, and before them lay a street,--two rows of houses, and between them was darkness in which the miserable lamps clearly proved the want of light upon earth.

"Tell me," the devil spoke after a pause, "how do you like your grave?"

"Now I am used to it, and it is all right: it is very quiet there."

"Is it not damp down there in the Fall?" asked the devil.

"A little. But you get used to that. The greatest annoyance comes from those various idiots who ramble over the cemetery and accidentally stumble on my grave. I don't know how long I have been lying in my grave, for I and everything around me is unchangeable, and the concept of time does not exist for me."

"You have been in the ground four years,--it will soon be five," said the devil.

"Indeed? Well then, there have been three people at my grave during that time. Those accursed people make me nervous. One, you see, straight away denied the fact of my existence: he read my name on the tombstone and said confidently: 'There never was such a man! I have never read him, though I remember such a name: when I was a boy, there lived a man of that name who had a broker's shop in our street.' How do you like that? And my articles appeared for sixteen years in the most popular periodicals, and three times during my lifetime my books came out in separate editions."

"There were two more editions since your death," the devil informed him.

"Well, you see? Then came two, and one of them said: 'Oh, that's that fellow!' 'Yes, that is he!' answered the other. 'Yes, they used to read him in the auld lang syne.' 'They read a lot of them.' 'What was it he preached?' 'Oh, generally, ideas of beauty, goodness, and so forth.' 'Oh, yes, I remember.' 'He had a heavy tongue.' 'There is a lot of them in the ground:--yes, Russia is rich in talents' ... And those asses went away. It is true, warm words do not raise the temperature of the grave, and I do not care for that, yet it hurts me. And oh, how I wanted to give them a piece of my mind!"

"You ought to have given them a fine tongue-lashing!" smiled the devil.

"No, that would not have done. On the verge of the twentieth century it would be absurd for dead people to scold, and, besides, it would be hard on the materialists."

The devil again felt the ennui coming over him.

This author had always wished in his lifetime to be a bridegroom at all weddings and a corpse at all burials, and now that all is dead in him, his egotism is still alive. Is man of any importance to life? Of importance is only the human spirit, and only the spirit deserves applause and recognition.... How annoying people are! The devil was on the point of proposing to the author to return to his grave, when an idea flashed through his evil head. They had just reached a square, and heavy masses of buildings surrounded them on all sides. The dark, wet sky hung low over the square; it seemed as though it rested on the roofs and murkily looked at the dirty earth.

"Say," said the devil as he inclined pleasantly towards the author, "don't you want to know how your wife is getting on?"

"I don't know whether I want to," the author spoke slowly.

"I see, you are a thorough corpse!" called out the devil to annoy him.

"Oh, I don't know?" said the author and jauntily shook his bones. "I don't mind seeing her; besides, she will not see me, or if she will, she cannot recognize me!"

"Of course!" the devil assured him.

"You know, I only said so because she did not like for me to go away long from home," explained the author.

And suddenly the wall of a house disappeared or became as transparent as glass. The author saw the inside of large apartments, and it was so light and cosy in them.

"Elegant appointments!" he grated his bones approvingly: "Very fine appointments! If I had lived in such rooms, I would be alive now."

"I like it, too," said the devil and smiled. "And it is not expensive--it only costs some three thousands."

"Hem, that not expensive? I remember my largest work brought me 815 roubles, and I worked over it a whole year. But who lives here?"

"Your wife," said the devil.

"I declare! That is good ... for her."

"Yes, and here comes her husband."

"She is so pretty now, and how well she is dressed! Her husband, you say? What a fine looking fellow! Rather a bourgeois phiz,--kind, but somewhat stupid! He looks as if he might be cunning,--well, just the face to please a woman."

"Do you want me to heave a sigh for you?" the devil proposed and looked maliciously at the author. But he was taken up with the scene before him.

"What happy, jolly faces both have! They are evidently satisfied with life. Tell me, does she love him?"

"Oh, yes, very much!"

"And who is he?"

"A clerk in a millinery shop."

"A clerk in a millinery shop," the author repeated slowly and did not utter a word for some time. The devil looked at him and smiled a merry smile.

"Do you like that?" he asked.

The author spoke with an effort:

"I had some children.... I know they are alive.... I had some children ... a son and a daughter.... I used to think then that my son would turn out in time a good man...."

"There are plenty of good men, but what the world needs is perfect men," said the devil coolly and whistled a jolly march.

"I think the clerk is probably a poor pedagogue ... and my son...."

The author's empty skull shook sadly.

"Just look how he is embracing her! They are living an easy life!" exclaimed the devil.

"Yes. Is that clerk a rich man?"

"No, he was poorer than I, but your wife is rich."

"My wife? Where did she get the money from?"

"From the sale of your books!"

"Oh!" said the author and shook his bare and empty skull. "Oh! Then it simply means that I have worked for a certain clerk?"

"I confess it looks that way," the devil chimed in merrily.

The author looked at the ground and said to the devil: "Take me back to my grave!"

... It was late. A rain fell, heavy clouds hung in the sky, and the author rattled his bones as he marched rapidly to his grave.... The devil walked behind him and whistled merrily.

* * * * *

My reader is, of course, dissatisfied. My reader is surfeited with literature, and even the people that write only to please him, are rarely to his taste. In the present case my reader is also dissatisfied because I have said nothing about hell. As my reader is justly convinced that after death he will find his way there, he would like to know something about hell during his lifetime. Really, I can't tell anything pleasant to my reader on that score, because there is no hell, no fiery hell which it is so easy to imagine. Yet, there is something else and infinitely more terrible.

The moment the doctor will have said about you to your friends: "He is dead!" you will enter an immeasurable, illuminated space, and that is the space of the consciousness of your mistakes.

You lie in the grave, in a narrow coffin, and your miserable life rotates about you like a wheel.

It moves painfully slow, and passes before you from your first conscious step to the last moment of your life.

You will see all that you have hidden from yourself during your lifetime, all the lies and meanness of your existence: you will think over anew all your past thoughts, and you will see every wrong step of yours,--all your life will be gone over, to its minutest details!

And to increase your torments, you will know that on that narrow and stupid road which you have traversed, others are marching, and pushing each other, and hurrying, and lying.... And you understand that they are doing it all only to find out in time how shameful it is to live such a wretched, soulless life.

And though you see them hastening on towards their destruction, you are in no way able to warn them: you will not move nor cry, and your helpless desire to aid them will tear your soul to pieces.

Your life passes before you, and you see it from the start, and there is no end to the work of your conscience, and there will be no end ... and to the horror of your torments there will never be an end ... never!

THE DEVIL AND THE OLD MAN[31]

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

[31] From _A Mainsail Haul_, by John Masefield [Copyright
1913 by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the
Author and the Publishers.]

Up away north, in the old days, in Chester, there was a man who never throve. Nothing he put his hand to ever prospered, and as his state worsened, his friends fell away, and he grew desperate. So one night when he was alone in his room, thinking of the rent due in two or three days and the money he couldn't scrape together, he cried out, "I wish I could sell my soul to the devil like that man the old books tell about."

Now just as he spoke the clock struck twelve, and, while it chimed, a sparkle began to burn about the room, and the air, all at once, began to smell of brimstone, and a voice said:

"Will these terms suit you?"

He then saw that some one had just placed a parchment there. He picked it up and read it through; and being in despair, and not knowing what he was doing, he answered, "Yes," and looked round for a pen.

"Take and sign," said the voice again, "but first consider what it is you do; do nothing rashly. Consider."

So he thought awhile; then "Yes," he said, "I'll sign," and with that he groped for the pen.

"Blood from your left thumb and sign," said the voice.

So he pricked his left thumb and signed.

"Here is your earnest money," said the voice, "nine and twenty silver pennies. This day twenty years hence I shall see you again."

Now early next morning our friend came to himself and felt like one of the drowned. "What a dream I've had," he said. Then he woke up and saw the nine and twenty silver pennies and smelt a faint smell of brimstone.

So he sat in his chair there, and remembered that he had sold his soul to the devil for twenty years of heart's-desire; and whatever fears he may have had as to what might come at the end of those twenty years, he found comfort in the thought that, after all, twenty years is a good stretch of time, and that throughout them he could eat, drink, merrymake, roll in gold, dress in silk, and be care-free, heart at ease and jib-sheet to windward.

So for nineteen years and nine months he lived in great state, having his heart's desire in all things; but, when his twenty years were nearly run through, there was no wretcheder man in all the world than that poor fellow. So he threw up his house, his position, riches, everything, and away he went to the port of Liverpool, where he signed on as A. B., aboard a Black Ball packet, a tea clipper, bound to the China seas.

They made a fine passage out, and when our friend had only three days more, they were in the Indian Ocean lying lazy, becalmed.

Now it was his wheel that forenoon, and it being dead calm, all he had to do was just to think of things; the ship of course having no way on her.

So he stood there, hanging on to the spokes, groaning and weeping till, just twenty minutes or so before eight bells were made, up came the Captain for a turn on deck.

He went aft, of course, took a squint aloft, and saw our friend crying at the wheel. "Hello, my man," he says, "why, what's all this? Ain't you well? You'd best lay aft for a dose o'salts at four bells tonight."

"No, Cap'n," said the man, "there's no salts'll ever cure my sickness."

"Why, what's all this?" says the old man. "You must be sick if it's as bad as all that. But come now; your cheek is all sunk, and you look as if you ain't slept well. What is it ails you, anyway? Have you anything on your mind?"

"Captain," he answers very solemn, "I have sold my soul to the devil."

"Oh," said the old man, "why, that's bad. That's powerful bad. I never thought them sort of things ever happened outside a book."

"But," said our friend, "that's not the worst of it, Captain. At this time three days hence the devil will fetch me home."

"Good Lord!" groaned the old man. "Here's a nice hurrah's nest to happen aboard my ship. But come now," he went on, "did the devil give you no chance--no saving-clause like? Just think quietly for a moment."

"Yes, Captain," said our friend, "just when I made the deal, there came a whisper in my ear. And," he said, speaking very quietly, so as not to let the mate hear, "if I can give the devil three jobs to do which he cannot do, why, then, Captain," he says, "I'm saved, and that deed of mine is cancelled."

Well, at this the old man grinned and said, "You just leave things to me, my son. _I'll_ fix the devil for you. Aft there, one o' you, and relieve the wheel. Now you run forrard, and have a good watch below, and be quite easy in your mind, for I'll deal with the devil for you. You rest and be easy."

And so that day goes by, and the next, and the one after that, and the one after that was the day the Devil was due.

Soon as eight bells was made in the morning watch, the old man called all hands aft.

"Men," he said, "I've got an all-hands job for you this forenoon."

"Mr. Mate," he cried, "get all hands on to the main-tops'l halliards and bowse the sail stiff up and down."

So they passed along the halliards, and took the turns off, and old John Chantyman piped up--

There's a Black Ball clipper
Comin' down the river.

And away the yard went to the mast-head till the bunt-robands jammed in the sheave.

"Very well that," said the old man. "Now get my dinghy off o' the half-deck and let her drag alongside."

So they did that, too.

"Very well that," said the old man. "Now forrard with you, to the chain-locker, and rouse out every inch of chain you find there."

So forrard they went, and the chain was lighted up and flaked along the deck all clear for running.

"Now, Chips," says the old man to the carpenter, "just bend the spare anchor to the end of that chain, and clear away the fo'c's'le rails ready for when we let go."

So they did this, too.

"Now," said the old man, "get them tubs of slush from the galley. Pass that slush along there, doctor. Very well that. Now turn to, all hands, and slush away every link in that chain a good inch thick in grease."

So they did that, too, and wondered what the old man meant.

"Very well that," cries the old man. "Now get below all hands! Chips, on to the fo'c's'le head with you and stand by! I'll keep the deck, Mr. Mate! Very well that."

So all hands tumbled down below; Chips took a fill o' baccy to leeward of the capstan, and the old man walked the weather-poop looking for a sign of hell-fire.

It was still dead calm--but presently, towards six bells, he raised a black cloud away to leeward, and saw the glimmer of the lightning in it; only the flashes were too red, and came too quick.

"Now," says he to himself, "stand by."

Very soon that black cloud worked up to windward, right alongside, and there came a red flash, and a strong sulphurous smell, and then a loud peal of thunder as the devil steps aboard.

"Mornin', Cap'n," says he.

"Mornin', Mr. Devil," says the old man, "and what in blazes do you want aboard _my_ ship?"

"Why, Captain," said the devil, "I've come for the soul of one of your hands as per signed agreement: and, as my time's pretty full up in these wicked days, I hope you won't keep me waiting for him longer than need be."

"Well, Mr. Devil," says the old man, "the man you come for is down below, sleeping, just at this moment. It's a fair pity to call him up till it's right time. So supposin' I set you them three tasks. How would that be? Have you any objections?"

"Why, no," said the devil, "fire away as soon as you like."

"Mr. Devil," said the old man, "you see that main-tops'l yard? Suppose you lay out on that main-tops'l yard and take in three reefs singlehanded."

"Ay, ay, sir," the devil said, and he ran up the rat-lines, into the top, up the topmast rigging and along the yard.

Well, when he found the sail stiff up and down, he hailed the deck:

"Below there! On deck there! Lower away ya halliards!"

"I will not," said the old man, "nary a lower."

"Come up your sheets, then," cries the devil. "This main-topsail's stiff up-and-down. How'm I to take in three reefs when the sail's stiff up-and-down?"

"Why," said the old man, "_you can't do it_. Come out o' that! Down from aloft, you hoof-footed son. That's one to me."

"Yes," says the devil, when he got on deck again, "I don't deny it, Cap'n. That's one to you."

"Now, Mr. Devil," said the old man, going towards the rail, "suppose you was to step into that little boat alongside there. Will you please?"

"Ay, ay, sir," he said, and he slid down the forrard fall, got into the stern sheets, and sat down.

"Now, Mr. Devil," said the skipper, taking a little salt spoon from his vest pocket, "supposin' you bail all the water on that side the boat on to this side the boat, using this spoon as your dipper."

Well!--the devil just looked at him.

"Say!" he said at length, "which of the New England States d'ye hail from anyway?"

"Not Jersey, anyway," said the old man. "That's two up, alright; ain't it, sonny?"

"Yes," growls the devil, as he climbs aboard. "That's two up. Two to you and one to play. Now, what's your next contraption?"

"Mr. Devil," said the old man, looking very innocent, "you see, I've ranged my chain ready for letting go anchor. Now Chips is forrard there, and when I sing out, he'll let the anchor go. Supposin' you stopper the chain with them big hands o' yourn and keep it from running out clear. Will you, please?"

So the devil takes off his coat and rubs his hands together, and gets away forrard by the bitts, and stands by.

"All ready, Cap'n," he says.

"All ready, Chips?" asked the old man.

"All ready, sir," replies Chips.

"Then, stand by--Let _go_ the anchor," and clink, clink, old Chips knocks out the pin, and away goes the spare anchor and greased chain into a five mile deep of God's sea. As I said, they were in the Indian Ocean.

Well--there was the devil, making a grab here and a grab there, and the slushy chain just slipping through his claws, and at whiles a bight of chain would spring clear and rap him in the eye.

So at last the cable was nearly clean gone, and the devil ran to the last big link (which was seized to the heel of the foremast), and he put both his arms through it, and hung on to it like grim death.

But the chain gave such a _Yank_ when it came-to, that the big link carried away, and oh, roll and go, out it went through the hawsehole, in a shower of bright sparks, carrying the devil with it. There is no devil now. The devil's dead.

As for the old man, he looked over the bows watching the bubbles burst, but the devil never rose. Then he went to the fo'c's'le scuttle and banged thereon with a hand-spike.

"Rouse out, there, the port watch!" he called, "an' get my dinghy inboard."

NOTES

THE DEVIL IN A NUNNERY

BY FRANCIS OSCAR MANN

According to a German legend, the devil is master of all arts, and certainly he has given sufficient proof of his musical talent. Certain Church Fathers ascribed, not without good reason, the origin of music to Satan. "The Devil," says Mr. Huneker in his diabolical story "The Supreme Sin" (1920), "is the greatest of all musicians," and Rowland Hill long ago admitted the fact that the devil has all the good tunes. Perhaps his greatest composition is the _Sonata del Diavolo_, which Tartini wrote down in 1713. This diabolical master-piece is the subject of Gérard de Nerval's story _La Sonate du Diable_ (1830). While the devil plays all instruments equally well, he seems to prefer the violin. Satan appears as fiddler in the poem "Der Teufel mit der Geige," which has been ascribed to the Swiss anti-Papist Pamphilus Gengenbach of the sixteenth century. In Leanu's _Faust_ (1836) Mephistopheles takes the violin out of the hands of one of the musicians at a peasant-wedding and plays a diabolical _czardas_, which fills the hearts of all who hear it with voluptuousness. An opera _Un Violon du Diable_ was played in Paris in 1849. _The Devil's Violin_, an extravaganza in verse by Benjamin Webster, was performed the same year in London. In his story "Les Tentations ou Eros, Plutus et la Gloire" Baudelaire presents the Demon of Love as holding in his left hand a violin "which without doubt served to sing his pleasures and pains." The devil also appears as limping fiddler in a California legend, which appeared under the title "The Devil's Fiddle" in a Californian magazine in 1855. Death, the devil's first cousin, if not his _alter ego_, has the souls, in the Dance of Death, march off to hell to a merry tune on his violin. Death appears as a musician also in the Piper of Hamlin. In this legend, well known to the English world through Browning's poem "Pied Piper of Hamelin" (1843) and Miss Peabody's play _The Piper_ (1909), the rats are the human souls, which Death charms with his music into following him. In the Middle Ages the soul was often represented as leaving the body in the form of a mouse. The soul of a good man comes out of his mouth as a white mouse, while at the death of a sinner the soul escapes as a black mouse, which the devil catches and brings to hell. Mephistopheles, it will be recalled, calls himself "the lord of rats and mice" (_Faust_, 1, 1516). Devil-Death has inherited this wind instrument from the goat-footed Pan.

"The Devil is more busy in the convents," we are told by J. K. Huysmans in his novel _En route_ (1895), "than in the cities, as he has a harder job on hand."

BELPHAGOR

BY NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI

This story of the devil Belphagor, who was sent by his infernal chief Pluto up to earth, where he married an earthly wife, but finally left her in disgust to go back to hell, is also of mediaeval origin. It was first printed by Giovanni Brevio in 1545, and appeared for the second time with the name of Machiavelli in 1549, twenty-two years after the death of the diabolical statesman. The two authors did not borrow from each other, but had a common source in a mediaeval Latin manuscript, which seems to have first fallen into the hands of Italians, but was later brought to France where it has been lost. The tale of the marriage of the devil appeared in several other Italian versions during the sixteenth century. Among the Italian novelists, who retold it for the benefit of their married friends, may be mentioned Giovan-Francesco Straparola, Francesco Sansovino, and Gabriel Chappuys. In England this story was no less popular. Barnabe Riche inserted it in his collection of narratives in 1581, and we meet it again later in the following plays: _Grim, the Collier of Croydon_, ascribed to Ulpian Fulwell (1599); _The Devil and his Dame_ by P. M. Houghton (1600); _Machiavel and the Devil_ by Daborne and Henslowe (1613); _The Devil is an Ass_ by Ben Jonson (1616); and _Belphagor, or the Marriage of the Devil_ (1690). In France the story was treated in verse by La Fontaine (1694), and in Germany it served the Nuremberg poet Hans Sachs as the subject for a farce (1557).

The _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ is authority for the statement that Machiavelli's own married life had nothing to do with the plot of his story.

"The notion of this story is ingenious, and might have been made productive of entertaining incident, had Belphagor been led by his connubial connections from one crime to another. But Belphagor is only unfortunate, and in no respect guilty; nor did anything occur during his abode on earth that testified to the power of woman in leading us to final condemnation. The story of the peasant and the possession of the princesses bears no reference to the original idea with which the tale commences, and has no connection with the object of the infernal deputy's terrestrial sojourn" (J. C. Dunlop, _History of Fiction_). To this criticism Mr. Thomas Roscoe replies that "part of the humour of the story seems to consist in Belphagor's earthly career being cut short before he had served the full term of his apprenticeship. But from the follies and extravagances into which he had already plunged, we are now authorized to believe that, even if he had been able longer to support the asperities of the lady's temper, he must, from the course he was pursuing, have been led from crime to crime, or at least from folly to folly, to such a degree that he would infallibly have been condemned" (T. Roscoe, _Italian Novelists_).

The demon of Machiavelli offers no features of a deep psychology, but he distinguishes himself from the other demons of his period by his elegant manners. Like creator, like creature.

Belphagor, the god of the Moabites, like all other pagan gods, joined the infernal forces of Satan when driven off the earth by the Church Triumphant.

The parliament of devils, which we find in this story, was taken from the mystery-plays where the ruler of hell is represented as holding occasional receptions when he listens to the reports of their recent achievements on his behalf, and consults their opinion on matters of state. Satan, who has always wished to rival God, has instituted the infernal council in imitation of the celestial council described in the Book of Job. The source for the parliament of devils is the apocryphal book _Evangelium Nicodemi_. An early metrical tract under the title of the _Parlement of Devils_ was printed two or three times in London about 1520. A "Pandemonium" is also found in Tasso, Milton, and Chateaubriand. The _Parlement of Foules_ (14th century) is but a modification of the _Parlement of Devils_, for the devil and the fool were originally identical in person and may be traced back to the demonic clown of the ancient heathen cult (cf. the present writer's book, _The Origin of the German Carnival Comedy_, p. 37). A far echo is Thomas Chatterton's poem _The Parliament of Sprites_.

This story recalls to us the saying that the heart of a beautiful woman is the most beloved hiding-place of at least seven devils.

THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER

BY WASHINGTON IRVING

By his interest in popular legends the first of the great American writers shows his sympathy with the Romantic movement, which prevailed in his time in all the countries of Europe. His devil, however, has not been imported from the lands across the Atlantic, but is a part of the superstitions of the New World. The author himself did not believe in "Old Scratch." The real devils for him were the slave-traders and the witch-hunters of Salem fame. It is interesting now to read a contemporary critic of Washington Irving's devil-story: "If Mr. Irving believes in the existence of Tom Walker's master, we can scarcely conceive how he can so earnestly jest about him; at all events, we would counsel him to beware lest his own spells should prove fatal to him" (_Eclectic Review_, 1825). Few people in those days had the courage to take Old Nick good-naturedly. "Even the clever Madame de Staël," said Goethe, "was greatly scandalized that I kept the devil in such good-humour."

The devil appears in many colours, principally, however, in black and red. It is a common belief in Scotland that the devil is a black man, as may also be seen in Robert Louis Stevenson's story "Thrawn Janet." There is no warrant in the biblical tradition for a black devil. Satan, however, appeared as an Ethiopian as far back as the days of the Church Fathers. The black colour presumably is intended to suggest his place of abode, whereas red denotes the scorching fires of hell. The devil was considered as a sort of eternal Salamander. In the New Testament he is described as a fiery fiend. Red was considered by Oriental nations as a diabolical colour. In Egypt red hair and red animals of all kinds were considered infernal. The Apis was also red-coloured. Satan's red beard recalls the Scandinavian god Donar or Thor, who is of Phoenician origin. Judas was always represented in mediaeval mystery-plays with a red beard; and down to the present day red hair is the mark of a suspicious character. The devil also appears as yellow, and even blue, but never as white or green. The yellow devil is but a shade less bright than his fiery brother. The blue devil is a sulphur-constitutioned individual. He is the demon of melancholy, and fills us with "the blues." As the spirit of darkness and death, the devil cannot assume the colours of white or green, which are the symbols of light and life. The devil's dragon-tail is, according to Sir Walter Scott, of biblical tradition, coming from a literal interpretation of a figurative expression.

A few interesting remarks on the expression "The Devil and Tom Walker" current in certain parts of this country as a caution to usurers will be found in Dr. Blondheim's article "The Devil and Doctor Foster" in _Modern Language Notes_ for 1918.

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF SATAN

BY WILHELM HAUFF

Wilhelm Hauff, the author of this book, ranks honourably among the members of the Romantic School in Germany. As the work of a man of only twenty-two years, just out of the university, the book is a credit to its author. It must be admitted, however, that it was not altogether original with him. The idea was taken from E. Th. A. Hoffmann,--Devil-Hoffmann, as he was called by his contemporaries,--who in his short-story "Der Teufel in Berlin" also has the devil travel incognito in Germany; and the title was borrowed from Jean Paul Richter, who also claimed to edit _Selections from the Devil's Papers_ (_Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren, 1789_). There were others, too, who claimed to have been honoured by his Satanic Majesty to edit his "journal." J. R. Beard, a Unitarian minister, published in 1872 an _Autobiography of Satan_. Another autobiography of Satan is said to have been found among the posthumous works of Leonid Andréev, author of that original diabolical work _Anathema, a tragedy_ (Engl. tr. 1910). This book has just appeared in English under the title _Satan's Diary_. Frédéric Soulié's _Les Mémoires du Diable_ (1837/8) consist of memoirs not of the devil himself, but of other people, which the Count de Luizzi, the human partner to the diabolical pact, is very anxious to know. Hauff's book consists of a series of papers, which are but loosely connected. In certain passages we hear nothing of the autobiographer. The Suavian writer apparently could digest the Diabolical only in homeopathic doses. His Satan, moreover, is a very youthful and quite harmless devil. He is nothing but a personified echo of the author's student-days. The book by Hauff is perhaps the most popular personification of the devil in German literature.

The passage presented here shows the phantastic element of the book at its best. The short introductory synopsis will give an idea of its satirical aspect. The humorous aspect has pretty nearly been lost in translation. Professor Brander Matthews has aptly said: "The German humour is like the simple Italian wines--it will not stand export."

Of all the peoples, the Germans seem to have had the most kindly feelings towards the devil. This is because they knew him better. To judge from the many bridges and cathedrals, which the demon, according to legends, has built in Germany, he must have been a frequent visitor to that country. In Frankfort, where with his own hands our author received the memoirs from the autobiographer, there is a gilded cock above the bridge in memory of the bargain the bridge-builder once made with Satan to give him the first living thing that should cross the river. The day the bridge was finished, a cock fluttered from a woman's market-basket and ran over the bridge. A claw-like hand reached down and claimed the prize.

The distinguished personage, whose adventures form the subject of this book, does not figure in it under his own name, nor does he appear here in the gala attire of tail, horns and cloven foot with which he graces the revels on the Blocksberg. He borrows for the nonce a tall, gentlemanly figure, surmounted by delicate features, dresses well, is fastidious about his ring and linen, travels post and stops at the best hotels. He begins his earthly career by studying at the renowned university of ----. As he can boast of abundant means, a handsome wardrobe and the name of Herr von Barbe, it is no wonder that on the first evening he should be politely received, the next morning have a confidential friend, and the second evening embrace "brothers till death." He becomes much puzzled at the extraordinary manners of the students, and at their language, so different from that of every rational German. He remarks: "Over a glass of beer they often fell into singularly transcendental investigations, of which I understood little or nothing. However, I observed the principal words, and when drawn into a conversation, replied with a grave air--'Freedom, Fatherland, Nationality.'" He attends the lectures of a celebrated professor, whose profundity of thought and terseness of style are so astounding, that the German world set him down as possessed; the critical student, however, differs somewhat from that conclusion, observing--

"I have borne a great deal in the world. I have even entered into swine," ("The devil," said Luther, "knows Scripture well and he uses it in argument") "but into such a philosopher? No, indeed! I had rather be excused."

The episode here reprinted occurred in a hotel in Frankfort, where our incognito is known as Herr von Natas (which, it will be noticed, is his more familiar name read backwards). His brilliant powers of conversation, his adroit flattery, courteous gallantry, and elegant, though wayward flights of imagination, soon rendered him the delight of the whole _table d'hôte_. All guests, including our author, were fascinated by the mysterious stranger. But we will let the author himself tell his story.

ST. JOHN'S EVE

BY NIKOLÁI VASILÉVICH GÓGOL

This story, taken from _Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka_, a series of sketches of the life of the Ukrainian peasants, offers a good illustration of the author's art, which was a combination of the romantic and realistic elements. In these pages Gógol wished to record the myths and legends still current among the plain folk of his beloved Ukrainia. The devil naturally enough peeps out here and there through the pages of this book. Gógol's devil is a product of the Russian soil, "the spirit of mischief and cunning, whom Russian literature is always trying to outplay and overcome" (Mme. Jarintzow, _Russian Poets and Poems_).

According to European superstition St. John's Eve is the only evening in the year when his Satanic Majesty reveals himself in his proper shape to the eyes of men. If you wish to behold his Highness face to face, stand on St. John's Eve at midnight near a mustard-plant. It is suggested by Sir James Frazer in his _Golden Bough_ that, in the chilly air of the upper world, this prince from a warmer clime may be attracted by the warmth of the mustard.

It is believed in many parts of Europe that treasures can be found on St. John's Eve by means of the fern-seed. Even without the use of this plant treasures are sometimes said to bloom or burn in the earth, or to reveal their presence by a bluish flame on Midsummer Eve. As guardian of treasures the devil is the successor of the gnome.

THE DEVIL'S WAGER

BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

_The Devil's Wager_ is Thackeray's earliest attempt at story-writing, was contributed to a weekly literary paper with the imposing title _The National Standard, and Journal of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts_, of which he was proprietor and editor, and was reprinted in the _Paris Sketch Book_ (1840). The story first ended with the very Thackerayesque touch: "The moral of this story will be given in several successive numbers." In the _Paris Sketch Book_ the last three words are changed into "the second edition." This comical tale was illustrated by an excellent wood-cut, representing the devil as sailing through the air, dragging after him the fat Sir Roger de Rollo by means of his tail, which is wound round Sir Roger's neck.

In the "Advertisement to the First Edition" of his _Paris Sketch Book_, Thackeray admits the French origin of this as well as of his other devil-story, _The Painter's Bargain_, to be found in the same volume. It was Thackeray's good fortune to live in Paris during the wildest and most brilliant years of Romanticism; and while his attitude towards this movement and its leaders, as presented in the _Paris Sketch Book_, is not wholly sympathetic, he is indebted to it for his interest in supernatural subjects. The Romanticism of Thackeray has been denied with great obstinacy and almost passion, for like Heinrich Heine, the chief of German Romantic ironists, he poked fun at this movement. But "to laugh at what you love," as Mr. George Saintsbury has pointed out in his _History of the French Novel_, "is not only permissible, but a sign of the love itself."

Mercurius makes a pun on the familiar quotation "rara avis" from Horace (_Sat._ 2, 2. 26), where it means a rare bird. This expression is commonly applied to a singular person. It is also found in the _Satires_ of Juvenal (VI, 165).

THE PAINTER'S BARGAIN

BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The belief in compacts with the devil is of great antiquity. Satan, contending with God for the possession of the human race, was supposed to have developed a passion for catching souls. At the death of every man a real fight takes place over his soul between an angel, who wishes to lead it to heaven, and a devil, who attempts to drag it to hell (Jude 9). In order to assure the soul for himself in advance, Satan attempts to purchase it from the owner while he is still living--_vivente corpore_, as he tells the _restaurateur_ in Poe's story. As prince of this world he can easily grant even the most extravagant wishes of man in exchange for his soul. Office, wealth and pleasure are mainly the objects for which a man enters into a pact with the Evil One. Count de Luizzi in Frédéric Soulié's _Les Mémoires du Diable_ sells his soul to the devil for an uncommon consideration. It is not wealth or pleasure that tempts him. What he wants in exchange for his soul is to know the past lives of his fellowmen and women, "a thing," as Mr. Saintsbury well remarks, "which a person of sense and taste would do anything, short of selling himself to the devil, _not_ to know." The devil fulfils every wish of his contractor for a stipulated period of time, at the expiration of which the soul becomes his. Pope Innocent VIII, in his fatal bull "Summis desiderantes" of the year 1484, officially recognized the possibility of a compact with the devil. Increase Mather, the New England preacher, also affirms that many men have made "cursed covenants with the prince of darkness."

St. Theophilus, of Cilicia, in the sixth century, was the first to make the notable discovery that a man could enter into a pact of this nature. The price he set for his soul was a bishopric. This story has been superseded during the Renaissance period by a similar legend concerning the German Dr. Faustus. Other famous personages reputed to have sold their souls to the devil for one consideration or another are Don Juan in Spain, Twardowski in Poland, Merlin in England, and Robert le Diable in France. Socrates, Apuleius, Scaliger and Cagliostro are also said to have entered into compacts with him.

In devil-contracts the Evil One insists that his human negotiator sign the deed with his own blood, while the man never requires the devil to sign it even in ink. The human party to the transaction has always had full confidence in the word of the fiend. There is a universal belief that the devil invariably fulfils his engagement. In no single instance of folk-lore has Satan tried to evade the fulfilment of his share in the agreement. But the man, in violation of the written pact, has often cheated the devil out of his legal due by technical quibbles. "It is peculiar to the German tradition," says Gustav Freytag, "that the devil endeavours to fulfil zealously and honestly his part of the contract; the deceiver is man." In regard to fidelity to his word, the father of lies has always set an example to his victims. "You men," said Satan, "are cheats; you make all sorts of promises so long as you need me, and leave me in the lurch as soon as you have got what you wanted." Mediaeval man had no scruples about his breach of contract with the devil. He always considered the legal document signed with his own blood as "a scrap of paper." "But still the pact is with the enemy; the man is not bound beyond the letter, and may escape by any trick. It is still the ethics of war. We are very close to the principle that a man by stratagem or narrow observance of the letter may escape the eternal retribution which God decrees conditionally and the devil delights in" (H. D. Taylor, _Mediaeval Mind_). We now can understand why in Eugene Field's story "Daniel and the Devil" it seems to Satan so strange that he should be asked for a written guarantee that he too would fulfil his part of the contract. Apparently this was the first time that the devil had any transactions with an American business man, who has not even faith in Old Nick.

Reference is made in this story by the devil himself to the popular saying that the devil is not so black as he is painted. Even the devout George Herbert wrote--

"We paint the devil black, yet he
Hath some good in him all agree."

This story recalls to us the proverb: "Talk of the devil, and he will either come or send."

Washington Irving, as we have seen, thinks that he is not always very obliging.

Satan, the father of lies, is said to be the patron of lawyers. The men of the London bar formed a "Temple" corps, which was dubbed "The Devil's Own." The tavern of the lawyers on Fleet Street in London was called "The Devil."

BON-BON

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

This writer, to whom the inner world was more of a reality than the external world, had many visions, especially of the devil. The two seem to have been on a familiar footing. The devil, we must admit, filled Poe's imagination even if we will not go so far as to agree with his critics that he had Satan substituted for soul. His contemporaries, as is well known, would say of him: "He hath a demon, yea, seven devils are entered into him." His detractors actually regarded this unhappy poet as an incarnation of the ruler of Hades (cf. _North American Review_, 1856; _Edinburgh Review_, 1858; _Dublin University Magazine_, 1875). It was but recently that a writer in the _New York Times_ declared Poe to have been "grub-staked by demons."

The story "Bon-Bon" offers a specimen of Poe's grimly grotesque humour. It first appeared in the _Broadway Journal_ of August, 1835.

The devil of this most un-American of all American authors is not the child of New World fancy, but part of European imagination. The scenery of the story is aptly laid in the land of Robert le Diable.

Poe's description of the devil is, on the whole, fully in accord with the universally accredited conception of his ordinary appearance. His brutal hoofs and savage horns and beastly tail are all there, only discreetly hid under a dress which any gentleman might wear. The devil is very proud of this epithet given him by William Shakespeare; and from that time on, it has been his greatest ambition to be a gentleman, in outer appearance at least; and to his credit it must be said that he has so well succeeded in his efforts to resemble a gentleman that it is now very hard to tell the two apart. The devil is accredited in popular imagination with long ears, a long (sometimes upturned) nose, a wide mouth, and teeth of a lion. It is on account of his fangs that Satan has been called a lion by the biblical writers. But although the prince of darkness can assume any form in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, he has never appeared as a lion. This, I believe, is out of deference to Judah, whom his father also called a lion. Hairiness is a pretty general characteristic of the devil. His hairy skin he probably inherited from the ancient fauns and satyrs. Esau is believed to have been a hairy demon. "Old Harry" is a corruption of "Old Hairy." As a rule, Old Nick is not pictured as bald, but has a head covered with locks like serpents. These snaky tresses, which already "Monk" Lewis wound around the devil's head, are borrowed, according to Sir Walter Scott, from the shield of Minerva. His face, however, is usually hairless. A beard has rarely been accorded to Satan. His red beard on the mediaeval stage probably came from Donar, whom, as Jacob Grimm says, the modern notions of the devil so often have in the background. Long bearded devils are nowhere normal except in the representations of the Eastern Church of the monarch of hell as counterpart of the monarch of heaven. The eyeless devil is original with our writer. His disciple Baudelaire in his story _Les Tentations ou Eros, Plutus et la Gloire_ presents the second of these three Tempters as an eyeless monster. The mediaeval devil had saucer eyes. According to a Russian legend, the all-seeing spirit of evil is all covered with eyes. The cadaverous aspect of the devil is traditional. With but one remarkable exception (the Egyptian Typhon), demons are always represented lean. "A devil," said Caesarius of Heisterbach of the thirteenth century, "is usually so thin as to cast no shadow" (_Dialogus Miraculorum_, iii). This characteristic is a heritage of the ancient hunger-demon, who, himself a shadow, casts no shadow. In the course of the centuries, however, the devil has gained flesh. His faded suit of black cloth recalls the mediaeval devil who appeared "in his fethers all ragged and rent."

It is not altogether improbable that the ecclesiastical appearance of the devil in this story was not wholly unintentional, as the author believes. While Satan cannot be said to be "one of those who take to the ministry mostly," he often likes to slip into priestly robes. In the "Temptation of Jesus" by Lucas van Leyden the devil is habited as a monk with a pointed cowl.