The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
they say--has a rich uncle down there.” And so on. He made his way at
once; everybody was anxious to know him and talk with him. Everybody
noticed how cool and fresh it was, all of a sudden, and wondered at it,
for they could see that the sun was beating down the same as before,
outside, and the sky was clear of clouds, but no one guessed the reason,
of course.
The astrologer had drunk his second beaker; he poured out a third. He
set the bottle down, and by accident overturned it. He seized it before
much was spilled, and held it up to the light, saying, “What a pity--it
is royal wine.” Then his face lighted with joy or triumph, or something,
and he said, “Quick! Bring a bowl.”
It was brought--a four-quart one. He took up that two-pint bottle and
began to pour; went on pouring, the red liquor gurgling and gushing
into the white bowl and rising higher and higher up its sides, everybody
staring and holding their breath--and presently the bowl was full to the
brim.
“Look at the bottle,” he said, holding it up; “it is full yet!” I
glanced at Satan, and in that moment he vanished. Then Father Adolf rose
up, flushed and excited, crossed himself, and began to thunder in his
great voice, “This house is bewitched and accursed!” People began to cry
and shriek and crowd toward the door. “I summon this detected household
to--”
His words were cut off short. His face became red, then purple, but he
could not utter another sound. Then I saw Satan, a transparent film,
melt into the astrologer's body; then the astrologer put up his hand,
and apparently in his own voice said, “Wait--remain where you are.” All
stopped where they stood. “Bring a funnel!” Ursula brought it, trembling
and scared, and he stuck it in the bottle and took up the great bowl
and began to pour the wine back, the people gazing and dazed with
astonishment, for they knew the bottle was already full before he began.
He emptied the whole of the bowl into the bottle, then smiled out over
the room, chuckled, and said, indifferently: “It is nothing--anybody can
do it! With my powers I can even do much more.”
A frightened cry burst out everywhere. “Oh, my God, he is possessed!”
and there was a tumultuous rush for the door which swiftly emptied the
house of all who did not belong in it except us boys and Meidling.
We boys knew the secret, and would have told it if we could, but we
couldn't. We were very thankful to Satan for furnishing that good help
at the needful time.
Marget was pale, and crying; Meidling looked kind of petrified; Ursula
the same; but Gottfried was the worst--he couldn't stand, he was so weak
and scared. For he was of a witch family, you know, and it would be
bad for him to be suspected. Agnes came loafing in, looking pious and
unaware, and wanted to rub up against Ursula and be petted, but Ursula
was afraid of her and shrank away from her, but pretending she was not
meaning any incivility, for she knew very well it wouldn't answer to
have strained relations with that kind of a cat. But we boys took Agnes
and petted her, for Satan would not have befriended her if he had not
had a good opinion of her, and that was indorsement enough for us. He
seemed to trust anything that hadn't the Moral Sense.
Outside, the guests, panic-stricken, scattered in every direction and
fled in a pitiable state of terror; and such a tumult as they made with
their running and sobbing and shrieking and shouting that soon all the
village came flocking from their houses to see what had happened, and
they thronged the street and shouldered and jostled one another in
excitement and fright; and then Father Adolf appeared, and they fell
apart in two walls like the cloven Red Sea, and presently down this lane
the astrologer came striding and mumbling, and where he passed the lanes
surged back in packed masses, and fell silent with awe, and their eyes
stared and their breasts heaved, and several women fainted; and when he
was gone by the crowd swarmed together and followed him at a distance,
talking excitedly and asking questions and finding out the
facts. Finding out the facts and passing them on to others, with
improvements--improvements which soon enlarged the bowl of wine to a
barrel, and made the one bottle hold it all and yet remain empty to the
last.
When the astrologer reached the market-square he went straight to a
juggler, fantastically dressed, who was keeping three brass balls in the
air, and took them from him and faced around upon the approaching crowd
and said: “This poor clown is ignorant of his art. Come forward and see
an expert perform.”
So saying, he tossed the balls up one after another and set them
whirling in a slender bright oval in the air, and added another, then
another and another, and soon--no one seeing whence he got them--adding,
adding, adding, the oval lengthening all the time, his hands moving so
swiftly that they were just a web or a blur and not distinguishable as
hands; and such as counted said there were now a hundred balls in the
air. The spinning great oval reached up twenty feet in the air and was
a shining and glinting and wonderful sight. Then he folded his arms
and told the balls to go on spinning without his help--and they did it.
After a couple of minutes he said, “There, that will do,” and the oval
broke and came crashing down, and the balls scattered abroad and rolled
every whither. And wherever one of them came the people fell back in
dread, and no one would touch it. It made him laugh, and he scoffed at
the people and called them cowards and old women. Then he turned and saw
the tight-rope, and said foolish people were daily wasting their money
to see a clumsy and ignorant varlet degrade that beautiful art; now they
should see the work of a master. With that he made a spring into the air
and lit firm on his feet on the rope. Then he hopped the whole length of
it back and forth on one foot, with his hands clasped over his eyes; and
next he began to throw somersaults, both backward and forward, and threw
twenty-seven.
The people murmured, for the astrologer was old, and always before
had been halting of movement and at times even lame, but he was nimble
enough now and went on with his antics in the liveliest manner. Finally
he sprang lightly down and walked away, and passed up the road and
around the corner and disappeared. Then that great, pale, silent, solid
crowd drew a deep breath and looked into one another's faces as if
they said: “Was it real? Did you see it, or was it only I--and was I
dreaming?” Then they broke into a low murmur of talking, and fell apart
in couples, and moved toward their homes, still talking in that awed
way, with faces close together and laying a hand on an arm and making
other such gestures as people make when they have been deeply impressed
by something.
We boys followed behind our fathers, and listened, catching all we could
of what they said; and when they sat down in our house and continued
their talk they still had us for company. They were in a sad mood, for
it was certain, they said, that disaster for the village must follow
this awful visitation of witches and devils. Then my father
remembered that father Adolf had been struck dumb at the moment of his
denunciation.
“They have not ventured to lay their hands upon an anointed servant
of God before,” he said; “and how they could have dared it this time I
cannot make out, for he wore his crucifix. Isn't it so?”
“Yes,” said the others, “we saw it.”
“It is serious, friends, it is very serious. Always before, we had a
protection. It has failed.”
The others shook, as with a sort of chill, and muttered those words
over--“It has failed.” “God has forsaken us.”
“It is true,” said Seppi Wohlmeyer's father; “there is nowhere to look
for help.”
“The people will realize this,” said Nikolaus's father, the judge, “and
despair will take away their courage and their energies. We have indeed
fallen upon evil times.”
He sighed, and Wohlmeyer said, in a troubled voice: “The report of it
all will go about the country, and our village will be shunned as being
under the displeasure of God. The Golden Stag will know hard times.”
“True, neighbor,” said my father; “all of us will suffer--all in repute,
many in estate. And, good God!--”
“What is it?”
“That can come--to finish us!”
“Name it--um Gottes Willen!”
“The Interdict!”
It smote like a thunderclap, and they were like to swoon with the terror
of it. Then the dread of this calamity roused their energies, and they
stopped brooding and began to consider ways to avert it. They discussed
this, that, and the other way, and talked till the afternoon was far
spent, then confessed that at present they could arrive at no decision.
So they parted sorrowfully, with oppressed hearts which were filled with
bodings.
While they were saying their parting words I slipped out and set my
course for Marget's house to see what was happening there. I met many
people, but none of them greeted me. It ought to have been surprising,
but it was not, for they were so distraught with fear and dread that
they were not in their right minds, I think; they were white and
haggard, and walked like persons in a dream, their eyes open but seeing
nothing, their lips moving but uttering nothing, and worriedly clasping
and unclasping their hands without knowing it.
At Marget's it was like a funeral. She and Wilhelm sat together on the
sofa, but said nothing, and not even holding hands. Both were steeped
in gloom, and Marget's eyes were red from the crying she had been doing.
She said:
“I have been begging him to go, and come no more, and so save himself
alive. I cannot bear to be his murderer. This house is bewitched, and
no inmate will escape the fire. But he will not go, and he will be lost
with the rest.”
Wilhelm said he would not go; if there was danger for her, his place was
by her, and there he would remain. Then she began to cry again, and it
was all so mournful that I wished I had stayed away. There was a knock,
now, and Satan came in, fresh and cheery and beautiful, and brought that
winy atmosphere of his and changed the whole thing. He never said a
word about what had been happening, nor about the awful fears which were
freezing the blood in the hearts of the community, but began to talk and
rattle on about all manner of gay and pleasant things; and next about
music--an artful stroke which cleared away the remnant of Marget's
depression and brought her spirits and her interests broad awake. She
had not heard any one talk so well and so knowingly on that subject
before, and she was so uplifted by it and so charmed that what she was
feeling lit up her face and came out in her words; and Wilhelm noticed
it and did not look as pleased as he ought to have done. And next Satan
branched off into poetry, and recited some, and did it well, and Marget
was charmed again; and again Wilhelm was not as pleased as he ought to
have been, and this time Marget noticed it and was remorseful.
I fell asleep to pleasant music that night--the patter of rain upon the
panes and the dull growling of distant thunder. Away in the night Satan
came and roused me and said: “Come with me. Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere--so it is with you.”
Then there was a fierce glare of sunlight, and he said, “This is China.”
That was a grand surprise, and made me sort of drunk with vanity and
gladness to think I had come so far--so much, much farther than anybody
else in our village, including Bartel Sperling, who had such a great
opinion of his travels. We buzzed around over that empire for more than
half an hour, and saw the whole of it. It was wonderful, the spectacles
we saw; and some were beautiful, others too horrible to think. For
instance--However, I may go into that by and by, and also why Satan