Next day and every day we spent all of our spare time with Nikolaus; and also added to it time which we (and he) stole from work and other duties, and this cost the three of us some sharp scoldings and some threats of punishment. Every morning two of us woke with a start and a shudder, saying, as the days flew along, “Only ten days left;” “only nine days left;” “only eight;” “only seven.” Always it was narrowing. Always Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled because we were not. He wore his [begin page 124] invention to the bone, trying to invent ways to cheer us up, but it was only a hollow success; he could see that our jollity had no heart in it, and that the laughs we broke into came up against some obstruction or other and suffered damage and decayed into a sigh. He tried to find out what theⒶalteration in the MS matter was, so that he could help us out of our trouble or make it lighter by sharing it with us; so we had to tell many lies to deceive him andⒶalteration in the MS appease him.

But the most distressing thing of allⒶalteration in the MS was, that he was always making plans, and often they went beyond the 13th! Whenever that happened, it made us groan in spirit. All his mind was fixed upon finding some way to conquer our depression and cheer us up; and at last, when he had but three days to live, he fell upon the right idea and was jubilant over it: a boys' and girls' frolic and dance in the woods, up there where we first met Satan, and this was to occur on the 14th. It was ghastly; for that was his funeral-day. We couldn't venture a protest;Ⓐalteration in the MS it would only have brought a “Why?” which we could not answer. He wanted us to help him invite his guests, and we did it; one can refuse nothing to a dying friend. But it was dreadful; for really we were inviting them to his funeral.

It was an awful eleven days; and yet, with a lifetime stretching back between to-day and then, they are still a grateful memory to me, and beautiful. In effect they were days of companionship with one's sacred deadⒶalteration in the MS, and I have known no comradeship that was so close or so precious. We clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they wasted away, and parting with them with that pain and bereavement which a miser feels who sees his hoard filched from himⒶalteration in the MS coin by coin by robbers and is helpless to prevent it.

When the evening ofⒶalteration in the MS the last day came we stayed out too long; Seppi and I were in fault for that, we could not bear to part with Nikolaus; so it was very late when we left him at his door. We lingered near, a while, listening; and that happened which we were fearing. His father gave him the promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks. But we listened only a momentⒶalteration in the MS, then hurried away, remorseful for this thing which we had caused. And sorry for [begin page 125] the father, too; our thought being, “If he only knew—if he only knew!”

In the morning Nikolaus did not meet us at the appointed place, so we went to his home to see what the matter was. His mother said—

“His father is out of all patience with these goings on, and will not have any more of it. Half the time when Nick is needed he is not to be found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two. His father gave him a flogging lastⒶalteration in the MS night. It always grieved me before, and many's the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time he appealed to me in vain, for I was out of patience myself.”

“I wish you had saved him just this one timeⒶalteration in the MS,” I said, my voice trembling a little, “it would ease a pain in your heart to remember it some day.”

She was ironing, at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She turned aboutⒶalteration in the MS with a startled or wondering look in her face and said—

“What do you mean by that?”

I was not prepared, and didn't know anything to say, so it was awkward, for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert and spoke up:

“Why of course it would be pleasant to remember; for, the very reason we were out so late was that Nikolaus got to telling us how good you are to him, and how he never got whippedⒶalteration in the MS when you were by to save him; and he was so full of it, and we so full of the interest of it that none of us noticed how late it was getting.”

“Did he say that? did he?” and she put her apron to her eyes.

“You can ask Theodor—he will tell you the same.”

“It is a dear good lad, my Nick,” she said. “I am sorry I let him get whipped; I will never do it again. To think—all the time I was sitting here last night fretting and angry at him he was loving me and praising me! Dear, dear, if we could only know! then we shouldn't ever go wrong; but we are only poor dumb beasts groping around and makingⒶalteration in the MS mistakes. I shan't ever think of last night without a pang.”

[begin page 126]

She was like all the rest; it seemed as if nobody could open a mouth, in these wretched days, without saying something that made us shiver. They were “groping around,” and did not knowⒶalteration in the MS what sorrowfully true things they were saying by accident.

Seppi asked if Nikolaus might go out with us.

“I am sorry,” she answered,Ⓐalteration in the MS “but he can't. To punish him further, his father doesn't allow him to go out of the house to-day.”

We had a great hope! I saw it in Seppi's eyes. We thought, “if he cannot leave the house, he cannot be drowned.” Seppi asked—to make sure—

“Must he stay in all day, orⒶalteration in the MS only the morning?”

“All day. It's such a pity, too; it's a beautiful day, and he is so unused to being shut up. But he is busy planning his party, and maybe that is company for him. I do hope he isn't too lonesome.”

Seppi saw that in her eye which emboldened him to ask if we might go up and help him pass his time.

“And welcome!” she said, right heartily.Ⓐalteration in the MS “Now I call that real friendship, when you might be abroad in the fields and the woods, having a happy time. You are good boys, I'll allow that, though you don't always find satisfactory ways of proving it. Take these cakes—for yourselves—and give him this one, from his mother.”

The first thing we noticed when we entered Nikolaus'sⒶalteration in the MS room was the clock.Ⓐemendation A quarter to 10.Ⓐalteration in the MS Could that be correct? Only such a fewⒶalteration in the MS minutes leftⒶalteration in the MS to live! IⒶalteration in the MS felt a contraction at my heart. Nikolaus jumped up and gave us a glad welcome. He was in good spirits over his plannings for his party, and had not been lonesome.

“Sit down,” he said, “andⒶemendation look at what I've been doing. And I've finished a kite that you will say is a daisy.Ⓐalteration in the MS It's drying, in the kitchen; I'll fetch it.”Ⓐalteration in the MS

He had been spending his penny-savings in fanciful trifles of various kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were marshaled with fine and showy effect upon the table. He said—

“Examine them at your leisure while I get mother to touch up the kite with her iron if it isn't dry enough yet.”

Then he tripped out and went clattering down stairs, whistling “Die Trommeln sagen pom-pom-pom.”Ⓐalteration in the MS

[begin page 127]

We did not look at the thingsⒶalteration in the MS; we couldn't take any interest in anything but the clock. We sat staring at it in silence, listening to the ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped, we nodded recognition—one minute fewer to cover in the race for life or for death. Finally Seppi drew a deep breath and said—

“TwoⒶalteration in the MS minutes to ten. SevenⒶalteration in the MS minutes more and he will pass the death-point. Theodor, he is going to be saved! he's going to—”

“Hush, I'm on needles!—watch the clock, and keep still.”

FiveⒶalteration in the MS minutes more. We were panting, with the strain and the excitement.

Another three minutes,Ⓐalteration in the MS and there was a footstep on the stair.

“Saved!” and we jumped up and faced the door.Ⓐalteration in the MS

The old mother entered, bringing the kite.

“Isn't it aⒶemendation beauty?” she said. “And dear me, how he has slaved over it; ever since daylight, I think, and only finished it a while before you came.” She stood it against the wall, and stepped back to take a view of it. “He drew the pictures his own self,Ⓐalteration in the MS and I think they are very good. The church isn't so very good, I'll have to admit, but look at the bridge—any one can recognise the bridge in a minute. He asked me to bring it up. . . . . . Dear me,Ⓐalteration in the MS it's seven minutes past ten, and I—”

“But where is he?“

“He? Oh, he'll be here soon—he's gone out a minute.”

“Gone out?“

“Yes. Just as he came down stairs little Lisa's mother came in and said the child had wandered off somewhere, and as she was a little uneasy I told Nikolaus to never mind about his father's orders—go and look her up . . . . .Ⓐalteration in the MS Why,Ⓐalteration in the MS how white you two do look; I do believe you are sick. Sit down; I'll fetch you something. That cake has disagreed with you. It is a little heavy, but I thought—”

She disappeared without finishing her sentence, and we hurried at once to the back window and looked toward the river.Ⓐalteration in the MS There was a great crowd at the other end of the bridge, and people were flying toward that point from every direction.

“Oh, it is all over—poor Nikolaus! Why did she let him get out of the house!”

[begin page 128]

“Come away,” said Seppi, half sobbing, “come quick—we can't bear to meet her—in five minutes she will know.”

But we were not to escape. She came upon us at the foot of the stairs, with her cordials in her hand, and made us come in and sit down and take the medicine. Then she watched the effect, and it did not satisfy her; so she made us wait longer, and kept upbraiding herself for giving us the unwholesome cake.

Presently the thing happened which we were dreading. There was a sound of tramping and scraping outside, and a crowd came solemnly in, with heads uncovered, and laid the two drowned bodies on the bed.

“Oh, my God!” that poorⒶalteration in the MS mother cried out, and fell on her knees, and put her arms about her dead boy and began to cover the wet face with kisses. “Oh, it was I that sent him, and I have been his death. If I had obeyed, and kept him in the house, this would not have happened. And I am rightly punished—I was cruel to him last night, and him begging me, his own mother, to be his friend.”

And so she went on and on, and all the women cried, and pitied her, and tried to comfort her, but she could not forgive herself and could not be comforted, and kept on saying if she had not sent him out he would be alive and well now, and she was the cause of his death.

It shows how foolish people are when they blame themselves for anything they have done. Satan knows, and he said nothing happens that your first act hasn't arranged to happen and made inevitable; and so, of your own motion you can'tⒶalteration in the MS ever alter the scheme or do a thing that will break a link. Next we heard screams, and Frau Brandt came wildly plowing and plunging through the crowd with her dress in disorder and her hair flying loose, and flung herself upon her dead child with moans and kisses and pleadings and endearments; and by and by rose up almost exhausted with her outpourings of passionate emotion, and clenchedⒶalteration in the MS her fist and lifted it toward the sky, and her tear-drenchedⒶalteration in the MS face grew hard and resentful, and she said—

“For nearly two weeks I have had dreams and presentiments and warnings that death was going to strike what was most precious to me, and day and night and night and day I have groveled in the [begin page 129] dirt before Him praying Him toⒶemendation have pity on my innocent child and save it from harm—and here is His answer!”

Why, He had saved it from harm—but she did not know.Ⓐalteration in the MS

She wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, and stood awhile gazing down at the child and caressing its face and its hair with her hand, then she spoke again in that bitter tone—

“But in His hard heart is no compassion. I will never pray again.”

She gathered her dead child to her bosom and strode away, the crowd falling back to let her pass, and smitten dumb by the awful words they had heard.Ⓐalteration in the MS Ah, that poor woman! It is as Satan said, we do not knowⒶemendation good fortune from bad, and are always mistaking the one for the other. Many a time, since then, I have heard people pray to God to spare the life of sick persons, but I have never done it.

[ ] Ⓐtextual note

Both funerals took place at the same time in our little church next day. Everybody was there, including the party-guests. Satan was there, too; which was proper, for it was on account of his efforts that the funerals had happened. Nikolaus had departed this life without absolution, and a collection was taken upⒶalteration in the MS for masses, to get him out of purgatory. Only two-thirds of the required money was gathered, and the parents were going to try to borrow the rest, but Satan furnished it. He told us privately that there was no purgatory, now, it having been discarded because it did not pay, there being none but Catholic custom for it;Ⓐalteration in the MS but he had contributed in order that Nikolaus's parents and their friends might be saved from worry and distress. We thought it very good of him, but he said money did not cost him anything.

At the graveyard the body of little Lisa was seized for debt by a carpenter to whom the mother owed fifty groschen for work done the year before. She had never been able to pay this, and was not able now. The carpenter took the corpse home and kept it four days in his cellar, the mother weeping and imploring about his house all the time; then he buried it in his brother's cattle-yard, without religious ceremonies. It drove the mother wild with grief and shame, and she forsook her work and went daily about the [begin page 130] town cursing the carpenter and blaspheming the laws and the Emperor and the church, and it was pitiful to see. Seppi asked Satan to interfere, but he said that the carpenter and the rest were members of the human race and were acting quite neatly, for that speciesⒶalteration in the MS of animal. He would interfere if he found a horseⒶalteration in the MS acting in such a way, and we must inform him when we came acrossⒶalteration in the MS that kind of a horseⒶalteration in the MS doing that kind of a human thing, so that he could stop it. We believed this was sarcasm, for of course there wasn't any such horse.

But after a few days we found that we could not abide that poor woman's distress; so we begged Satan to examine her several possible careers, and see if he could not change her, to her profit, to a new one. He said the longestⒶalteration in the MS of her careers as they now stoodⒶalteration in the MS gave her forty-two years to live, and her shortest one twenty-nine, and that both were charged with grief and hunger and cold and pain. The only improvement he could make would be to enable her to skip a certain link threeⒶalteration in the MS minutes from now; and he asked us if he should do it. This was such a short time to decide in, that we went to pieces with nervous excitement, and before we could pull ourselves together and ask for particulars he said the time would be up in a few more seconds; so then we gasped out—

“Do it!”

“It is done,” he said; “she was going around a corner, I have turned her back; it has changed her career.”

“Then what will happen, Satan?”

“It is happening now. She is having words with Fischer, the weaver.Ⓐalteration in the MS In his anger Fischer will straightway do what he would not have done but for this accident. He was present when she stood over her child's body and uttered those blasphemies.”

“What will he do?”

“He is doing it now—betraying her to a priest.Ⓐalteration in the MS In three days she will go to the stake.”

We could not speak; we were frozen with horror, for if we had not meddled with her career she would have been spared this awful fate. Satan noticed these thoughts, and said—

“What you are thinking is strictly human-like; that is to say, foolish. The woman is advantaged. Die when she might, she would [begin page 131] go to heaven. By this prompt death she gets twenty-nine years' more of heaven than she is entitled to, and escapes twenty-nine years of misery here.”

A moment before we were bitterly making up our minds that we would ask no more favors of Satan for friends of ours, for he did not seem to know any way to do a person a kindness but by killing him; but the whole aspect of the case was changed now, and we were glad of what we had done and full of happiness in the thought of it.

After a little I began to feel troubled about Fischer, and asked timidly—

“Does this episode change Fischer's life-scheme, Satan?”

“Change it? Why, certainly. And radically. If he had not met Frau Brandt a while ago he would die next year, thirty-four years of age. Now he will live to be ninety, and have a pretty prosperous and comfortable life of it, as human lives go.”

We felt a great joy and pride in what we had done for Fischer, and were expecting Satan to sympathise with this feeling; but he showed no sign,Ⓐalteration in the MS and this made us uneasy. We waited for him to speak, but he didn't; so, to assuage our solicitude we had to ask him if there was any defect in Fischer's good luck. Satan considered the question a moment, then said, with some hesitation—

“Well, the fact is, it is a delicate point. Under his several former possible life-careers he was going to heaven.”

We were aghast.

“Oh, Satan! and under this one—”

“There, don't be so distressed. You were sincerely trying to do him a kindness; let that comfort you.”

“Oh, dear, dear, that cannot comfort us. You ought to have told us what we were doing, then we wouldn't have acted so.”

But it made no impression on him. He had never felt a pain or a sorrow, and did not know what they were, in any really informing way. He had no knowledge of them except theoretically—that is to say, intellectually. And of course that is no good. OneⒶalteration in the MS can never get any but a loose and ignorant notion of such things except by experienceⒶalteration in the MS. We tried our best to make him comprehend the awful thing that had been done and how we were compromised by it, but [begin page 132] he couldn't seem to get hold of it. He said he did not think it important where Fischer went to, in heaven he would not be missed, there were “plenty there.” We tried to make him see that he was missing the point entirely; that FischerⒶemendation, and not other people, was the proper oneⒶalteration in the MS to decide about the importance of it; but it all went for nothing, he said he did not care for Fischer, there were plenty more Fischers.

The next minute Fischer went by, on the other side of the way, and it made us sick and faint to see him, remembering the doom that was upon him, and we the cause of it. And how unconscious he was that anything had happened to him! You could see by his elastic step and his alert manner that he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn for poor Frau Brandt. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expectantly. And sure enough, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed after, in charge of the officers and wearing jingling chains. A mob was in her wake, jeering and shouting “Blasphemer and heretic!” and some among them were neighbors and friends of her happier days. Some were trying to strike her, and the officers were not taking as much trouble as they might to keep them from it.

“Oh, stop them, Satan!” It was out before we remembered that he could not interrupt them for a moment without changing their whole after-lives. He puffed a little puff toward them with his lips and they began to reel and stagger and grab at the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in every direction, shrieking, as if in intolerable pain. He had crushed a rib of each of them with that little puff. We could not help asking if their life-chart was changed.

“Yes, entirely. Some have gained years, some have lost them. Some few will profit in various ways by the change, but only that few.”

We did not ask if we had brought poorⒶalteration in the MS Fischer's luck to any of them. We did not wish to know. We fully believed in Satan's desire to do us kindnesses, but we wereⒶalteration in the MS losing confidence in his judgment.Ⓐalteration in the MS It was at this time that our growing anxiety to have him look over our life-charts and suggest improvements began to fade out and give place to other interests.

[begin page 133]

For a day or two the whole village was in a chattering turmoil over Frau Brandt's case and over the mysterious calamity that had overtaken the mob, and at her trial the place was crowded. She was easily convicted of her blasphemies, for she uttered those terrible words again and said she would not take them back. When warned that she was imperiling her life she said theyⒶalteration in the MS could take it and welcome, she did not want it, she would rather live with the professional devils in perdition than with these amateurs in the village. They accused her of breaking all those ribs by witchcraft, and asked her if she was not a witch? She answered scornfully—

“No. If I had that power would any of you holy hypocrites be alive five minutes? No, I would strike you all dead. Pronounce your sentence and let me go; I am tired of your society.”

So they found her guilty,Ⓐalteration in the MS and she was excommunicated and cut off from the joys of heaven and doomed to the fires of hell; then she was clothed in a coarse robe and deliveredⒶalteration in the MS to the secular arm, and conductedⒶalteration in the MS to the market place, the bell solemnly tolling the while. We saw her chained to the stake, and saw the first thin film of blue smoke rise on the still air. Then her hard face softened, and she looked upon the packed crowd in front of her and said with gentleness—

“We played together once, in long-gone days when we were innocent little creatures. For the sake of that, I forgive you.”

We went away then, and did not see the fires consume her, but we heard the shrieks, although we put our fingers in our ears. When they ceased we knew she was in heaven notwithstanding the excommunication; and we were glad of her death and not sorry that we had brought it about.