When I looked in on Lilly that night after she was abed, her eyes were red and sheⒶalteration in the MS had been crying; but I found that the source of it was not Satan's indiscriminate ways, but only resentment against Marget for her attitude toward him. She thought it was scandalous in Marget to act so, considering that she already had a lover. I was surprised at this remark; it seemed illogical, and I said so.

“You are in love with Philip Traum yourself, and you had another lover.”

[begin page 109]

She flew out at me and said—

“The cases are not the same—they are far different.”

I suppose it was a mistake to ask her to point out the difference, but I did it, not knowing much about women then—nor now, probably. Her temper warmed up, and she said—

“If you can't see the difference, it would be useless for me to try to make you. Oh, you are so stupid!”

I could not see that that was an answer, and I said so. I said—

“Look at the cases—coolly and dispassionately—just as if it were other people, and you not concerned. There's Marget and Wilhelm, engaged; on the other side you and Joseph, as good as engaged. A stranger comes along, and you and Marget brush your lovers aside and fall in love with him. If it is scandalous in Marget, why then it seems to me—”

“Now that's enough—I don't want to hear any more about it. I never saw such a wandering mind.”

“Wandering mind, indeed! Where is my mind wandering, I'dⒶalteration in the MS like to know?”

“Yes, I should think you would. But don't try—nobody can find out. You'll only fatigue yourself.”

It was a shame to put me down like that and walk over me, so to speak, when I was certainly in the right. I ought to have known that when a woman gets her head set, particularly in a love matter, she hasn't any sense and isn't any more movable by argument than a stump is; but I was but a lad, and didn't know the crazy make of them.

I dropped the matter, since I had to, and then I went at the matter which I had mainly come to talk about. For Lilly's own happiness I wanted to save her while there was yet time, from irrevocably engaging her heart in this hopeless chase.Ⓐalteration in the MS So I led up to it in a grave and impressive introduction of some length, and when I believed I had sufficiently prepared her for the blow, I said—

“My dear, dear sister, be warned: he does not love you, and he never can.”

Storm-fires began to gather in her eyes, and she rose and sat up in [begin page 110] the bed and looked me over, much as a comet looks a little dog over that has been trying to help it conduct its excursionⒶalteration in the MS in the safest way.

“You think so!” she said. “I wish to ask you a question or two—you who are so fond of reasoning and arguingⒶalteration in the MS and inferring, and think yourself so competent in such matters. What do you know about Philip Traum? Nothing. Are you intimate with him? Certainly not. Is your mind capable of intimacy with a mind like his? Hardly. Have you ever encountered such a mind before? Answer me.”

“Well—no.”

“Is there any one else in the world who can bring out of a simpering old spinet the music of the spheres?”

“No.”

“Is there any one else who can carry four games of chess in his memory a week? Or transmute prose into poetry without reflection or preparation? Or turn a would-be assassin into a fireside comrade in ten minutes by the clock? Or do this?” and she drew that embroidery from under her pillow and displayed it. “Come—infer me an inference. What do you infer from these things?”

“Well, that he—that he is not like anybody else.”

She snatched at that as triumphantly as if I had given my whole case away:

“You've said it! Very well, then, since he is not like anybody else, it is argument that he is governed by laws that are not the laws whichⒶalteration in the MS govern otherⒶalteration in the MS people's actions. Do we know what the laws are which govern him?”

Of course I knew, but it was not my privilege to let out that fact, so I blinked the truth and said no.

“Very well, then, you see where you have landed. You don't know, and can't know, that he will never love me; so you need not bother yourself any more about the matter. Through my sympathies, my perceptions and my love I know him; know him as no one else knows him; know him as no one else can ever know him. And you shall not take my golden hope from me—no one shall! He will love me yet, and only me.”

[begin page 111]

There was a glory in her eyes that made her beautiful. I had not the heart to spoil it; so I kept back the words that were upon my lips: “Marget is probably saying these same things herself.”

I went to my bed with heavy thoughts. What a lot of dismal haps had befallen the village, and certainly Satan seemed to be the father of the whole of them: Father Peter in prison, on account of the money laid in his way by Satan,Ⓐalteration in the MS which furnished Father Adolf theⒶalteration in the MS handy pretext he needed; Marget's household shunned andⒶalteration in the MS under perilous suspicion on account of that cat's work—cat furnished by Satan; Father Adolf acquiring a frightful and odious reputation, and likely to be burnt at the stake presently—Ⓐalteration in the MSSatan responsible for it; my parents worried, perplexed, distressed about their daughter's new love-freak and the doubtfulness of its outlook; Joseph crushed and shamed; Wilhelm's heart broken and dissipation laying its blight upon his character, his ambition and his fair repute; Marget gone silly, and our Lilly following after; the wholeⒶalteration in the MS village prodded and pestered into a pathetic delirium about non-existent witches and quaking in its shoes: the whole wide wreck and desolation of hearts and hopes and industries the work of Satan's enthusiastic diligence and morbid passion for business. And he, the author of all the trouble, was the only person concerned that got any rapture out of it. By his spirits one would think he was grateful to be alive and improving things.Ⓐtextual note

I fell asleep to pleasant music presently—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—and so much, much further 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 [begin page 112] beautiful, others too horrible to think. For instance—however, I will go into that by and by,Ⓐalteration in the MS and also why Satan chose China for this excursion instead of anotherⒶalteration in the MS place—it would interrupt my tale to do it now. FinallyⒶalteration in the MS we stopped flitting, and lit.Ⓐalteration in the MS

We sat upon a mountain commanding a vast landscape of mountain-range and gorge and valley and plain and river,Ⓐalteration in the MS with cities and villages slumbering in the sunlight, and a glimpse of blue sea on the further verge. It was a tranquil and dreamy picture, beautiful to the eye and restful to the spirit. If we could only make a change like that whenever we wanted to, the world would be easier to live in than it is, for change of scene shiftsⒶalteration in the MS the mind's burdens to the other shoulder and banishes old shop-worn wearinesses from mind and body both.

We talked together, and I had the idea of trying to reform Satan and persuade him to lead a better life. I told him about all those things he had been doing, and begged him to be more considerate and stop making people unhappy. I said I knew he did not mean any harm, but that he ought to stop and consider the possible consequences of an act before launching it in that impulsive and random way of his; then he would not make so much trouble. He was not hurt by this plain speech, he only looked amused and surprised, and said—

“What, I do random things? Indeed I never do. I stop and consider possible consequences? Where is the need? I know what the consequences are going to be—always.”

“Oh, Satan, then how could you do those things?”

“Well, I will tell you, and you must understand it if you can. You belong to a singular race. Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department the other one stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain—maybe a dozen. In most cases the man's life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the unhappiness predominates—always; never the other. Sometimes a man's make and disposition are such that his [begin page 113] misery-machinery is able to do nearly all the business. Such a manⒶalteration in the MS goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he does, brings a misfortune upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind of a person life is not an advantage,Ⓐemendation is it? it is only a disaster. Sometimes, for an hour's happiness a man's machinery makes him pay years of misery. Don't you know that? It happens every nowⒶalteration in the MS and then. IⒶalteration in the MS will give you a case or two, presently.Ⓐalteration in the MS NowⒶalteration in the MS the people of your village are nothing to me—you know that, don't you?”

I did not like to speak out too flatly, so I only said I had suspectedⒶalteration in the MS it.

“Well, it is true that they are nothing to me. It is not possible that they should be. The difference between them and me is abysmal, immeasurable. They have no intellect.”

“No intellect?”

“Nothing that resembles it. At a future time I will examine whatⒶalteration in the MS man calls his mind and give you the details of that chaos,Ⓐalteration in the MS then you will see and understand. Men have nothing in common with me—there is no point of contact. They have foolish little feelings, and foolish little vanities and impertinences and ambitions, their foolish little life is but a laugh, a sigh, and extinction; and they have no sense. Only the Moral Sense. I will show you what I mean. Here is a red spider, not so big as a pin's head; can you imagine an elephant being interested in him; caring whether he is happy or isn't; or whether he is wealthy or poor; or whether his sweetheart returns his love or not; or whether his mother is sick or well; or whether he is looked up to in society or not; or whether his enemies will smite him or his friends desert him; or whether his hopes will suffer blight or his political ambitions fail; or whether he shall die in the bosom of his family or neglected and despised in a foreign land? These things can never be important to the elephant, they are nothing to him, he cannot shrink his sympathies to the microscopic size of them. Man is to me as the red spider is to the elephant.Ⓔexplanatory note The elephant has nothing against the spider, he cannot get down to that remote level—I have nothing against man. The elephant is indifferent, I am indifferent. The elephant would not take the trouble to [begin page 114] do the spider an ill turn; if he took the notion he might do him a good turn, if it came in his way and cost nothing. I have done men good service, but no ill turns.

“The elephant lives a century, the red spider a day; in power, intellect and dignity, the one creature is separated from the other by a distance which is simply astronomical. Yet in these and in all qualitiesⒶalteration in the MS man is immeasurably further below me than is the wee spider below the elephant.

“Man's mind clumsilyⒶalteration in the MS and tediously and laboriously patches little trivialities together, and gets a result—such as it is. My mind creates! Do you get the force of that? Creates anything it desires—and in a moment. Creates without materials; creates fluids, solids, colors—anything, everything—out of the airy nothing which is called Thought. A man imagines a silk thread, imagines a machine to make it, imagines a picture, then by weeks of labor embroiders it on a canvas with the thread. I think the whole thing, and in a moment it is before you—created.

“I think a poem—music—the record of a game of chess—anything—and it is there. This is the immortal mind—nothing is beyond its reach. Nothing can obstruct my vision—the rocks are transparent to me, and darkness is daylight. I do not need to open a book; I take the whole of its contents into my mind at a single glance, through its cover; and in a million years I could not forget a single word of it, or its place in the volume. Nothing goes on in the skull of any man, bird, fish, insect or other creature which can be hidden from me. I pierce the learned man's brain with a single glance, and the treasures which cost him three-score years to accumulate are mine; he can forget, and he does forget, but I retain.Ⓐalteration in the MS

“Now then, I perceive by your thoughts that you are understanding me fairly well. Let us proceed. Circumstances might so fall out that the elephant could like the spider—supposing he can see it—but he could not love it. His love is for his own kind—for his equals. An angel'sⒶalteration in the MS love is sublime, adorable, divine, beyond the imagination of man—infinitely beyond it! But it is limited to hisⒶalteration in the MS own august order. If it fell upon one of your race for only an instant it would consume its object to ashes.”

[begin page 115]

I thought of poor Marget and poor Lilly.

“Give yourself no uneasiness,” he said, “they are safe.Ⓐalteration in the MS No, we cannot love men, but we can be harmlessly indifferent to them; we canⒶalteration in the MS also like them, sometimes. I like you and the boys, I like Father Peter, and for your sakes I am doing all these things for the villagers.”

He saw that I was thinking a sarcasm, and he explained his position.

“I have wrought well for the villagers, though it does not look like it on the surface. Your race never know good fortune from ill. They are always mistaking the one for the other.Ⓐalteration in the MS It is because they cannot see into the future. What I am doing for the villagers will bear good fruit some day; in some cases to themselves, in others to unborn generations of men. No one will ever know that I was the cause, but it will be none the less true for all that. Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks over the next brick—and so on till all the row is prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the future, as I can, you would see everything that was ever going to happen to that creature; for nothing can change the order of its life after the first event has determined it. ThatⒶalteration in the MS is, nothing will change it, because each act unfailingly begets an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end, and the seer can look forward down the line and see just when each act is to have birth, from cradle to grave.”

“Does God order the career?”

“Foreordain it? No. The man's circumstances and environment order it. His first act determines the second and all that follow after. But suppose, for argument's sake, thatⒶalteration in the MS the man should skip one of these acts; an apparentlyⒶalteration in the MS trifling one, for instance: supposeⒶalteration in the MS it had been appointed that on a certain day, at a certain hour and minute and second and fraction of a second he should snatch at a fly, and he didn't snatch at the flyⒶalteration in the MS. That man's career would change utterly, from that moment; thence to the grave it would be whollyⒶalteration in the MS different from the career which his first act as a child had arranged for him. [begin page 116] Indeed it might be that if he had snatched at the fly he would have ended his career on a throne; and that omitting to do it would set him upon a career that would lead to beggary and a pauper's grave. For instance: if at any time—say in boyhood—Ⓐalteration in the MSColumbus had skipped the triflingest little link in the chain of acts projected and made inevitable by his first childish act, it would have changed his whole subsequent life and he would have become a priest and died obscure in an Italian village, and America would not have been discovered for two centuries afterward. I know this. ToⒶalteration in the MS skip any one of the billion acts in Columbus's chain would have wholly changed his life. I have examined his billion of possible careers, and in only one of them occurs the discovery of America. You people do not suspect that all ofⒶalteration in the MS your acts are of oneⒶalteration in the MS size and importance, but it is true: to snatch at an appointed fly is as big with fate for you as is anyⒶalteration in the MS other appointed act—”

“As the conquering of a continent, for instance?”

“Yes.

“Now then, no man ever does drop a link—the thing has never happened; even when he is trying to make up his mind as to whether he will do a thing or not, that itself is a link, an act, and has its proper place in his chain; and when he finally decides and acts, that also was the thing which he was absolutely certain to do. You see, now, that a man will never drop a link in his chain. He cannot. If he made up his mind to try, that project would itself be an unavoidableⒶalteration in the MS link—a thought bound to occur to him at that precise moment, and made certainⒶalteration in the MS by the first act of his babyhood.”

It seemed so dismal!

“He is a prisoner for life,” I said, sorrowfully, “and cannot get free.”

“No, of himselfⒶalteration in the MS he cannot get away from the consequences of his first childish act. But I can free him.”

I looked up wistfully.

“I have changed the careers of a number ofⒶalteration in the MS your villagers.”

I tried to thank him, but found it difficult, and let it drop.

[begin page 117]

“I shallⒶalteration in the MS make some other changes. You know thatⒶalteration in the MS little Lisa Brandt.”

“Oh, yes, everybody does. My mother says she is so sweet and so lovely that she is not like any other child. She says she will be the pride of the village when she grows up; and its idol, too, just as she is now.”

“I will change her future.”

“Make it better?” I asked, with some misgivings.

“Yes. And I will change the future of Nikolaus.”Ⓐalteration in the MS

I was gladⒶalteration in the MS, this time, and said—

“I don't need to ask about his case; you will be sure to do generouslyⒶalteration in the MS by him.”

“It is my intention.”

Straight off I was building that great future of Nicky's in my imagination, and had already made a renowned General of him and Hofmeister at the Court, when I noticed that Satan was waiting for me to get ready to listen again. I was ashamed of having exposed my cheapⒶalteration in the MS imaginings to him, and was expectingⒶemendation some sarcasms,Ⓐalteration in the MS but it did not happen. He proceeded with his subject:

“Nicky's appointed life is 62Ⓐalteration in the MS years.”

“That's grand!” I said.

“Lisa's, 36. ButⒶalteration in the MS as I told you, I shall change their lives. Two minutes and a quarter from now Nikolaus will wake out of his sleep and find the rain blowing in. It was appointed that he should turn over and go to sleep again. But I have appointed that he shall get up and close the window first. That trifle will change his career entirely. He will rise in the morning two minutes later than the chain of his life had appointedⒶalteration in the MS him to rise. By consequence, thenceforthⒶalteration in the MS nothing will ever happen to him in accordance with the details of the old chain.”

He took out his watch and sat looking at it a few moments, then said—

“Nikolaus has risen to close the window. His life is changed, his new career has begun. There will be consequences.”

It made me feel creepy, itⒶalteration in the MS was so uncanny.

[begin page 118]

“But for this change certain things would happenⒶalteration in the MS twelve days from now. For instance, Nikolaus would save Lisa from drowning. He would arrive on the scene at exactly the right moment—four minutes past 10—the long-agoⒶalteration in the MS appointed instant of time—and the water would be shoal, the achievement easy and certain. But he will arriveⒶalteration in the MS some seconds too late, now; Lisa will have struggled into deeper water. He will do his best, but both will drown.”

“Oh, Satan, oh, dear Satan,” I cried, with the tears rising inⒶalteration in the MS my eyes, “save them! don't let it happen, I can't bear to lose Nikolaus, he is my loving playmate and friend; and think of Lisa's poor mother!”

I clung to him and begged and pleaded, but he was not moved. He made me sit down again, and told me I must hear him out.

“I have changed Nikolaus's lifeⒶalteration in the MS, and this has changed Lisa's. If I had not done this, Nikolaus would save Lisa; thenⒶalteration in the MS he would catch cold from his drenching; one of your race's fantastic and desolating scarletⒶalteration in the MS fevers wouldⒶalteration in the MS follow, with pathetic after-effects: for forty-sixⒶalteration in the MS years he would lie in his bed a paralytic log, deaf, dumb, blind, and praying night and day for the blessed relief of death. Shall I change his life back?”

“Oh, no!Ⓐalteration in the MS Oh, not for the world, not for the world! In charity and pity,Ⓐalteration in the MS leave it as it is.”

“It is best so. I could not have changed any other link in his life and done him so good service. He had a billion possible careers, but not one of them was worth livingⒶalteration in the MS; they were charged full with miseries and disasters. But for my intervention he would do his brave deed twelve days from now,—a deed begun and ended in six minutes—and get for all reward those forty-six years of sorrow and suffering I told you of. It is one of the cases I was thinking of a whileⒶalteration in the MS ago when I said that sometimes an act which bringsⒶalteration in the MS the actor an hour's happiness and self-satisfaction is paid for—or punished? —by years of suffering.”

I wondered what poor little Lisa's early death would save her from. He answered the thought:

“From ten years of pain and slow recovery from an accident, and then from nineteen years of pollution,Ⓐalteration in the MS shame, depravity, crime, [begin page 119] ending with death at the hands of the executioner. TwelveⒶalteration in the MS days hence she will die; her mother would save her life if she could. Am I not kinderⒶalteration in the MS than her mother?”

“Yes—oh, indeed yes; and wiser.”

“Father Peter's case is coming on, presently. He will be acquitted, through unassailable proofs of his innocence.”

“Why Satan, how can that be? Do you really think it?”

“Indeed I know it. His good name will be restored, and the rest of his life will be happy.”

“I can believe it. To restore his good name will have that effect.”

“His happinessⒶalteration in the MS will not proceed from that cause. I shall change his life that day, for his good. He will never know his good name has been restored.”

In my mind—and modestly—I asked for particulars, but Satan paid no attention to my thought. Next, my mind wandered to Father Adolf, and I wondered where he might be.

“In the moon,” said Satan, with a fleeting sound which I believed was a chuckle. “I've got him on the cold side of it, too. He doesn't know where he is, and is not having a pleasant time; still, it is good enough for him. I shall need him presently; then I shall bring him back and possess him again. He has a long and cruel and odious life before him, but I will change that, for I have no feeling against him and am quite willing to do him a kindness. I think I will get him burnt.”

He had such strange notions of kindness. But angels are made so, and do not know any better. Their ways are not like our ways; and besidesⒶalteration in the MS, human beings are nothing to them; they think they are only freaks.

It seemed to me odd that he should put the priest so far away; he could have dumped him in Germany just as well, where he would be handy.

“Far away?” said Satan. “To me no place is far away; distance does not exist, for me. The sun is less than a hundred millionⒶalteration in the MS miles from here, and the light that is falling upon us has taken eight minutes to come; but I can make that flight, or any other, in a [begin page 120] fraction of time so minute that it cannot be measured by a watch. I have but to think the journey, and it is accomplished.”

I held out my hand and said—

“The light lies upon it; think it into a glass of wine, Satan.”

He did it. I drank the wine.

“Break the glass,” he said.

I broke it.

“There—you see it is real. The villagers thought the brass balls were magic-stuff and as perishable as smoke. They were afraid to touch them. You are a curious lot—your race. But come along, I have business. I will put you to bed.” Said and done. Then he was gone; but his voice came back to me through the rain and darkness, saying, “Yes, tell Seppi, but no other.”

It was the answer to my thought.

[ ] Ⓐtextual note

Sleep would not come. It was not because I was proud of my travels and excited about having been around the big world to China, and feeling contemptuous of Bartel Sperling, “the traveler,” as he called himself, and looked down upon us others because he had been to Vienna once and was the only EseldorfⒶalteration in the MS boy who had made such aⒶalteration in the MS journey and seen the world's wonders. At another time that would have kept me awake, but it did not affect me now. No, my mind was filled with Nikolaus, my thoughts ran upon him only, and the good days we had seen together at romps and frolics in the woods and the fields and the river in the long summer days, and skating and sliding in the winter when our parents thought we were at school. And now he was going out of this young life, and the summers and winters would come and go, and we others would rove and play as before, but his place would be vacant, we should see him no more. To-morrow he would not suspect, but would be as he had always been,Ⓐalteration in the MS and it would shock me to hear him laugh, and see him doⒶalteration in the MS lightsome and frivolous things,Ⓐalteration in the MS for to me he would be a corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes,Ⓐalteration in the MS and I should see the shroud around his face; and next day he would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time his handful of days would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming nearer and nearer, his fate [begin page 121] closing steadily around him and no one knowing it but Seppi and me. Twelve days—only twelve days. It was awful to think of. I noticed that in my thoughts I was not calling him by his familiar names, Nick and Nicky,Ⓐalteration in the MS but was speaking of him by his full name, and reverently,Ⓐalteration in the MS as one speaks of the dead. Also, as incident after incident of our comradeship came thronging into my mind out of the past, I noticed that they were mainly cases where I had wronged him or hurt him, and they rebuked me and reproached me, and my heart was wrung with remorse, just as it is when we remember our unkindnesses to friends who have passed behind the veil, and we wish we could have them back again, if for only a moment, so that we could go on our knees to them and say “Have pity, and forgive.”

Once when we were nine years old he went a long errand of nearly two miles for the fruiterer, who gave him a splendid big apple for reward, and he was flying home with it almostⒶalteration in the MS beside himself with astonishment and delight, and I met him, and he let me look at the apple, not thinking of treachery, and I ran off with it, eating it as I ran, he following me and begging; and when he overtook me I offered him the core, which was all that was left; and I laughed. Then he turned away, crying, and said he had meant to give it to his little sister. That smote me, for she was slowly getting well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud moment for him, to see her joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was ashamed to say I was ashamed, and only said something rude and mean, to pretend I did not care, and he made no reply in words, but there was a wounded look in his face as he turned away toward his home which rose before me many times in after years, in the night, and reproached me and made me ashamed again. It had grown dim in my mind, by and by, then it disappeared; but it was back, now, and not dim.

Once at school, when we were eleven, I upset my ink and spoiled four copy-books,Ⓐalteration in the MS and was in danger of severe punishment; but I put it upon him, and he got the whipping.

And only last year I had cheated him in a trade, giving him a large fish-hook which was partly broken through, for three small [begin page 122] sound ones. The first fish he caught broke the hook, but he did not know I was blameable, and he refusedⒶalteration in the MS to take back one of the small hooks which my conscience forced me to offer him, but said “a trade is a trade; the hook was bad, but that was not your fault.”

No, I could not sleep. These little shabby wrongs upbraided me and tortured me; and with a painⒶalteration in the MS much sharper than one feels when the wrongs have been done to the living. Nikolaus was living, but noⒶalteration in the MS matter: he was to me as one already dead. The wind was still moaning about the eaves, the rain still pattering upon the panes.

In the morning I sought out Seppi and told him. It was down by the river. His lips moved, but he did not say anything, he only looked dazed and stunned, and his face turned very white. He stood like that, a few moments, the tears welling into his eyes, then he turned away and I locked my arm in his and we walked along thinking, but not speaking. We crossed the bridge and wandered through the meadows and up among the hills and the woods, and at last the talk came, and flowed freely; and it was all about Nikolaus and was a recalling of the life we had lived with him. And every now and then Seppi said, as if to himself:

“Twelve days!—less than twelve.”

We said we must be with him all the time; we must have all of him we could, the days were precious, now. Yet we did not go to seek him. It would be like meeting the dead, and we were afraid. We did not say it, but that was what we were feeling. And so it gave us a shock when we turned a curve and came upon Nikolaus face to face. He shouted gaily—

“Hi-hi! what is the matter? Have you seen a ghost?”

We couldn't speak, but there was no occasion; he was willing to talk for us all, for he had just seen Satan and was in high spirits about it. Satan had told him about our trip to China, and he had begged Satan to take him a journey, and Satan had promised. It was to be a far journey, and wonderful and beautiful; and Nikolaus had begged him to take us, too, but he said no, he would take us some day, maybe, but not now. Satan would come for him on the [begin page 123] 13th, and Nikolaus was already counting the hours, he was so impatient.

ThatⒶalteration in the MS was the fatal day. We were already counting the hours, too.

We wandered many a mile, always following paths which had been our favorites from the days when we were little, and always we talked about the old times. All the blitheness was with Nikolaus; we others could not shake off our depression. Our tone toward Nikolaus was so strangely gentle and tender and yearning that he noticed it, and was pleased; and we were constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying, “Wait, let me do that for you,” and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks —all I had—and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow—atonements for swindles practised upon him formerly, as I learned later, andⒶalteration in the MS probably no longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These things touched him, and he said he could not have believed that we loved him so; and his pride in it and gratefulness for it cut us to the heart we were so undeserving of them. When we parted at last, he was radiant and said he had never had such a happy day.

As we walked along homewards, Seppi said—

“We always prized him, but never so much as now, when we are going to lose him.”