Chapter 6

In a moment we were in a French village. We walked through a great

factory of some sort, where men and women and little children were

toiling in heat and dirt and a fog of dust; and they were clothed in

rags, and drooped at their work, for they were worn and half starved,

and weak and drowsy. Satan said:

“It is some more Moral Sense. The proprietors are rich, and very holy;

but the wage they pay to these poor brothers and sisters of theirs is

only enough to keep them from dropping dead with hunger. The work-hours

are fourteen per day, winter and summer--from six in the morning till

eight at night--little children and all. And they walk to and from the

pigsties which they inhabit--four miles each way, through mud and slush,

rain, snow, sleet, and storm, daily, year in and year out. They get

four hours of sleep. They kennel together, three families in a room, in

unimaginable filth and stench; and disease comes, and they die off like

flies. Have they committed a crime, these mangy things? No. What have

they done, that they are punished so? Nothing at all, except getting

themselves born into your foolish race. You have seen how they treat a

misdoer there in the jail; now you see how they treat the innocent

and the worthy. Is your race logical? Are these ill-smelling innocents

better off than that heretic? Indeed, no; his punishment is trivial

compared with theirs. They broke him on the wheel and smashed him

to rags and pulp after we left, and he is dead now, and free of your

precious race; but these poor slaves here--why, they have been dying for

years, and some of them will not escape from life for years to come. It

is the Moral Sense which teaches the factory proprietors the difference

between right and wrong--you perceive the result. They think themselves

better than dogs. Ah, you are such an illogical, unreasoning race! And

paltry--oh, unspeakably!”

Then he dropped all seriousness and just overstrained himself making fun

of us, and deriding our pride in our warlike deeds, our great heroes,

our imperishable fames, our mighty kings, our ancient aristocracies, our

venerable history--and laughed and laughed till it was enough to make a

person sick to hear him; and finally he sobered a little and said, “But,

after all, it is not all ridiculous; there is a sort of pathos about it

when one remembers how few are your days, how childish your pomps, and

what shadows you are!”

Presently all things vanished suddenly from my sight, and I knew what

it meant. The next moment we were walking along in our village; and down

toward the river I saw the twinkling lights of the Golden Stag. Then in

the dark I heard a joyful cry:

“He's come again!”

It was Seppi Wohlmeyer. He had felt his blood leap and his spirits rise

in a way that could mean only one thing, and he knew Satan was near,

although it was too dark to see him. He came to us, and we walked along

together, and Seppi poured out his gladness like water. It was as if he

were a lover and had found his sweetheart who had been lost. Seppi was

a smart and animated boy, and had enthusiasm and expression, and was

a contrast to Nikolaus and me. He was full of the last new mystery,

now--the disappearance of Hans Oppert, the village loafer. People

were beginning to be curious about it, he said. He did not say

anxious--curious was the right word, and strong enough. No one had seen

Hans for a couple of days.

“Not since he did that brutal thing, you know,” he said.

“What brutal thing?” It was Satan that asked.

“Well, he is always clubbing his dog, which is a good dog, and his only

friend, and is faithful, and loves him, and does no one any harm;

and two days ago he was at it again, just for nothing--just for

pleasure--and the dog was howling and begging, and Theodor and I begged,

too, but he threatened us, and struck the dog again with all his might

and knocked one of his eyes out, and he said to us, 'There, I hope

you are satisfied now; that's what you have got for him by your damned

meddling'--and he laughed, the heartless brute.” Seppi's voice trembled

with pity and anger. I guessed what Satan would say, and he said it.

“There is that misused word again--that shabby slander. Brutes do not

act like that, but only men.”

“Well, it was inhuman, anyway.”

“No, it wasn't, Seppi; it was human--quite distinctly human. It is not

pleasant to hear you libel the higher animals by attributing to them

dispositions which they are free from, and which are found nowhere

but in the human heart. None of the higher animals is tainted with the

disease called the Moral Sense. Purify your language, Seppi; drop those

lying phrases out of it.”

He spoke pretty sternly--for him--and I was sorry I hadn't warned Seppi

to be more particular about the word he used. I knew how he was feeling.

He would not want to offend Satan; he would rather offend all his kin.

There was an uncomfortable silence, but relief soon came, for that poor

dog came along now, with his eye hanging down, and went straight to

Satan, and began to moan and mutter brokenly, and Satan began to answer

in the same way, and it was plain that they were talking together in the

dog language. We all sat down in the grass, in the moonlight, for the

clouds were breaking away now, and Satan took the dog's head in his lap

and put the eye back in its place, and the dog was comfortable, and he

wagged his tail and licked Satan's hand, and looked thankful and said

the same; I knew he was saying it, though I did not understand the

words. Then the two talked together a bit, and Satan said:

“He says his master was drunk.”

“Yes, he was,” said we.

“And an hour later he fell over the precipice there beyond the Cliff

Pasture.”

“We know the place; it is three miles from here.”

“And the dog has been often to the village, begging people to go there,

but he was only driven away and not listened to.”

We remembered it, but hadn't understood what he wanted.

“He only wanted help for the man who had misused him, and he thought

only of that, and has had no food nor sought any. He has watched by his

master two nights. What do you think of your race? Is heaven reserved

for it, and this dog ruled out, as your teachers tell you? Can your race

add anything to this dog's stock of morals and magnanimities?” He spoke

to the creature, who jumped up, eager and happy, and apparently ready

for orders and impatient to execute them. “Get some men; go with the

dog--he will show you that carrion; and take a priest along to arrange

about insurance, for death is near.”

With the last word he vanished, to our sorrow and disappointment. We got

the men and Father Adolf, and we saw the man die. Nobody cared but the

dog; he mourned and grieved, and licked the dead face, and could not be

comforted. We buried him where he was, and without a coffin, for he had

no money, and no friend but the dog. If we had been an hour earlier the

priest would have been in time to send that poor creature to heaven, but

now he was gone down into the awful fires, to burn forever. It seemed

such a pity that in a world where so many people have difficulty to put

in their time, one little hour could not have been spared for this

poor creature who needed it so much, and to whom it would have made the

difference between eternal joy and eternal pain. It gave an appalling

idea of the value of an hour, and I thought I could never waste one

again without remorse and terror. Seppi was depressed and grieved, and

said it must be so much better to be a dog and not run such awful risks.

We took this one home with us and kept him for our own. Seppi had a very

good thought as we were walking along, and it cheered us up and made us

feel much better. He said the dog had forgiven the man that had wronged

him so, and maybe God would accept that absolution.

There was a very dull week, now, for Satan did not come, nothing much

was going on, and we boys could not venture to go and see Marget,

because the nights were moonlit and our parents might find us out if we

tried. But we came across Ursula a couple of times taking a walk in the

meadows beyond the river to air the cat, and we learned from her

that things were going well. She had natty new clothes on and bore a

prosperous look. The four groschen a day were arriving without a break,

but were not being spent for food and wine and such things--the cat

attended to all that.

Marget was enduring her forsakenness and isolation fairly well, all

things considered, and was cheerful, by help of Wilhelm Meidling. She

spent an hour or two every night in the jail with her uncle, and had

fattened him up with the cat's contributions. But she was curious to

know more about Philip Traum, and hoped I would bring him again. Ursula

was curious about him herself, and asked a good many questions about his

uncle. It made the boys laugh, for I had told them the nonsense Satan

had been stuffing her with. She got no satisfaction out of us, our

tongues being tied.

Ursula gave us a small item of information: money being plenty now,

she had taken on a servant to help about the house and run errands. She

tried to tell it in a commonplace, matter-of-course way, but she was so

set up by it and so vain of it that her pride in it leaked out pretty

plainly. It was beautiful to see her veiled delight in this grandeur,

poor old thing, but when we heard the name of the servant we wondered

if she had been altogether wise; for although we were young, and often

thoughtless, we had fairly good perception on some matters. This boy was

Gottfried Narr, a dull, good creature, with no harm in him and nothing

against him personally; still, he was under a cloud, and properly so,

for it had not been six months since a social blight had mildewed the

family--his grandmother had been burned as a witch. When that kind of

a malady is in the blood it does not always come out with just one

burning. Just now was not a good time for Ursula and Marget to be having

dealings with a member of such a family, for the witch-terror had risen

higher during the past year than it had ever reached in the memory of

the oldest villagers. The mere mention of a witch was almost enough to

frighten us out of our wits. This was natural enough, because of late

years there were more kinds of witches than there used to be; in old

times it had been only old women, but of late years they were of all

ages--even children of eight and nine; it was getting so that anybody

might turn out to be a familiar of the Devil--age and sex hadn't

anything to do with it. In our little region we had tried to extirpate

the witches, but the more of them we burned the more of the breed rose

up in their places.

Once, in a school for girls only ten miles away, the teachers found that

the back of one of the girls was all red and inflamed, and they were

greatly frightened, believing it to be the Devil's marks. The girl was

scared, and begged them not to denounce her, and said it was only fleas;

but of course it would not do to let the matter rest there. All the

girls were examined, and eleven out of the fifty were badly marked, the

rest less so. A commission was appointed, but the eleven only cried for

their mothers and would not confess. Then they were shut up, each by

herself, in the dark, and put on black bread and water for ten days and

nights; and by that time they were haggard and wild, and their eyes were

dry and they did not cry any more, but only sat and mumbled, and would

not take the food. Then one of them confessed, and said they had often

ridden through the air on broomsticks to the witches' Sabbath, and in a

bleak place high up in the mountains had danced and drunk and caroused

with several hundred other witches and the Evil One, and all had

conducted themselves in a scandalous way and had reviled the priests and

blasphemed God. That is what she said--not in narrative form, for she

was not able to remember any of the details without having them called

to her mind one after the other; but the commission did that, for they

knew just what questions to ask, they being all written down for the use

of witch-commissioners two centuries before. They asked, “Did you do so

and so?” and she always said yes, and looked weary and tired, and

took no interest in it. And so when the other ten heard that this one

confessed, they confessed, too, and answered yes to the questions. Then

they were burned at the stake all together, which was just and right;

and everybody went from all the countryside to see it. I went, too; but

when I saw that one of them was a bonny, sweet girl I used to play with,

and looked so pitiful there chained to the stake, and her mother crying

over her and devouring her with kisses and clinging around her neck, and

saying, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” it was too dreadful, and I went away.

It was bitter cold weather when Gottfried's grandmother was burned. It

was charged that she had cured bad headaches by kneading the person's

head and neck with her fingers--as she said--but really by the Devil's

help, as everybody knew. They were going to examine her, but she stopped

them, and confessed straight off that her power was from the Devil. So

they appointed to burn her next morning, early, in our market-square.

The officer who was to prepare the fire was there first, and prepared

it. She was there next--brought by the constables, who left her and went

to fetch another witch. Her family did not come with her. They might be

reviled, maybe stoned, if the people were excited. I came, and gave her

an apple. She was squatting at the fire, warming herself and waiting;

and her old lips and hands were blue with the cold. A stranger came

next. He was a traveler, passing through; and he spoke to her gently,

and, seeing nobody but me there to hear, said he was sorry for her.

And he asked if what she confessed was true, and she said no. He looked

surprised and still more sorry then, and asked her:

“Then why did you confess?”

“I am old and very poor,” she said, “and I work for my living. There

was no way but to confess. If I hadn't they might have set me free.

That would ruin me, for no one would forget that I had been suspected of

being a witch, and so I would get no more work, and wherever I went they

would set the dogs on me. In a little while I would starve. The fire is

best; it is soon over. You have been good to me, you two, and I thank

you.”

She snuggled closer to the fire, and put out her hands to warm them, the

snow-flakes descending soft and still on her old gray head and making

it white and whiter. The crowd was gathering now, and an egg came flying

and struck her in the eye, and broke and ran down her face. There was a

laugh at that.

I told Satan all about the eleven girls and the old woman, once, but

it did not affect him. He only said it was the human race, and what the

human race did was of no consequence. And he said he had seen it made;

and it was not made of clay; it was made of mud--part of it was, anyway.

I knew what he meant by that--the Moral Sense. He saw the thought in my

head, and it tickled him and made him laugh. Then he called a bullock

out of a pasture and petted it and talked with it, and said:

“There--he wouldn't drive children mad with hunger and fright and

loneliness, and then burn them for confessing to things invented for

them which had never happened. And neither would he break the hearts of

innocent, poor old women and make them afraid to trust themselves among

their own race; and he would not insult them in their death-agony. For

he is not besmirched with the Moral Sense, but is as the angels are, and

knows no wrong, and never does it.”

Lovely as he was, Satan could be cruelly offensive when he chose; and he

always chose when the human race was brought to his attention. He always

turned up his nose at it, and never had a kind word for it.

Well, as I was saying, we boys doubted if it was a good time for Ursula

to be hiring a member of the Narr family. We were right. When the people

found it out they were naturally indignant. And, moreover, since Marget

and Ursula hadn't enough to eat themselves, where was the money coming

from to feed another mouth? That is what they wanted to know; and in

order to find out they stopped avoiding Gottfried and began to seek his

society and have sociable conversations with him. He was pleased--not

thinking any harm and not seeing the trap--and so he talked innocently

along, and was no discreeter than a cow.

“Money!” he said; “they've got plenty of it. They pay me two groschen a

week, besides my keep. And they live on the fat of the land, I can tell

you; the prince himself can't beat their table.”

This astonishing statement was conveyed by the astrologer to Father

Adolf on a Sunday morning when he was returning from mass. He was deeply

moved, and said:

“This must be looked into.”

He said there must be witchcraft at the bottom of it, and told the

villagers to resume relations with Marget and Ursula in a private and

unostentatious way, and keep both eyes open. They were told to keep

their own counsel, and not rouse the suspicions of the household. The

villagers were at first a bit reluctant to enter such a dreadful place,

but the priest said they would be under his protection while there, and

no harm could come to them, particularly if they carried a trifle of

holy water along and kept their beads and crosses handy. This satisfied

them and made them willing to go; envy and malice made the baser sort

even eager to go.

And so poor Marget began to have company again, and was as pleased as

a cat. She was like 'most anybody else--just human, and happy in her

prosperities and not averse from showing them off a little; and she was

humanly grateful to have the warm shoulder turned to her and be smiled

upon by her friends and the village again; for of all the hard things to

bear, to be cut by your neighbors and left in contemptuous solitude is

maybe the hardest.

The bars were down, and we could all go there now, and we did--our

parents and all--day after day. The cat began to strain herself.

She provided the top of everything for those companies, and in

abundance--among them many a dish and many a wine which they had not

tasted before and which they had not even heard of except at second-hand

from the prince's servants. And the tableware was much above ordinary,

too.

Marget was troubled at times, and pursued Ursula with questions to an

uncomfortable degree; but Ursula stood her ground and stuck to it that

it was Providence, and said no word about the cat. Marget knew that

nothing was impossible to Providence, but she could not help having

doubts that this effort was from there, though she was afraid to say so,

lest disaster come of it. Witchcraft occurred to her, but she put the

thought aside, for this was before Gottfried joined the household, and

she knew Ursula was pious and a bitter hater of witches. By the time

Gottfried arrived Providence was established, unshakably intrenched,

and getting all the gratitude. The cat made no murmur, but went on

composedly improving in style and prodigality by experience.

In any community, big or little, there is always a fair proportion

of people who are not malicious or unkind by nature, and who never do

unkind things except when they are overmastered by fear, or when

their self-interest is greatly in danger, or some such matter as that.

Eseldorf had its proportion of such people, and ordinarily their good

and gentle influence was felt, but these were not ordinary times--on

account of the witch-dread--and so we did not seem to have any gentle

and compassionate hearts left, to speak of. Every person was frightened

at the unaccountable state of things at Marget's house, not doubting

that witchcraft was at the bottom of it, and fright frenzied their

reason. Naturally there were some who pitied Marget and Ursula for the

danger that was gathering about them, but naturally they did not say so;

it would not have been safe. So the others had it all their own way,

and there was none to advise the ignorant girl and the foolish woman and

warn them to modify their doings. We boys wanted to warn them, but we

backed down when it came to the pinch, being afraid. We found that we

were not manly enough nor brave enough to do a generous action when

there was a chance that it could get us into trouble. Neither of us

confessed this poor spirit to the others, but did as other people would

have done--dropped the subject and talked about something else. And I

knew we all felt mean, eating and drinking Marget's fine things along

with those companies of spies, and petting her and complimenting her

with the rest, and seeing with self-reproach how foolishly happy she

was, and never saying a word to put her on her guard. And, indeed, she

was happy, and as proud as a princess, and so grateful to have friends

again. And all the time these people were watching with all their eyes

and reporting all they saw to Father Adolf.

But he couldn't make head or tail of the situation. There must be an

enchanter somewhere on the premises, but who was it? Marget was not seen

to do any jugglery, nor was Ursula, nor yet Gottfried; and still the

wines and dainties never ran short, and a guest could not call for a

thing and not get it. To produce these effects was usual enough with

witches and enchanters--that part of it was not new; but to do it

without any incantations, or even any rumblings or earthquakes or

lightnings or apparitions--that was new, novel, wholly irregular. There

was nothing in the books like this. Enchanted things were always unreal.

Gold turned to dirt in an unenchanted atmosphere, food withered away and

vanished. But this test failed in the present case. The spies brought

samples: Father Adolf prayed over them, exorcised them, but it did no

good; they remained sound and real, they yielded to natural decay only,

and took the usual time to do it.

Father Adolf was not merely puzzled, he was also exasperated; for

these evidences very nearly convinced him--privately--that there was no

witchcraft in the matter. It did not wholly convince him, for this could

be a new kind of witchcraft. There was a way to find out as to this:

if this prodigal abundance of provender was not brought in from the

outside, but produced on the premises, there was witchcraft, sure.