The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) Read online

  Chapter 4

  HERE 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 Margot, 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. Nlarget 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 matterof-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 in 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 burnt as a witch. When that kind of a malady is in the blood it does not always come out with just one burning. Father Adolf had often said so, and had warned the people to keep a lookout on those Narrs. Just now was not a good time for Ursula and Margot 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; so 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 nuns 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; and indeed that is what it looked like; 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 with Satan, 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 by the Pope for the use of witch-commissions 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 had confessed, they confessed too, and answered yes to the questions. Then they were burnt 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 burnt. 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 her if what she had 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 should 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-lie 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 pure from it 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. I do not see how a person can act so.

  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 to come 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 alo
ng, 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 to Father Adolf on a Sunday morning when he was returning from mass. He was deeply moved, and said-

  "Hell and Hinders! this must be looked into."

  He said there was witchcraft at the bottom of this outrage, and told the villagers to resume relations with Margot and Ursula in a private and unostentatious way and keep both eyes open. They were 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 would 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 table-ware was much above ordinary, too.

  Marget was troubled at first, 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 thence, 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 working the commissariat and 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 old 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 Father Adolf would find it out. 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 know 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 those people were watching with all their eyes and reporting all they saw to Father Adolf.

  But he couldn't make head nor 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, swore at them, but it did no good; they remained sound and real, they yielded to natural decay only, and took the usual time to 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.

  Marget announced a party, and invited forty people; the date for it was seven days away. This was Father Adolf's opportunity. Marget's house stood by itself, and could be easily watched. All the week it was watched night and day. Marget's household went out and in as usual, but they carried nothing in their hands, and neither they nor others brought anything to the house. This was ascertained. Evidently rations for forty people were not being fetched. If they were furnished any sustenance it would have to be made on the premises. It was true that Marget went out with a basket every evening, but the spies ascertained that she always brought it back empty.

  The guests arrived at noon, and filled the place. Father Adolf followed, after a little, without an invitation. His spies informed him that neither at the back nor the front had any parcels been brought in. He entered, and found the eating and drinking going on finely, and everything going on in a lively and festive way. He glanced around and perceived that many of the cooked delicacies and all of the native and foreign fruits were of a perishable character, and he also recognised that these were fresh and perfect. No apparitions, no incantations, no thunder. That settled it. This was witchcraft. And not only that, but of a new kind-a kind never dreamed of before. It was a prodigious find, an illustrious find-and he the discoverer of it! The announcement of it would resound throughout the world, penetrate to the remotest lands, paralyse all the nations with amazement-and carry his name with it, and make him renowned forever. It was a wonderful piece of luck, a splendid piece of luck; the glory of it made him dizzy.

  All the house made reverence to him, Marget seated him, Ursula ordered Gottfried to bring a special table for him, then she decked it and furnished it, and asked for his orders.

  "Bring me what you will," he said.

  The two servants brought supplies from the pantry, together with white wine and red-a bottle of each. The priest took some water, blessed it, then sprinkled it over everything, bottles and all; then bowed his head and said grace. He poured out a beaker of red wine, drank it off, poured another, then began to eat, with a grand appetite.

  I was not expecting Satan, for it was more than a week since I had seen him or heard of him, but now he came in-I knew it by the feel, though people were in the way and I could not see him. I heard him apologising for intruding; and he was going away, but Marget urged him to stay, and he thanked her and stayed. She brought him along, introducing him to the girls, and to Meidling and to some of the elders; and there was quite a rustle of whispers: "It's the young stranger we hear
so much about and can't get a sight of, he is away so much." "Dear, dear, but he is beautiful-what is his name?" "Philip Traum." "Ah, it fits him!" (You see, Traum is German for Dream.) "What does he do?" "Studying for the ministry, they say." "His face is his fortune-he'll be a cardinal some day." "Where is his home?" "Away down somewhere in the tropics, they say-has a rich uncle down there." And so on. He made his way at once; everybody was anxious to know him and talk with him. Everybody noticed how cool and fresh it was, all of a sudden, and wondered at it, for they could see that the sun was beating down the same as before, outside, and the sky clear of clouds, but no one guessed the reason, of course.

  Father Adolf had drunk his second beaker; he poured a third. He set the bottle down, and by accident overturned it. He seized it before much was spilt, and held it up to the light, saying "What a pity-it is royal wine." Then his face lighted with joy or triumph or something, and he said-

  "Quick-bring a bowl."

  It was brought-a four-quart one. He took up that two-pint bottle and began to pour; went on pouring, and still pouring, the red liquor gurgling and gushing into the white bowl and rising higher and higher up its sides, everybody staring and holding their breath-and presently the bowl was full to the brim.