The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
a priest of God and his two poor juvenile helpers in crime. If it could
but speak, let us hope that it would be constrained to confess that of
all its conquests this was the basest and the most pathetic.”
He sat down. Wilhelm rose and said:
“From the testimony of the accuser I gather that he found this money
in a road more than two years ago. Correct me, sir, if I misunderstood
you.”
The astrologer said his understanding of it was correct.
“And the money so found was never out of his hands thenceforth up to a
certain definite date--the last day of last year. Correct me, sir, if I
am wrong.”
The astrologer nodded his head. Wilhelm turned to the bench and said:
“If I prove that this money here was not that money, then it is not
his?”
“Certainly not; but this is irregular. If you had such a witness it was
your duty to give proper notice of it and have him here to--” He broke
off and began to consult with the other judges. Meantime that other
lawyer got up excited and began to protest against allowing new
witnesses to be brought into the case at this late stage.
The judges decided that his contention was just and must be allowed.
“But this is not a new witness,” said Wilhelm. “It has already been
partly examined. I speak of the coin.”
“The coin? What can the coin say?”
“It can say it is not the coin that the astrologer once possessed. It
can say it was not in existence last December. By its date it can say
this.”
And it was so! There was the greatest excitement in the court while that
lawyer and the judges were reaching for coins and examining them and
exclaiming. And everybody was full of admiration of Wilhelm's brightness
in happening to think of that neat idea. At last order was called and
the court said:
“All of the coins but four are of the date of the present year. The
court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused, and its deep regret
that he, an innocent man, through an unfortunate mistake, has suffered
the undeserved humiliation of imprisonment and trial. The case is
dismissed.”
So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer thought it
couldn't. The court rose, and almost everybody came forward to shake
hands with Marget and congratulate her, and then to shake with Wilhelm
and praise him; and Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing
around looking on full of interest, and people walking through him every
which way, not knowing he was there. And Wilhelm could not explain why
he only thought of the date on the coins at the last moment, instead
of earlier; he said it just occurred to him, all of a sudden, like an
inspiration, and he brought it right out without any hesitation, for,
although he didn't examine the coins, he seemed, somehow, to know it was
true. That was honest of him, and like him; another would have pretended
he had thought of it earlier, and was keeping it back for a surprise.
He had dulled down a little now; not much, but still you could notice
that he hadn't that luminous look in his eyes that he had while Satan
was in him. He nearly got it back, though, for a moment when Marget came
and praised him and thanked him and couldn't keep him from seeing how
proud she was of him. The astrologer went off dissatisfied and cursing,
and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away. It was
Father Peter's for good and all, now.
Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself away to the jail
to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right. Marget and
the rest of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of
rejoicing.
Well, what Satan had done was this: he had appeared before that
poor prisoner, exclaiming, “The trial is over, and you stand forever
disgraced as a thief--by verdict of the court!”
The shock unseated the old man's reason. When we arrived, ten minutes
later, he was parading pompously up and down and delivering commands to
this and that and the other constable or jailer, and calling them Grand
chamberlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of the Fleet,
Field Marshal in Command, and all such fustian, and was as happy as a
bird. He thought he was Emperor!
Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed everybody
was moved almost to heartbreak. He recognized Marget, but could not
understand why she should cry. He patted her on the shoulder and said:
“Don't do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it is not
becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble--it shall be
mended; there is nothing the Emperor cannot do.” Then he looked around
and saw old Ursula with her apron to her eyes. He was puzzled at that,
and said, “And what is the matter with you?”
Through her sobs she got out words explaining that she was distressed to
see him--“so.” He reflected over that a moment, then muttered, as if to
himself: “A singular old thing, the Dowager Duchess--means well, but is
always snuffling and never able to tell what it is about. It is because
she doesn't know.” His eyes fell on Wilhelm. “Prince of India,” he said,
“I divine that it is you that the Crown Princess is concerned about.
Her tears shall be dried; I will no longer stand between you; she shall
share your throne; and between you you shall inherit mine. There, little
lady, have I done well? You can smile now--isn't it so?”
He petted Marget and kissed her, and was so contented with himself and
with everybody that he could not do enough for us all, but began to give
away kingdoms and such things right and left, and the least that any of
us got was a principality. And so at last, being persuaded to go home,
he marched in imposing state; and when the crowds along the way saw how
it gratified him to be hurrahed at, they humored him to the top of his
desire, and he responded with condescending bows and gracious smiles,
and often stretched out a hand and said, “Bless you, my people!”
As pitiful a sight as ever I saw. And Marget, and old Ursula crying all
the way.
On my road home I came upon Satan, and reproached him with deceiving
me with that lie. He was not embarrassed, but said, quite simply and
composedly:
“Ah, you mistake; it was the truth. I said he would be happy the rest of
his days, and he will, for he will always think he is the Emperor, and
his pride in it and his joy in it will endure to the end. He is now, and
will remain, the one utterly happy person in this empire.”
“But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn't you have done it
without depriving him of his reason?”
It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.
“What an ass you are!” he said. “Are you so unobservant as not to have
found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination?
No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a
fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those.
The few that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest are no
happier than the sane. Of course, no man is entirely in his right mind
at any time, but I have been referring to the extreme cases. I have
taken from this man that trumpery thing which the race regards as a
Mind; I have replaced his tin life with a silver-gilt fiction; you
see the result--and you criticize! I said I would make him permanently
happy, and I have done it. I have made him happy by the only means
possible to his race--and you are not satisfied!” He heaved a
discouraged sigh, and said, “It seems to me that this race is hard to
please.”
There it was, you see. He didn't seem to know any way to do a person
a favor except by killing him or making a lunatic out of him. I
apologized, as well as I could; but privately I did not think much of
his processes--at that time.
Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of continuous and
uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself from cradle to grave with
shams and delusions which it mistook for realities, and this made its
entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it imagined it
had and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded
itself as gold, and was only brass. One day when he was in this vein
he mentioned a detail--the sense of humor. I cheered up then, and took
issue. I said we possessed it.
“There spoke the race!” he said; “always ready to claim what it hasn't
got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings for a ton of gold-dust. You
have a mongrel perception of humor, nothing more; a multitude of you
possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a thousand low-grade
and trivial things--broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries,
absurdities, evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten thousand high-grade
comicalities which exist in the world are sealed from their dull
vision. Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these
juvenilities and laugh at them--and by laughing at them destroy them?
For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really
effective weapon--laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication,
persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug--push it a
little--weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can
blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter
nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other
weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a
race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage.”
We were traveling at the time and stopped at a little city in India and
looked on while a juggler did his tricks before a group of natives. They
were wonderful, but I knew Satan could beat that game, and I begged him
to show off a little, and he said he would. He changed himself into a
native in turban and breech-cloth, and very considerately conferred on
me a temporary knowledge of the language.
The juggler exhibited a seed, covered it with earth in a small
flower-pot, then put a rag over the pot; after a minute the rag began to
rise; in ten minutes it had risen a foot; then the rag was removed and a
little tree was exposed, with leaves upon it and ripe fruit. We ate the
fruit, and it was good. But Satan said:
“Why do you cover the pot? Can't you grow the tree in the sunlight?”
“No,” said the juggler; “no one can do that.”
“You are only an apprentice; you don't know your trade. Give me the
seed. I will show you.” He took the seed and said, “What shall I raise
from it?”
“It is a cherry seed; of course you will raise a cherry.”
“Oh no; that is a trifle; any novice can do that. Shall I raise an
orange-tree from it?”
“Oh yes!” and the juggler laughed.
“And shall I make it bear other fruits as well as oranges?”
“If God wills!” and they all laughed.
Satan put the seed in the ground, put a handful of dust on it, and said,
“Rise!”
A tiny stem shot up and began to grow, and grew so fast that in five
minutes it was a great tree, and we were sitting in the shade of it.
There was a murmur of wonder, then all looked up and saw a strange and
pretty sight, for the branches were heavy with fruits of many kinds and
colors--oranges, grapes, bananas, peaches, cherries, apricots, and so
on. Baskets were brought, and the unlading of the tree began; and
the people crowded around Satan and kissed his hand, and praised him,
calling him the prince of jugglers. The news went about the town, and
everybody came running to see the wonder--and they remembered to bring
baskets, too. But the tree was equal to the occasion; it put out new
fruits as fast as any were removed; baskets were filled by the score and
by the hundred, but always the supply remained undiminished. At last a
foreigner in white linen and sun-helmet arrived, and exclaimed, angrily:
“Away from here! Clear out, you dogs; the tree is on my lands and is my
property.”