Part 7
I pass my days in deep solitude. My earthly existence is beginning to trouble me. With every hour I seem to _forget_ what I have left behind the wall of _human_ things. My _eyesight_ is weakening. I can hardly see behind that wall. The shadows behind it scarcely move and I can no longer distinguish their outline. With every second my sense of _hearing_ grows duller. I hear the quiet squeak of a mouse, fussing beneath the floor but I am deaf to the thunders rolling above my head. The silence of delusion envelops me and I desperately strain my ears to catch the voices of frankness. I left them behind that impenetrable wall. With each moment _Truth_ flees from Me. In vain my words try to overtake it: they merely shoot by. In vain I seek to surround it in the tight embraces of my thoughts and rivet it with chains: the prison disappears like air and my embraces envelop nothing but emptiness. Only yesterday it seemed to me that I had caught my prey. I imprisoned it and fastened it to the wall with a heavy chain, but when I came to view it in the morning--I found nothing but a shackled skeleton. The rusty chains dangled loosely from its neck while the skull was nodding to me in brazen laughter.
You see, I am again seeking comparisons, only to have the _Truth_ escape me! But what can I do when I have left all my weapons at _home_ and must resort to your poor arsenal? Let God himself don this human form and He will immediately begin to speak to you in exquisite French or Yiddish and He will be unable to say _more_ than it is possible to say in exquisite French or Yiddish. God! And I am only Satan, a modest, careless, human Devil!
Of course, it was careless of me. But when I looked upon _your human_ life from _beyond_...no, wait: You and I have just been caught in a lie, old man! When I said from _Beyond_ you understood at once it must have been very far away. Yes? You may have already determined, perhaps, the approximate number of miles. Have you not at your disposal a limitless number of zeros? Ah, it is not true. My "_Beyond_" is as close as your "_Here_," and is no further away than _this_ very spot. You see what nonsense, what a lie you and I are pirouetting about! Cast away your meter and your scales and only listen as if behind your back there were no ticking of a clock and in your breast there were no counting machine. And so: when I looked upon your life from _Beyond_ it appeared to Me a great and merry game of immortal fragments.
Do you know what a puppets' show is? When one doll breaks, its place is taken by another, but the play goes on. The music is not silenced, the auditors continue to applaud and it is all very interesting. Does the spectator concern himself about the fate of the fragments, thrust upon the scrap heap? He simply looks on in enjoyment. So it was with me, too. I heard the beat of the drums, and watched the antics of the clowns. And I so love immortal play that I felt like becoming an actor myself. Ah, I did not know then that it is not a _play_ at all. And that the scrap heap was terrible when one becomes a puppet himself and that the broken fragments reeked with blood. You deceived me, my friend!
But you are astonished. You knit your brow in contempt and ask: Who is this Satan who does not _know_ such _simple_ things? You are accustomed to respect the Devil. You listen to the commonest dog as if he were speaking ex cathedra. You have surrendered to me your last dollar as if I were a professor of white and black magic and suddenly I reveal myself an ignoramus in the most elementary matters! I understand your disappointment. I myself have grown to respect mediums and cards. I am ashamed to confess that I cannot perform a single trick or kill a bedbug by simply casting my eye upon it, but even with my finger. But what matters most to me is truth: Yes, I did not know your _simplest_ things! Apparently the blame for this is for that _divide_ which separates us. Just as you do not know _my_ real Name and cannot pronounce a simple thing like that, so I did not know _yours_, my earthly shadow, and only now, in great ecstasy do I begin to grasp the wealth that is in you. Think of it: such a simple matter as counting I had to learn from Wondergood. I would not even be able to button my attire if it were not for the experienced and dexterous fingers of that fine chap Wondergood!
Now I am human, like you. The limited sensation of my being I regard as my _knowledge_ and with respect I now touch my own nose, when necessity arises: it is not merely a nose--it is an axiom! I am now myself a struggling doll in a theater of marionettes. My porcelain head moves to the right and to the left. My hands move up and down. I am merry, I am gay. I am at play. I know everything...except: whose hand it is that pulls the string behind Me. And in the distance I can see the scrap heap from which protrude two little feet clad in ball slippers....
No, this is not the _play_ of the _Immortal_ that I sought. It no more resembles merriment than do the convulsions of an epileptic a good negro dance! Here any one is what he is and here every one seeks not to be what he is. And it is this endless process of fraud that I mistook for a merry theater: what a mistake, how silly it was of "almighty, immortal"...Satan! Here every one is dragging every one else to court: the living are dragging the dead, the dead--the living. The history of the former is the history of the latter. And God, too, is History! And this endless nonsense, this dirty stream of false witnesses, of perjurers, of false judges and false scoundrels I mistook for the _play_ of immortals! Or have I landed in the _wrong_ place? Tell Me, stranger: whither does _this_ road lead? You are pale. Your trembling finger points in the direction of...ah, the scrap heap!
Yesterday, I questioned Toppi about his former life, the first time he donned the human form: I wanted to know how a doll feels when its head is cracking and the thread which moves it is severed. We lit our pipes and with steins of beer before us, like two good Germans, we ventured into the realm of philosophy. It developed, however, that this numbskull has _forgotten_ everything and my questions only confused him.
"Is it possible that you have really forgotten everything, Toppi!"
"Wait till you die and you will learn all about it yourself. I do not like to think of it. What good is it?"
"Then it is not good?"
"And have you ever heard of any one praising it?"
"Quite true. No one has yet showered praises upon it."
"And no one will, I know!"
We sat silent.
"And do you remember, Toppi, whence you have come?"
"From Illinois,--the same place you come from."
"No, I am speaking of _something else_. Do you remember whence you came? Do you recollect your real Name?"
Toppi looked at me strangely, paled slightly and proceeded to clean his pipe. Then he arose and without lifting his eyes, said:
"I beg you not to speak to me _thus_, Mr. Wondergood. I am an honest citizen of the United States and I do not understand your insinuations."
But he remembers. Not in vain did he grow pale. He is seeking to forget and will forget soon enough! This double play of earth and heaven is too much for him and he has surrendered entirely to the earth! There will come a time when he will take me off to an insane asylum or betray me to Cardinal X. if I dare to speak to him of Satan.
"I respect you, Toppi. You are quite a man," I said and kissed his brow: I always kiss the brow of people I love.
Again I departed for the green Campagna desert: I follow the best models: when I am ill at ease I go into the desert. There I called for Satan and cursed his name but he would not answer me. I lay there long in the dust, pleading, when from somewhere in the depths of the desert I heard the muffled tread of feet, and a bright light helped Me to arise. And again I saw the Eden I had left behind, its green tents and unfading sunrise, its quiet lights upon the placid waters. And again I _heard_ the silent murmurs of lips born of Immaculate Conception while toward my eyes I saw approaching Truth. And I stretched out my hands to Her and pleaded: Give me back my liberty!--
"_Maria!_"
Who called: Maria? Satan again departed, the lights upon the placid waters were extinguished and Truth, frightened, disappeared--and again I sit upon the earth wearing my human form and gazing dully upon the painted world. And on my knees rested my shackled hands.
"Maria!"
...It is painful for me to admit that all this is really an invention: the coming of Satan with his "light and ringing step," the gardens of Eden and my shackled hands. But I needed your attention and I could not get it without these gardens of Eden and these chains, the two extremes of your life. The gardens of Eden--how beautiful! Chains--how terrible! Moreover, all this talk is much more entertaining than merely squatting on a hill, cigar in one's _free_ hand, thinking lazily and yawning while awaiting the arrival of the chauffeur. And as far as _Maria_ is concerned, I brought her into the situation because from afar I could see the black cypress trees above the Magnus home. An involuntary association of ideas...you understand.
Can a man with such sight really see Satan? Can a person of such dull _ear_ hear the so-called "murmurs" born of Immaculate Conception? Nonsense! And, please, I beg of you, call Me just Wondergood. Call me just Wondergood until the day when I crack my skull open with that plaything which opens the _most narrow_ door into _limitless_ space. Call me just Henry Wondergood, of Illinois: you will find that I will respond promptly and obligingly.
But if, some day, you should find my head crushed, examine carefully its _fragments_: there, in red ink will be engraved the proud name of Satan! Bend thy head, in reverence and bow to him--but do not do me the honor of accompanying my fragments to the scrap heap: one should never bow so respectfully to chains cast off!
March 9, 1914. Rome, Villa Orsini.
Last night I had an important conversation with Thomas Magnus. When Maria had retired I began as usual to prepare to return home but Magnus detained me.
"Why go, Mr. Wondergood? Stay here for the night. Stay here and listen to the barking of Mars!"
For several days dense clouds had been gathering over Rome and a heavy rain had been beating down upon its walls and ruins. This morning I read in a newspaper a very portentous weather bulletin: _cielo nuvolo il vento forte e mare molto agitato._ Toward evening the threat turned into a storm and the enraged sea hurled across a range of ninety miles its moist odors upon the walls of Rome. And the real Roman sea, the billowy Campagna, sang forth with all the voices of the tempest, like the ocean, and at moments it seemed that its immovable hills, its ancient waves, long evaporated by the sun, had once more come to life and moved forward upon the city walls. Mad Mars, this creator of terror and tempest, flew like an arrow across its wide spaces, crushed the head of every blade of grass to the ground, sighed and panted and hurled heavy gusts of wind into the whining cypress trees. Occasionally he would seize and hurl the nearest objects he could lay his hands upon: the brick roofs of the houses shook beneath his blows and their stone walls roared as if inside the very stones the imprisoned wind was gasping and seeking an escape.
We listened to the storm all evening. Maria was calm but Magnus was visibly nervous, constantly rubbed his white hands and listened intently to the antics of the wind: to its murderous whistle, its roar and its signs, its laughter and its groans...the wild-haired artist was cunning enough to be slayer and victim, to strangle and to plead for mercy at one and the same time! If Magnus had the moving ears of an animal, they would have remained immovable. His thin nose trembled, his dim eyes grew dark, as if they reflected the shadows of the clouds, his thin lips were twisted into a quick and strange smile. I, too, was quite excited: it was the first time since I became human I had heard such a storm and it raised in me a white terror: almost with the horror of a child I avoided the windows, beyond which lay the night. Why does it not come here, I thought: can the window pane possibly keep it out if it should wish to break through?...
Some one knocked at the iron gates several times, the gates at which I and Toppi once knocked for admission.
"That is my chauffeur, who has come to fetch me," said I: "we must admit him."
Magnus glanced at me from the corner of his eye and remarked sadly:
"There is no road on that side of the house. There is nothing but field there. That is mad Mars who is begging for admittance."
And as if he had actually heard his words, Mars broke out into laughter and disappeared whistling. But the knocking was soon resumed. It seemed as if some one were tearing off the iron gates and several voices, shouting and interrupting each other, were anxiously speaking; an infant was heard weeping.
"Those must be people who have lost their way...you hear--an infant! We must open the gates."
"Well, we'll see," said Magnus angrily.
"I will go with you, Magnus."
"Sit still, Wondergood. This friend of mine, here, is quite enough...." He quickly drew _that_ revolver from the table drawer and with a peculiar expression of love and even gentleness he grasped it in his broad hand and carefully hid it in his pocket. He walked out and we could hear the cry that met him at the gate.
On that evening I somehow avoided Maria's eyes and I felt quite ill at ease when we were left alone. And suddenly I felt like sinking to the floor, and kneeling before her so that her dress might touch my face: I felt as if I had hair on my back, that sparks would at any moment begin to fly if some one were to touch it and that this would relieve me. Thus, in my mind, I moved closer and closer to Her, when Magnus returned and silently put the revolver back into the drawer. The voices at the door had ceased and the knocking, too.
"Who was that?"...asked Maria.
Magnus angrily shook off the drops of rain upon his coat.
"Crazy Mars. Who else did you expect?"
"But I thought I heard you speak to him?" I jested, trying to conceal the shiver produced by the cold brought in by Magnus.
"Yes, I told him it was not polite--to drag about with him such suspicious company. He excused himself and said he would come no more," Magnus laughed and added: "I am convinced that all the murderers of Rome and the Campagna are to-night threatening to ambush people and hugging their stilettos as if they were their sweethearts...."
Again came a muffled and timid knock.
"Again!" cried Magnus, angrily, as if Mad Mars had really promised to knock no more. But the knock was followed by the ring of a bell: it was my chauffeur. Maria retired, while I, as I have already said, had been invited by Magnus to remain overnight, to which I agreed, after some hesitation: I was not at all taken by Magnus and his revolver, and still less was I attracted by the silly darkness.
The kind host himself went out to dismiss the chauffeur. Through the window I could see the bright lights of the lanterns of the machine and for a moment I yearned to return home to my pleasant sinners, who were probably imbibing their wine at that moment in expectation of my return.... Ah, I have long since abandoned philanthropy and am now leading the life of a drunkard and a gambler. And again, as on that first night, the quiet little white house, this _soul_ of Maria, looked terrible and suspicious: this revolver, these stains of _blood_ upon the white hands...and, maybe there are more stains like these here.
But it was too late to change my mind. The machine had gone and Magnus, by the light, had not a _blue_, but a very black and beautiful beard and his eyes were smiling pleasantly. In his broad hand he carried not a weapon, but two bottles of wine, and from afar he shouted merrily:
"On a night like this there is but one thing to do, to drink wine. Even Mars, when I spoke to him, looked drunk to me...the rogue! Your glass, Mr. Wondergood!"
But when the glasses had been filled, this merry drunkard hardly touched the wine and sitting deep in his chair asked me to drink and to talk. Without particular enthusiasm, listening to the noise of the wind and thinking about the length of the night before us, I told Magnus of the new and insistent visits of Cardinal X. It seemed to me that the Cardinal had actually put spies on my trail and what is more strange: he has managed to gain quite an influence over the unbribable Toppi. Toppi is still the same devoted friend of mine but he seems to have grown sad, goes to confessional every day and is trying to persuade me to accept Catholicism.
Magnus listened calmly to my story and with still greater reluctance I told him of the many unsuccessful efforts to open my purse: of the endless petitions, badly written, in which the truth appears to be falsehood because of the boresome monotony of tears, bows and naïve flattery; of crazy inventors, of all sorts of people with hasty projects, gentlemen who seek to utilize as quickly as possible their temporary absence from jail--of all this hungry mass of humanity aroused by the smell of _weakly_ protected billions. My secretaries--there are six of them now--hardly manage to handle all this mess of tears on paper, and the madly babbling fools who fill the doors of my palace.
"I fear that I will have to build me an underground exit: they are watching me even at nights. They are aiming at me with picks and shovels, as if they were in the Klondike. The nonsense published by these accursed newspapers about the billions I am ready to give away to every fool displaying a wound in his leg, or an empty pocket, has driven them out of their senses. I believe that some night they will divide me into portions and eat me. They are organizing regular pilgrimages to my palace and come with huge bags. My ladies, who regard me as their property, have found for me a little Dante Inferno, where we take daily walks in company with the society that storms my place. Yesterday we examined an old witch whose entire worth consists in the fact that she has outlived her husband, her children and her grandchildren, and is now in need of snuff. And some angry old man refused to be consoled and even would not take any money until all of us had smelled the old putrid wound in his foot. It was indeed a horrible odor. This cross old fellow is the pride of my ladies, and like all favorites, he is capricious, and temperamental. And...are you tired of listening to me, Magnus. I could tell you of a whole flock of ragged fathers, hungry children, green and rotten like certain kinds of cheese, of noble geniuses who despise me like a negro, of clever drunkards with merry, red noses.... My ladies are not very keen on drunkards, but I love them better than any other kind of goods. And how do you feel about it, Signor Magnus?"
Magnus was silent. I too was tired of talking. Mad Mars alone continued his antics: he was now ensconced upon the roof, trying to bite a hole in the center, and crushing the tiles as he would a lump of sugar. Magnus broke the silence:
"The newspapers seem to have little to say about you recently. What is the matter?"
"I pay the interviewers not to write anything. At first I drove them away but they began interviewing my horses and now I pay them for their silence by the line. Have you a customer for my villa, Magnus? I shall sell it together with the artists and the rest of its paraphernalia."
We again grew silent and paced up and down the room: Magnus rose first and then sat down. I followed and sat down too. In addition, I drank two more glasses of wine while Magnus drank none.... His nose is never red. Suddenly he said with determination:
"Do not drink any more wine, Wondergood."
"Oh, very well. I want no more wine. Is that all?"
Magnus continued to question me at long intervals. His voice was sharp and stern, while mine was...melodious, I would say.
"There has been a great change in you, Wondergood."
"Quite possible, thank you, Magnus."
"There used to be more life in you. Now you rarely jest. You have become very morose, Wondergood."
"Oh!"
"You have even grown thin and your brow is sallow. Is it true that you get drunk every night in the company of your...friends?"
"It seems so."
"...that you play cards, squander your gold, and that recently some one had been nearly murdered at your table?"
"I fear that is true. I recollect that one gentleman actually tried to pierce another gentleman with his fork. And how do you know all about that?"
He replied sternly and significantly:
"Toppi was here yesterday. He wanted to see...Maria but I myself received him. With all due respect to you, Wondergood, I must say that your secretary is unusually stupid."
I acquiesced coldly.
"You are quite right. You should have driven him out."
I must say for my part, that my last two glasses of wine evaporated from me at the mention of _Maria's_ name, and our attempted conversation was marked by continued evaporation of the wine I drank, like perfume out of a bottle. I have always regarded wine as unreliable matter. We found ourselves again listening to the storm and I remarked:
"The wind seems to be growing more violent, Signor Magnus."
"Yes, the wind seems to be growing more violent, Mr. Wondergood. But you must admit that I warned you beforehand, Mr. Wondergood."
"Of what did you warn me beforehand, Signor Magnus?"