Satan's Diary

I do not suppose you would be interested in how I greeted her and what I mumbled in the first few moments of our meeting. I can only say that I mumbled and that I felt a strong impulse to laugh. I could not lift my eyes to gaze upon Maria until my thoughts cast off their soiled garb and donned clean attire. As you see, I did not lose consciousness altogether! But in vain did I take these precautions: that torture did not follow. Maria’s gaze was clear and simple and it contained neither searching, penetrating fire nor fatal forgiveness. It was calm and clear, like the sky of the Campagna and – I do not know how it happened – it penetrated my entire being.

She met me in the garden. We sat down by the gate, from which vantage point we had a good view of the Campagna. When you gaze at the Campagna you cannot prattle nonsense. No, it was she who gazed at the Campagna and I gazed into her eyes – clear to the seventh sky, where you end the count of your heavens. We were silent or – if you regard the following as conversation – we spoke:

“Are those mountains?”

“Yes, those are the mountains of Albania. And there – is Tivoli.”

She picked out little white houses in the distance and pointed them out to me and I felt a peculiar calm and joy in Maria’s gaze. The suspicious resemblance of Maria to the Madonna no longer troubled me: how can I possibly be troubled by the fact that you resemble yourself? And came a moment when a great peace of mind descended upon me. I have no words of comparison whereby to reveal to you that great and bright calm… I am forever conjuring up before me that accursed schooner with its lowered sails, on which I never really sailed, for I am afraid of seasickness! Or is it because on this night of my loneliness, my road is being illuminated by the Star of the Seas? Well, yes, I was a schooner, if you so desire it, and if this is not agreeable to you I was All. Besides I was Nothing. You see what nonsense emerges out of all this talk when Wondergood begins to seek words and comparisons.

I was so calm that I even soon began to gaze into Maria’s eyes: I simply believed them. This is deeper than mere gazing. When necessary I shall find those eyes again. In the meantime I shall remain a schooner with sails lowered. I shall be All and I shall be Nothing. Only once did a slight breeze stir my sails, but only for a moment: that was when Maria pointed out the Tiberian road to me, cutting the green hills like a white thread, and asked whether I had ever traversed it before.

“Yes, occasionally, Signorina.”

“I often gaze upon this road and think that it must be extremely pleasant to traverse it by automobile.”

“Have you a swift car, Signor?”

“Oh, yes, Signorina, very swift! But those,” I continued in gentle reproach, “who are themselves limitless distances and endlessness are in no need of any movement.”

Maria and an automobile! A winged angel entering a trolley car for the sake of speed! A swallow riding on a turtle! An arrow on the humpy back of a hod carrier! Ah, all comparisons lie: why speak of swallows and arrows, why speak of any movement for Maria, who embraces all distances! But it is only now that I thought of the trolley and the turtle. At that time I felt so calm and peaceful, I was deep in such bliss that I could think of nothing except that countenance of eternity and undying light!

A great calm came upon Me on that day and nothing could disturb my endless bliss. It was not long before Thomas Magnus returned, and a flying fish, gleaming for a moment above the ocean, could no more disturb its blue smoothness than did Magnus disturb me. I received him into my heart. I swallowed him calmly and felt no heavier burden in my stomach than a whale does after swallowing a herring. It was gratifying to find Magnus hospitable and merry. He pressed my hand and his eyes were bright and kind. Even his face seemed less pale and not as weary as usual.

I was invited to breakfast…lest it worry you, let me say right now that I remained until late in the evening. When Maria had retired I told Magnus of the visit of Cardinal X. His merry face darkened slightly and in his eyes appeared his former hostile flame.

“Cardinal X.? He came to see you?”

I narrated to him in detail my conversation with “the shaven monkey,” and remarked that he had impressed me as a scoundrel of no small caliber. Magnus frowned and said sternly:

“You laugh in vain, Mr. Wondergood. I have long known Cardinal X. and…I have been keeping a close eye on him. He is evil, cruel and dangerous. Despite his ridiculous exterior, he is as cunning, merciless and revengeful as Satan!”

And you, too, Magnus! Like Satan! This blue-faced, shaven orang-outang, this caressing gorilla, this monkey cavorting before a looking-glass! But I have exhausted my capacity for insult. Magnus’ remark fell like a stone to the bottom of my bliss. I listened further:

“His flirting with the Socialists, his jokes at the expense of Galileo are all lies. Just as the enemies of Cromwell hanged him after his death, so would Cardinal X. burn the bones of Galileo with immense satisfaction: to this day he regards the movement of the earth as a personal affront. It is an old school, Mr. Wondergood; he will stop at nothing to overcome obstacles, be it poison or murder, which he will take care to attribute to the misfortune of accident. You smile but I cannot discuss the Vatican smilingly, not so long as it contains such…and it will always produce some one like Cardinal X. Look out, Mr. Wondergood: You have landed within the sphere of his vision and interests, and, let me assure you, that scores of eyes are now watching you…perhaps me, too. Be on your guard, my friend!”

Magnus was quite excited. Fervently I shook his hand:

“Ah, Magnus!.. But when will you agree to help me?”

“But you know that I do not like human beings. It is you who loves them Mr. Wondergood, not I.”

A gleam of irony appeared in his eyes.

“The Cardinal says that it is not at all necessary to love people in order to be happy… The contrary, he says!”

“And who told you that I want to make people happy? Again, it is you who wants to do that, not I. Hand over your billions to Cardinal X. His recipe for happiness is not worse than other patent medicines. To be sure, his recipe has one disadvantage: while dispensing happiness it destroys people…but is that important? You are too much of a business man, Mr. Wondergood, and I see that you are not sufficiently familiar with the world of our inventors of the Best Means for the Happiness of Mankind: These means are more numerous than the so-called best tonics for the growth of hair. I myself was a dreamer at one time and invented one or two in my youth…but I was short on chemistry and badly singed my hair in an explosion. I am very glad I did not come across your billions in those days. I am joking, Mr. Wondergood, but if you wish to be serious, here is my answer: keep on growing and multiplying your hogs, make four of your three billions, continue selling your conserves, provided they are not too rotten, and cease worrying about the happiness of Mankind. As long as the world likes good ham it will not deny you its love and admiration!”

“And how about those who have no means to buy ham?”

“What do you care about them? It is their belly – pardon me for the expression – that is rumbling with hunger, not yours. I congratulate you upon your new home: I know the Villa Orsini very well. It is a magnificent relic of Old Rome.”

I balked at the prospect of another lecture on my palace! Yes, Magnus had again shoved me aside. He did it brusquely and roughly. But his voice lacked sternness and he gazed at me softly and kindly. Well, what of it? To the devil with humanity, its happiness and its ham! I shall try later to bore an entrance into Magnus’ brain. In the meantime leave me alone with my great peace and…Maria. Boundless peace and…Satan! – isn’t that a splendid touch in my play? And what kind of a liar is he who can fool only others? To lie to oneself and believe it – that is an art!

After breakfast all three of us walked over the downy hills and slopes of the Campagna. It was still early Spring and only little white flowers gently brightened the young, green earth. A soft breeze diffused the scents of the season, while little houses gleamed in distant Albano. Maria walked in front of us, stopping now and then and casting her heavenly eyes upon everything they could envisage. When I return to Rome I shall order my brush-pusher to paint Madonna thus: On a carpet of soft green and little white flowers. Magnus was so frank and merry that I again drew his attention to Maria’s resemblance to the Madonna and told him of the miserable brush-pushers in search of a model. He laughed, agreed with me in my opinion of the aforementioned resemblance, and grew wistful.

“It is a fatal resemblance, Mr. Wondergood. You remember that heavy moment when I spoke to you of blood? Already there is blood at the feet of Maria…the blood of one noble youth whose memory Maria and I cherish. There are fatal faces, there are fatal resemblances which confuse our souls and lead to the abyss of self destruction. I am the father of Maria, and yet I myself hardly dare to touch her brow with my lips. What insurmountable barriers does love raise for itself when it dares to lift its eyes upon Maria?”

This was the only moment of that happy day when my ocean became overcast with heavy clouds, as tangled as the beard of “Mad King Lear,” while a wild wind shook the sails of my schooner. But I lifted my eyes to Maria, I met her gaze. It was bright and calm, like the sky above us – and the wild wind disappeared without trace, bearing away with it fragments of the darkness. I do not know whether you understand these sea comparisons, which I consider quite inadequate. Let me explain: I again grew quite calm. What is that noble Roman youth to me, who himself unable to find comparisons was hurled over the head of his Pegasus? I am a white-winged schooner and beneath me is an entire ocean, and was it not written of Her: the Incomparable?

The day was long and quiet and I was charmed with the precision with which the sun rolled down from its height to the rim of the earth, with the measured pace with which the stars covered the heavens, the large stars first, then the little ones, until the whole sky sparkled and gleamed. Slowly grew the darkness. Then came the rosy moon, at first somewhat rusty, then brilliant, and swam majestically over the road made free and warm by the sun. But more than anything else did I and Magnus feel charmed when we sat in the half-darkened room and heard Maria: she played the harp and sang.

And listening to the strains of the harp I realized why man likes music produced by taut strings: I was myself a taut string and even when the finger no longer touched me, the sound continued to vibrate and died so slowly that I can still hear it in the depths of my soul. And suddenly I saw that the entire air was filled with taut and trembling strings: they extend from star to star, scatter themselves over the earth and penetrate my heart…like a network of telephone wires through a central station, – if you want more simple comparisons. And there was something else I understood when I heard Maria’s voice…

No, you are simply an animal, Wondergood! When I recall your loud complaints against love and its songs, cursed with the curse of monotony – is that not your own expression? – I feel like sending you off to a barn. You are a dull and dirty animal and I am ashamed that for a whole hour I listened to your silly bellowing. You may hold words in contempt, you may curse your embraces, but do not touch Love, my friend: only through love has it been given to you to obtain a glimpse into Eternity! Away, my friend! Leave Satan to himself, he who in the very blackest depths of man has suddenly come upon new and unexpected flames. Away! You must not see the joy and astonishment of Satan!

The hour was late. The moon indicated midnight when I left Magnus and ordered the chauffeur to drive by way of the Numentinian road: I feared lest this great calm might slip away from me, and I wanted to overtake it in the depths of the Campagna. But the speed of the car broke the silence and I left my machine. It went to sleep at once beneath the light of the moon over its own shadow and looked like a huge, gray stone barring the road. For the last time its lights gleamed upon Me and it became transformed into something invisible. I was left alone with my shadow.

We walked along the white road, I and my shadow, stopping occasionally and then again resuming our march. I sat down on a stone along the road and the black shadow hid behind my back. And here a great quiet descended upon the earth, upon the world. Upon my chilled brow I felt the cool touch of the moon’s kiss.

    March 2.
    Rome, Villa Orsini.

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!”