The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
The natives put down their baskets and made humble obeisance. Satan made
humble obeisance, too, with his fingers to his forehead, in the native
way, and said:
“Please let them have their pleasure for an hour, sir--only that, and
no longer. Afterward you may forbid them; and you will still have more
fruit than you and the state together can consume in a year.”
This made the foreigner very angry, and he cried out, “Who are you, you
vagabond, to tell your betters what they may do and what they mayn't!”
and he struck Satan with his cane and followed this error with a kick.
The fruits rotted on the branches, and the leaves withered and fell. The
foreigner gazed at the bare limbs with the look of one who is surprised,
and not gratified. Satan said:
“Take good care of the tree, for its health and yours are bound
together. It will never bear again, but if you tend it well it will live
long. Water its roots once in each hour every night--and do it yourself;
it must not be done by proxy, and to do it in daylight will not answer.
If you fail only once in any night, the tree will die, and you likewise.
Do not go home to your own country any more--you would not reach there;
make no business or pleasure engagements which require you to go outside
your gate at night--you cannot afford the risk; do not rent or sell this
place--it would be injudicious.”
The foreigner was proud and wouldn't beg, but I thought he looked as if
he would like to. While he stood gazing at Satan we vanished away and
landed in Ceylon.
I was sorry for that man; sorry Satan hadn't been his customary self
and killed him or made him a lunatic. It would have been a mercy. Satan
overheard the thought, and said:
“I would have done it but for his wife, who has not offended me. She is
coming to him presently from their native land, Portugal. She is well,
but has not long to live, and has been yearning to see him and persuade
him to go back with her next year. She will die without knowing he can't
leave that place.”
“He won't tell her?”
“He? He will not trust that secret with any one; he will reflect that
it could be revealed in sleep, in the hearing of some Portuguese guest's
servant some time or other.”
“Did none of those natives understand what you said to him?”
“None of them understood, but he will always be afraid that some of them
did. That fear will be torture to him, for he has been a harsh master
to them. In his dreams he will imagine them chopping his tree down.
That will make his days uncomfortable--I have already arranged for his
nights.”
It grieved me, though not sharply, to see him take such a malicious
satisfaction in his plans for this foreigner.
“Does he believe what you told him, Satan?”
“He thought he didn't, but our vanishing helped. The tree, where there
had been no tree before--that helped. The insane and uncanny variety of
fruits--the sudden withering--all these things are helps. Let him think
as he may, reason as he may, one thing is certain, he will water the
tree. But between this and night he will begin his changed career with a
very natural precaution--for him.”
“What is that?”
“He will fetch a priest to cast out the tree's devil. You are such a
humorous race--and don't suspect it.”
“Will he tell the priest?”
“No. He will say a juggler from Bombay created it, and that he wants the
juggler's devil driven out of it, so that it will thrive and be fruitful
again. The priest's incantations will fail; then the Portuguese will
give up that scheme and get his watering-pot ready.”
“But the priest will burn the tree. I know it; he will not allow it to
remain.”
“Yes, and anywhere in Europe he would burn the man, too. But in India
the people are civilized, and these things will not happen. The man will
drive the priest away and take care of the tree.”
I reflected a little, then said, “Satan, you have given him a hard life,
I think.”
“Comparatively. It must not be mistaken for a holiday.”
We flitted from place to place around the world as we had done before,
Satan showing me a hundred wonders, most of them reflecting in some
way the weakness and triviality of our race. He did this now every few
days--not out of malice--I am sure of that--it only seemed to amuse and
interest him, just as a naturalist might be amused and interested by a
collection of ants.
Chapter 11
For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came
less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always
made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our
tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one
day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while.
He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had
investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he
said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for
his return.
“And you are going away, and will not come back any more?”
“Yes,” he said. “We have comraded long together, and it has been
pleasant--pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see
each other any more.”
“In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?”
Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, “There is
no other.”
A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a
vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words
might be true--even must be true.
“Have you never suspected this, Theodor?”
“No. How could I? But if it can only be true--”
“It is true.”
A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before
it could issue in words, and I said, “But--but--we have seen that future
life--seen it in its actuality, and so--”
“It was a vision--it had no existence.”
I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. “A
vision?--a vi--”
“Life itself is only a vision, a dream.”
It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times
in my musings!
“Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world--the sun, the moon,
the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence.
Nothing exists save empty space--and you!”
“I!”
“And you are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but
a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream,
creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this,
then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the
nothingness out of which you made me....
“I am perishing already--I am failing--I am passing away. In a little
while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless
solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a
thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable,
indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself
and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!
“Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--centuries,
ages, eons, ago!--for you have existed, companionless, through all the
eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that
your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction!
Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane--like
all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet
preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy,
yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter
life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness
unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his
angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting
miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and
invented hell--mouths mercy and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and
forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who
mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon
crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then
tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of
honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with
altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship
him!...
“You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a
dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly
creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks--in a
word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks
are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.
“It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no
universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all
a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And
you are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless
thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he
had said was true.
A FABLE
Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and very beautiful
picture placed it so that he could see it in the mirror. He said, “This
doubles the distance and softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was
before.”
The animals out in the woods heard of this through the housecat, who was
greatly admired by them because he was so learned, and so refined and
civilized, and so polite and high-bred, and could tell them so much
which they didn't know before, and were not certain about afterward.
They were much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they asked
questions, so as to get at a full understanding of it. They asked what a
picture was, and the cat explained.
“It is a flat thing,” he said; “wonderfully flat, marvelously flat,
enchantingly flat and elegant. And, oh, so beautiful!”
That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they would give the
world to see it. Then the bear asked:
“What is it that makes it so beautiful?”
“It is the looks of it,” said the cat.
This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they were more
excited than ever. Then the cow asked:
“What is a mirror?”
“It is a hole in the wall,” said the cat. “You look in it, and there
you see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and
inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and
round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy.”
The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to throw doubts.
He said there had never been anything as beautiful as this before, and
probably wasn't now. He said that when it took a whole basketful of
sesquipedalian adjectives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for
suspicion.
It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect upon the
animals, so the cat went off offended. The subject was dropped for a
couple of days, but in the meantime curiosity was taking a fresh start,
and there was a revival of interest perceptible. Then the animals
assailed the ass for spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure
to them, on a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without
any evidence that such was the case. The ass was not troubled; he
was calm, and said there was one way to find out who was in the right,
himself or the cat: he would go and look in that hole, and come back and
tell what he found there. The animals felt relieved and grateful, and
asked him to go at once--which he did.
But he did not know where he ought to stand; and so, through error,
he stood between the picture and the mirror. The result was that the
picture had no chance, and didn't show up. He returned home and said: