The Mysterious stranger - Chapter 8

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter eight of The Mysterious Stranger byMark Twain. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the publicdomain. For more information or to
volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Patrick seventy nine, Chapter
eight, Oh, sleep would notcome. It was not because I was

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proud of my travels and excited abouthaving been around the big world to China,
the feeling contemptuous of Bartle Spurling,the traveler as he called himself,
and looked down upon us others,because he had been through Vienna once and

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was the only Eseldorf boy who hadmade such a journey and seen the world's
wanders. At another time, thatwould have kept me a vague, but
it did not affect me now.No, My mind was filled with Nicholas.
My thoughts ran upon him only,and the good days we had seen

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together at rumps and frolics in thewoods and the fields and the river,
in the long summer days, andskating and sliding in the window when our
parents thought we were in school.And now he was going out of this
young life, and the summers andwinters would come and go, and the

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others would rove and play as before, but his place would be vacant.
We should see him no more.Oh, tomorrow he would not suspect,
but would be as he had alwaysbeen, And it would shock me to

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hear him laugh and see him dosome lightsome and frivolous things. For to
me he would be a corpse withwaxen hands and dull eyes, and I
should see the shroud around his face. The next day he would not suspect,

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nor the next, and all thetime his handful of days would be
wasting swiftly away, and that awfulthing coming nearer and nearer, his fate
closing steadily around him, and noone knowing it but Seppy and me.

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Twelve days only twelve days, Oh, it was awful to think of.
I noticed that in my thoughts Iwas not calling him by his familiar names
Nick and NICKI, but was speakingof him by his full name, and
reverently, as one speaks of thedead. Also, as incident after incident

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of our comradeship came thronging it tomy mind out of the past. I
noticed that they were mainly cases whereI had wronged him or hurt him,
and they rebuked me and reproached me, and my heart was wrong with remorse,

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just as it is when we rememberour unkindnesses to friends who have passed
beyond the veil, and we wishwe could have them back again, if
only for a moment, so thatwe could go on our knees and say
to them, oh, have pityand forgive. Once, when we were

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nine years old, he went along errand of nearly two miles for the
fruiterer who gave him a splendid bigapple for reward, and he was flying
home with it, almost beside himselfwith astonishment and delight. And I met
him, and he let me lookat the apple, not thinking of treachery,

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and I ran off with it,eating it as I ran, he
following me. I'm begging, Andwhen he overtook me, I offered him
the core, which was all thatwas left, and I laughed. Then
he turned away, crying and saidhe meant to give it to his little

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sister. Oh that smote me,for she was slowly getting well off a
sickness, and it would have beena proud moment for him to see her
joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was ashamed to say I
was ashamed and only said something rudeand mean to pretend I did not care,

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And he made no reply in words, but there was a wounded look
in his face as he turned awaytowards his home, which rose before me
many many times in after years inthe night and reproached me and made me
ashamed again. It had grown dimin my mind by and by then it

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disappeared, But now it was backand not dim. Once at school,
when we were eleven, I upsetmy ink and spoiled four copy books,
and was in danger of severe punishment, but I put it upon him,

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and he got the whip. Andonly last year I had cheated him in
a trade, giving him a largefish hook which was partly broken through for
three small sound ones. The firstfish he caught broke the hook, but
he did not know I was blameable, and he refused to take back one

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of the small hooks, which myconscience forced me to offer him, but
said, a trade is a trade. The hook was bad, but that
was not your fault. No,I could not sleep. These little shabby
wrongs upbraided me and tortured me,and with a pain much sharper than one

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feels. When the wrongs have beendone to the living. Nicholas was living,
but no matter, he was tome as one already dead. The
wind was still moaning about the eaves, the rain still pattering upon the panes.
In the morning, I sought outSeppy and I told him it was

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down by the river. His lipsmoved, but he did not say anything.
He only looked dazed and stunned,and his face turned very white.
He stood like that a few moments, the tears welling into his eyes.
Then he turned away, and Ilocked my arms in his, and we

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walked along, thinking but not speaking. We crossed the bridge and wandered through
the meadows and up among the hillsand the woods. And at last the
talk came and flowed freely, andit was all about Nicholas, and was

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a recalling of the life we hadlived with him. And every now and
then Seppy said, as if tohimself, twelve days less than twelve,
We said, we must be withhim all the time. We must have
all of him we could. Thedays were precious. Now we did not

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go to seek him. It wouldbe like well meeting the dead. And
we were afraid. We did notsay it. But that was what the
feeling was, and so it gaveus a shock. When we turned the
curve and came upon Nicholas face toface, he shouted gaily, Oh,

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Hi, what is the matter?Have you seen the ghost? But we
couldn't speak. But there was nooccasion. He was willing to talk for
us, all for he had seenSatan and was in high spirits about it.
Satan had told him about our tripto China, and he begged Satan

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to take him a journey, andSatan had promised it was to be a
far journey and wonderful and beautiful,and Nicholas had begged him to take us
too, but he said no,he would take us someday maybe, but
not now. Satan would come forhim on the thirteenth, and Nicholas was

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already counting the hours when he wasso impatient. Oh, that was the
fatal day. We were already countingthe hours too. We wandered many a
mile, always following pass which hadbeen our favorites from the days when we

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were little, and always we talkedabout the old times. All the blithe
this was with Nicholas. We otherscould not shake off our depression, our
tone towards Nicholas was so strangely gentleand tender and yearning that well, he

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noticed it and it was pleased.And we were constantly doing him deferential little
offices of courtesy and saying, oh, wait, let me do that for
you. Then that pleased him too. I gave him seven fish hooks all

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I had and made him take them, and Sebby gave him his new knife
and the humming top painted red andyellow. The moments for swindles practiced upon
him formally, as I learned later, and probably no longer remembered by Nicholas.
Now, Oh, these things touchedhim, and he said it could

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not have believed the that we lovedhim so, and his pride in it
and gratefulness for it cut us tothe heart. We were so undeserving of
them. When we parted at last, and he was radiant and said he

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had never had such a happy day. As we walked homeward, Seppy said
he always prized him, but neverso much as now. Then. We
are going to lose him next day. And every day we spent all of
our spare time with Nicholas, andalso added it to the time which we

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were and he stole from work andother duties, and this cost the three
of us some sharp scoldings and somethreats of punishment. Every morning, two
of us woke with a heart anda shudder, saying, as the days
flew along, only ten days left, Only nine days left, only eight,

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only seven. Always it was narrowing. Always Nicholas was gay and happy,
and always puzzled because we were not. He wore his invention to the
bone, trying to invent ways tocheer us up, but it was only
a hollow success. He could seethat our jollity had no heart in it,

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and that the laughs we broke intocame up against some obstruction or other
and suffered damage and decayed into asigh. He tried to find out what
the matter was so that he couldhelp us out of our trouble, or
make it lighter by sharing it withus. So we had to tell him

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many lies to deceive him and appeasehim. But the most distressing thing of
all was that he was always makingplans, and often they went beyond the
thirteenth. Whenever that happened, itmade us groan in spirit. All his

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mind was fixed upon some way toconquer our depression, and cheer us up,
and at last, when he hadbut three days to live, he
fell upon the right idea and wasjubilant over it, a boys and girl's
frolic and dance in the woods upthere where he first met Satan. And

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this was to occur on the fourteenth. Oh, it was ghastly, for
that was his funeral day. Wecouldn't venture to protest. It would have
brought away which we could not answer. He wanted us to help invite his

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guests, and we did it.One can refuse nothing to a dying friend.
But it was dreadful, for reallywe were inviting them to his funeral.
It was an awful eleven days.And yet, with a lifetime stretching

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back between today and then, theyare still a grateful memory to me and
beautiful in effect. They were daysof companionship with one sacred dead, and
I have known no comradeship that wasso close or so precious. We clung

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to the hours and the minutes,counting them as they wasted away, and
parting with them with that pain andbereavement which a miser feels who seize his
horde filched from him calling by coinby robbers, and is helpless to prevent
it. When the evening of thelast day came, we stayed out too

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long. Seppy and I were infault for that. We could not bear
to part with Nicholas, so itwas very late when we left him at
his door. We lingered near awhile listening, and that happened which we
were fearing. His father gave himpromise punishment, and we heard his shrieks.

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But we listened only for a moment, and then hurried away, remorseful
this thing which we had caused,and sorry for the father too, our
thought being if we only knew,if he only knew. In the morning,

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Nicholas did not meet us at theappointed place, so he went to
his home to see what the matterz. His mother said, Oer,
his father is out of all patiencewith these goings on, and I will
not have any more of it.Oh, half the time when Nick is

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needed, he is not to befound. Then it turns out that he
has been gadding around with you two. His father gave him a flogging last
night. Oh. It always grievedme before, and many the time I
have begged him off and saved him. But this time he appealed to me

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in vain, for I was outof patience myself. I wish you had
saved them just this one time,I said, my voice trembling a little.
It would ease a pain in yourheart to remember it some day.
She was ironing at the time,and her back was partly towards me.

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She turned about with a startled orwondering look in her face and said,
what do you mean by that?I was not prepared and didn't know anything
to say, so it was awkwardfor she kept looking at me, but
Seppy was alert and spoke up.Why, of course it would be pleasant

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to remember. For the very reasonwe were out so late was that Nicholas
got to telling us how good youare to him and how he never got
whipped when you were thereby to savehim. And he was so full of
it, and we were so fullof the interest of it that none of
us noticed how late it was gettingOh did he say that, did he?

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Oh? And she put her apronto her eyes. Oh, you
can ask Theodore. He will tellyou the same. Oh. It is
a dear good lad my nick,she said. I am sorry I let
him get VI. I will neverdo it again. To think all the

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time I was sitting here last night, fretting and angry at him. He
was loving me and praising me.Oh, dear, dear, if we
could only know, then we shouldn'tever go wrong. But we are only
poor, dumb beasts groping around andmaking mistakes. I shan't ever think of

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last night without a hang. Shewas like all the rest. It seemed
as if nobody could open a mouthin these wretched days without saying something that
made a shiver. They were gropingaround and did not know what true,

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sorrowfully true things they were saying.By accident, Seppy asked if Nicholas might
go out with us. Er,I am sorry, she answered, but
he can't. To punish him further, his father doesn't allow him to go

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out of this house today. Ohwe had great hope. I saw it
in Seppey's eyes. We thought,if he cannot leave the house, he
cannot be drowned. Seppy asked tomake sure we must stay in all day,
or only the morning all day.It's such a pity too. It's

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a beautiful day, and he isso unused to being shut up. But
he is busy planning his party,and maybe that is company for him.
I do hope he isn't too lonesome. Sebby saw that in her Eyevich emboldened

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him to ask if we might goup and help him pass the time and
welcome she said, right heartily.Now I call that real friendship, when
you might be abroad in fields andthe woods having a happy time. Oh
you are good boys. I'll allowthat, though you don't always find satisfactory

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ways of improving it. Oh thesecakes for yourselves, and give him this
one from his mother. The firstthing we noticed when we entered Nicholas's room
was the time a quarter two ten. What could that be correct? Only

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such a few minutes to live?I felt a contraction at my heart.
Nicholas jumped up and gave us aglad welcome. He was in good spirits
over his plannings for his parties,and had not been lonesome at all.
I'll sit down, he said,and look what I've been doing. And

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I finished a kite that you willsay is a beauty. It's drying in
the kitchen. I'll go and fetchit. He had been spending his penny
savings in fanciful trifles of various kindsto go as prizes in the games,
and they were marsh with fine andshowy effect upon the table. He said,

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examine them at your leisure while Iget mother to touch up the kite
with her iron if it isn't dryenough yet. Then he tripped out and
went clattering down the stairs whistling.We did not look at the things.
We couldn't take any interest in anythingbut the clock. We sat staring at

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it in silence, listening to theticking, and every time the minute had
jumped we nodded in recognition. Oneminute fewer to cover in the race for
life or for death. Finally,Seppi drew a deep breath and said,

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two minutes to ten. Seven moreminutes and we were past the death point.
He is going to be saved.He's going to hush. I'm on
needles, watch the clock and keepstill. H five minutes more. We
were panting with the strain and theexcitement. After three minutes and there was

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a footstep on the stair. Saved, and we jumped and faced the door.
The mother entered, bringing the kite. Or isn't it a beauty?
She said? And dear me,how he has slaved over it ever since

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daylight I think, and only finishedit a while before you came. She
stood it against the wall and steppedback to take a view of it.
Or he drew the pictures his ownself. And I think they are very
good. The church isn't so verygood, I'll have to admit. But

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look the bridge. Anyone can recognizethe bridge. In a minute, he
asked me to bring it up.Oh, dear me, it's seven minutes
past ten, and and I butthere is he. Oh he, Oh,
he'll be here soon. He's goneout a minute, gone out.

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Yes, Just as he came downstairs, Little Lisa's mother came in and said
the child had wandered off somewhere,and she was a little uneasy. I
told Nicholas to never mind about hisfather's orders, go and look her up.

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Why how why do you two do? Look? I do believe you
are sick. Now, now yousit down, I'll fetch something. Oh
no, that Keke has disagreed withyou. It is a little heavy,
but but I thought. She disappearedwithout finishing her sentence, and we hurried

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at once to the back window andlooked towards the river. There was a
great crowd at the other end ofthe bridge, and people were flying towards
that point from every direction. Oh, it is all over poor Nicholas.
A while Why did she let himget out of the house? Come away,

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said sebby half sobbing, Come quick, We can't bear to meet her.
In five minutes she will know.But we were not to escape.
She came upon us at the footof the stairs with her cordials in her
hand, and made us come inand sit down and take the medicine.

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Then she watched the effect, andit did not satisfied, so she made
us wait long and kept upbraiding herselffor giving us the unwholesome cake. Presently
the thing happened which we were dreading. There was a sound of tramping and

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scraping outside, and a crowd camesolemnly in with heads uncovered, and laid
the two drowned bodies on the bed. Oh my god, that poor mother
cried out and fell upon her kneesand put her arms about her dead boy,

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and began to cover the red facewith kisses. Oh, it was
I that sent you, and Ihave been his death. If I had
obeyed and kept him in the house, this would not have happened. And
I am rightly punished. I wascruel to him last night, and him
begging me his own mother, tobe his friend. And so she went

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on and on, and all thewomen cried and pitied her and tried to
comfort her, but she could notforgive herself and could not be comforted,
and kept on saying, if shehad not sent him out, he would
be alive and well now, andshe was the cause of his death.

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It shows how foolish people are whenthey blame themselves for anything that they have
done. Satan knows, and hesaid, nothing happens that your first act
hasn't arranged to happen and made inevitable, And so of your own motion,
you can't ever out of the skinor do a thing that will break a

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link. Next we heard the screams, and Fraubrandt came wildly, plowing and
plunging through the crowd, with herdress in disorder and hair flying loose,
and flung herself upon the dead childwith moans and kisses and pleadings and endearments.

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And by and by she rose up, almost exhausted with her outpourings of
passionate emotion, and clenched her fistand lifted it towards the sky, and
her tear drenched face grew hard andresentful, and she said, oh,

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for nearly two weeks, I havehad dreams and presentiments and warnings that death
was going to strike what was mostprecious to me. And day and night
and night and day, I havegroveled in the dirt before him, praying
him to have pity on my innocentchild and save it from harm. And

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here is his answer, why hehad saved it from harm? But she
did not know. She wiped thetears from her eyes and cheeks and stood
awhile, gazing down at the childand caressing its face and its hair with

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her hand. Then she spoke againin that bitter tone. But in his
hard heart is no compassion. Iwill never pray again. She gathered her
dead child to her bosom and strodeaway, the crowd fallen back to let

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her pass, and smitten dumb bythe awful verds they had heard, Ah,
that poor woman. It is asSatan said, we do not know
good fortune from bad, and arealways mistaking the one for the other.

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Many a time since then I haveheard people pray to God to spare the
life of sick persons, but Ihave never done it. Both funerals took
place at the same time in ourlittle church the next day. Everybody was
there, including the party guests.Satan was there too, which was proper,

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for it was on account of hisefforts that the funeral had happened.
Nicholas had parted his life without absolution, and the collection was taken up for
masses to get him out of purgatory. Only two thirds of the requir'd money

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was gathered, and the parents weregoing to try to borrow the rest,
but Satan furnished it. He toldus privately that there was no purgatory,
but he had contributed in order thatNicholas's parents and their friends might be saved
from worry and distress. He thoughtit very good of him, but he

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said money did not cost him anything. At the graveyard, the body of
little Lisa was seized for a debtby a carpenter, to whom the mother
owed fifty Grosian for work done theyear before. She had never been able

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to pay this and was not ablenow. The carpenter took the corpse home
and kept it four days in hiscellar. Oh the mother, ving and
imploring about his house all the time. Then he buried it in his brother's
cattle yard without religious ceremonies. Itdrove the mother wild with grief and shame,

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and she forsook her work and wentdaily about the town, cursing the
carpenter and blaspheme in the laws ofthe Emperor and the church. And it
was pitiful to see. Seppi askedSatan to interfere, but he said the

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carpenter and the rest were members ofthe human race and were acting quite neatly
for that species of animal. Hewould interfere if he found the horse acting
in such a way, and wemust inform him when we came across that
kind of horse doing that kind ofa human thing, so that he could

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stop it. Oh, we believeleave this was sarcasm, for of course
there wasn't any such horse. Butafter a few days we found that we
could not abide the poor woman's distress. So we begged Satan to examine her
several possible careers and see if hecould not change her to her profit to

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a new one. He said,the longest of her careers, as they
now stood, gave her forty twoyears to live, and the shortest one
twenty nine, and that both werecharged with grief and hunger and cold and

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pain. The only improvement he couldmake would be to enable her to skip
a certain three minutes from now,and he asked us if he should do
it. This was such a shorttime to decide, in that we went
to pieces with nervous excitement, andbefore we could pull ourselves together and ask

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for particulars, he said the timewould be up in a few more seconds.
So then we grasped out, doit. It is done? He
said, She was going round acorner. I have turned her back.
It has changed her career. Thenwhat would happened, Satan? It is

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happening now. She is having wordswith Fisher, the weaver. In his
anger. Fisher will straightway do whathe would not have done but for this
accident. He was present when shestood over her child's body and uttered those

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blasphemies. What will he do?He is doing it now, betraying her.
In three days she will go tothe stake. We could not speak.
We were frozen with horror, forif we had not meddled with her

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career, she would have been sparedthis awful fate. Sathan noticed these thoughts
and said, what you are thinkingis strictly human like, that is to
say, foolish. The woman isadvantaged die when she might she would go

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to heaven. By this prompt death, she gets twenty nine years more of
heaven than she is entitled to,and escapes twenty nine years of misery.
Here a moment before, we werebitter, making up our minds that we
would ask no more favors of Satanfor friends of ours, for he did

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not seem to know any way todo a personal kindness but by killing them.
But the whole aspect of the casewas changed now, and we were
glad of what he had done andfull of happiness in the thought of it.
After a little while, I beganto feel troubled about Fisher, and

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asked, timidly, does this episodechange Fisher's life? Scheme Satan change it?
Why? Certainly and radically. Ifhe had not met Fraubrandt a while
ago, he would die next year, thirty four years of age. Now

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he will live to be ninety andhave a pretty prosperous and comfortable life of
it as human lives go. Wefelt a great joy and pride in what
we had done. For Fisher,and were expecting Satan to sympathize with this
feeling. But he showed no sign, and this made us uneasy. We

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waited for him to speak, buthe didn't, so to assuage our solicitude,
we had to ask him if therewas any defect in Fisher's good luck.
Satan considered the question a moment,then said, with some hesitation,

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Well, the fact is it isa delicate point. Under his several former
possible life careers. He was goingto heaven. Oh we were aghast,
oh Satan, and under this one, they don't be so distressed. You

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were sincerely trying to do a kindness. Let that comfort you, Oh,
dear, dear, that cannot comfortus. You ought to have told us
what we were doing, that wewouldn't have acted so. But it made
no impression on him. He hadnever felt a pain or sorrow and did

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not know what they were in anyreally informing way. He had no knowledge
of them except theoretically, that isto say, intellectually, and of course,
well that is no good. Onecan never get any but a loose
and ignorant notion of such things,except by experience. We tried our best

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to make him comprehend the awful thingthat had been done and how we were
compromised by it. But he couldn'tseem to get hold of it. He
said he did not think it important. Where Fisher went through in heaven,
he would not be missed. Therewere plenty there. We tried to make

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him see that he was missing thepoint entirely, that Fisher and not other
people, was the proper one todecide about the importance of it. But
it all went for nothing. Hesaid, he did not care for Fisher.
There were plenty more Fishers. Thenext minute Fisher went by on the

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other side of the vay, andit made us sick and faint to see
him, remembering the doom that wasupon him and we with the cause of
it, and how unconscious he wasthat anything had happened to him. You
could see by the elastic step andhis alert manner that he was well satisfied

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with himself for doing that hard turnto poor frau Brandt. He kept glancing
back over his shoulder expectantly, andsure enough, pretty soon frau Brandt followed
after, in charge of the officersand wearing jingling chains. A mob was

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in her vake, jeering and shouting, blasphemer and heretic. And some among
them were neighbors and friends of herhappier days. Some were trying to strike
her, and the officers were nottaking as much trouble as they might to
keep them from it. Oh stopthem, Satan, It was out before

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will remember that he could not interruptthem for a moment without changing their whole
after lives. He puffed a littletowards them with his lips, and they
began to reel and stragger and grabat the empty air. Then they broke
apart and fled in every direction,shrieking, as if in intolerable pain.

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He had crushed a rib of eachof them with that little puff. We
could not help asking if their lifechart was changed, Yes, entirely.
Some have gained years, some havelost them. Some few will profit in
various ways by the change. Butonly that few. We did not ask

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if we had all poor fishes luckto any of them. We did not
wish to know. We fully believedin Satan's desire to do us kindness,
that we were losing confidence in hisjudgment. It was at this time that

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our growing anxiety to have him lookover our life charts and suggest improvements began
to fade out and give place toother interests. For a day or two,
the whole village was chattering turmoil overFraubrand's case and over the mysterious calamity

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that had overtaken the mob, andthat her trial the place was crowded.
She was easily convicted of her blasphemies, for she uttered those terrible words again
and said she would not take themback. When vaughned that she was imperiling
her life, she said they couldtake it in welcome. She did not

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want it. She would rather livewith the professional devils in perdition than with
those imitators in the village. Theyaccused her of breaking all those ribs by
witchcraft, and asked if she wasnot a witch. She answered scornfully no.

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If I had the power, wouldany of you holy hypocrites be alive
five minutes? No, I wouldtake you all dead, pronounce your sentence
and let me go. I amtired of your society. So they found

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her guilty, and she was excommunicatedand cut off from the joys of heaven
and doomed to the fires of hell. Then she was clothed in a coarse
robe, and delivered to the seculararm, and conducted to the marketplace,

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the bell solemnly tolding the vial.We saw her chain to the stake,
and saw the first thin film ofblue smoke rise in the still air.
Then her hard face softened, andshe looked upon the back crowd in front

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of her, and said, withgentleness, we played together once in long
ago days, when we were innocentlittle creatures. For the sake of that
I forgive you. We went awaythen and did not see the fire's consumer.

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Oh but we heard the shrieks,although we put our in our ears
when they ceased. We knew shewas in heaven, notwithstanding the excommunication,
and we were glad of her death, and not sorry that we had brought

(45:15):
it about. One day, alittle while after this, Satan appeared again.
We were always watching out for him, for life was never very stagnant
when he was by. He cameupon us at that place in the woods

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where we had first met him.Being boys, we wanted to be entertained.
We asked him to do a showfor us. Very well. He
said, would you like to seea history of the progress of the human
race? It's development of that productwhich it calls civilization. Shouldn't we said

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we should, so with a thought, he turned the place into the garden
of Eden, and we saw Abelpraying by his altar. Then came came
walking towards him with his club,and did not seem to see us,
and we would have stepped on myfoot if I had not drawn it in.

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He spoke to his brother in alanguage which we did not understand.
Then he grew violent and threatening,and we knew what was going to happen,
and turned away our heads for thatmoment. But we heard the crash
of the blows and heard the shrieksand the groans. Then there was silence,

(46:50):
and we saw Abel lying in hisblood and gasping out his life,
and Cain standing over him and lookingdown at him, vengeful and unrepentant.
Then the vision vanish'd and was followedby a long series of unknown vores,

(47:13):
murders, and massacres. Next wehad the flood and the ark tossing around
in the stormy waters, with loftymountains in the distance showing veiled and dim
through the rain. Sathan said,the progress of your race was not satisfactory.

(47:36):
It is to have another chance now, and the scene changed, and
we now saw Noah overcome with vine. Next we saw Sodom and Gomorrah,
the attempt to discover two or threerespectable persons there, as Satan described it.

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Next lot in the authors in thecave. Next came the Hebraic wars,
and we saw victims massacre the survivorsand their cattle, and save the
young girls alive and distribute them around. Next we had Jail and saw her

(48:19):
slip into the tent and drive thenail into the temple of her sleeping guest.
And we were so close that whenthe blood gushed out, it trickled
in a little red stream right toour feet, and we could have stained
our hands in it if we'd wantedto. Next we had Egyptian wars,

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Greek wars, Roman wars, hideousdrenchings of the earth with blood, and
we saw the treacheries of the Romantowards the Carthaginians, and the sickening speckle
of the massacre of the brave people. And we saw Caesar invade Britain,
not that those barbarians had done anyharm, but because he wanted their land

(49:07):
and desired to confer the blessings ofcivilization upon the widows and orphans, as
Satan explained, next Christianity was born. Then Ages of Europe passed in review
before us, and we saw Christianityand civilization march hand in hand through the

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ages, leaving famine and death anddesolation in their wake, and other signs
of the progress of the human race, as Satan observed, and all vas
v had wars and more wars,and still other wars all over Europe,

(49:54):
all over the world, sometimes inthe private interest of royal families, Satan
said, sometimes to crush a weaknation, but never a war started by
the aggressor for any clean purpose.There is no such war in the history

(50:15):
of the race. Now, saidSatan, you have seen your progress down
to the present, and you mustconfess that it is wonderful in its way.
We must now exhibit the future.He showed us slaughters more terrible in

(50:39):
their destruction of life, more devastatingin their engines of war than any we
had seen. You perceive, hesaid, that you have made continual progress.
Caine did his murder with the clubthat he rus to their murders with

(51:00):
javelins and swords. The Greeks andRomans added protective armor and the fine arts
of military organization and generalship. TheChristian has added guns and gunpowder. A
few centuries from now, he wouldhave so greatly improved the deadly effectiveness of

(51:22):
his weapons of slaughter that all menwill confess that without Christian civilization, war
must have remained a poor and triflingthing to the end of time. Then
he began to laugh in a mostunfeeling way, and made fun of the

(51:44):
human race. Although he knew thatwhat he had been saying shamed us and
wounded us. No one but anangel could have acted so. But suffering
is nothing to them. They donot know what it is except by hearsay.

(52:07):
More than once, Seppe and Itried in a humble and diffident way
to convert him, and as hehad remained silent, we have taken his
silence as a thought of encouragement.Necessarily, Then this talk of his was
a disappointment to us, for itshowed that we had made no deep impression

(52:30):
upon him. The thought made ussad, and we knew then how the
missionary must feel when he has beencherishing a glad hope and has seen it
blighted. We get our grief toourselves, knowing that this was not the
time to continue our work. Satanlaughed his unkind laugh to a finish.

(52:59):
Then he said, it is aremarkable progress. In five or six thousand
years, five or six high civilizationhave risen, flourished, commanded the wonder
of the world, then faded outand disappeared. And not one of them,

(53:21):
except the latest, ever invented anysweeping and adequate way to kill people.
They all did their best to kill, being the chiefest ambition of the
human race and the earliest incident inits history. But only the Christian civilization

(53:42):
has scored a triumph to be proudof. Two or three centuries from now
it will be recognized that all thecompetent killers are Christians. Then the pagan
world will go to school to theChristians, not to acquire his religion,

(54:04):
but his guns. The Turk andthe Chinaman will buy those to kill missionaries
and converts with. By this time, his theater of was at work again,
and before our eyes, nation aftera nation drifted by during two or

(54:28):
three centuries, a mighty procession ofendless processions, raging, struggling, following
through seas of blood, smothered inspittle smoke, through which the flags glinted,
and red jets from the cannon darted, And always we heard the thunder

(54:49):
of the guns and the cries ofthe dying. And what does it amount
to, ha ha ha, saidSatan with his evil chuckle. Nothing at
all. You gain nothing, Youalways come out where you went in.

(55:15):
For a million years, the racehas gone on, monotonously propagating itself and
monotonously reperforming this dull nonsense. Andto what end No wisdom can guess.
Who gets profit out of it?Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs

(55:40):
and nobilities who despise you, wouldfeel defiled if you touched them, would
shut the door in your face.If you propose to call whom you slave
for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it,

(56:01):
but proud whose existence is a perpetualinsult to you, and you are afraid
to resent it. Who are mendicantssupported by your arms, yet assumed towards
you, the heirs of many factortowards beggar, who address you in the

(56:25):
language of master to slave, andare answered in the language of slave to
master, who are worshiped by youwith your mouth, while in your heart,
if you have one, you despiseyourselves for it. The first man

(56:49):
was a hypocrite and a coward,qualities which have not yet failed in this
line. It is the foundation uponwhich all civilization have been built. Drink
to their perpetuation, Drink to theiraugmentation. Drink too. Then he saw

(57:10):
by our faces how much we werehurt, and he cut his sentence short
and stopped chuckling, and his mannerchanged. He said, gently, no,
we will drink one another's health,and let civilization go. The wine

(57:37):
which has flown to our hands outof space by desire is earthly and good
enough for that other toast. Butthrow away the glasses. We will drink
this one in wine which has notvisited this earth before. We obeyed and

(57:59):
reached, stopped, and received thenew cups as they descended. They were
shapely and beautiful goblets, But theywere not made of any material at which
we were acquainted with. They seemedto be in motion, They seemed to
be alive, and certainly the colorsin them were in motion. They were

(58:22):
brilliant and sparkling, and of everytint, and they were never still.
But flowed to and fro in richtides, which met and broke and flashed
out dainty explosions of enchanting color.I think it was most like opals washing

(58:45):
about in waves and flashing out theirsplendid fires. But there is nothing to
compare the vine with. We drankit and felt a strange and witching ecstasy,
as of Heaven go stealing through us. And Seppi's eyes filled, and

(59:08):
he said worshipingly, we shall bethere someday. And then he glanced furtively
at Satan, and I think hehoped Satan would say, yes, you
will be there someday, But Satanseemed to be thinking about something else and

(59:31):
said nothing. Oh this made mefeel ghastly, for I knew he had
heard nothing spoken or unspoken ever escapedhim. Poor Seppy. He looked distressed

(59:53):
and did not finish his remark.Those goblets rose and close their way into
the sky a triplet of radiant sundogs, and disappeared. Why didn't they
stay? It seemed a bad signand depressed me. Should I ever see

(01:00:17):
mine again? Would Seppi ever seehis? End of chapter eight