Satan's Diary

“And it is this bird of prey that you now wish to give to me? Have you exhausted your feed? You want my liver, too, in addition to my billions?”

But Magnus had already calmed himself. Subduing his excitement and the drunkenness which had imperceptibly come upon him, he returned to his place without haste and ordered politely:

“I will answer you in a moment, Mr. Wondergood. Please withdraw to your room Maria. I have something to say to Mr. Wondergood. And I would ask you, too, my honorable Mr. Toppi, to depart. You may join my friends in the salon.”

“If Mr. Wondergood will so command…” replied Toppi, dryly, without rising.

I nodded and, without looking at Magnus, my secretary obediently made his exit. Maria, too, left the room. To tell the truth, I again felt like clinging to his vest and weeping in the first few moments of my tête-à-tête with Magnus: after all, this thief was my friend! But I satisfied myself with merely swallowing my tears. Then followed a moment of brief desperation at the departure of Maria. And slowly, as if from the realm of remote recollection, blind and wild anger and the need of beating and destroying began to fill my heart. Let me add, too, that I was extremely provoked by my torn sleeve that kept slipping constantly: it was necessary for me to be stern and austere and this made me seem ridiculous…ah, on what trifles does the result of the greatest events depend on this earth! I lighted a cigar and with studied gruffness hurled into the calm and hateful face of Magnus:

“Now, you! Enough of comedy and charlatanism. Tell me what you want. So you want me to surrender to that bird of prey of yours?”

Magnus replied calmly, although his eyes were burning with anger:

“Yes. That is the trial I wanted to subject you to, Wondergood. I fear that I have succumbed slightly to the emotion of useless and vain revenge and spoke more heatedly than was necessary in Maria’s presence. The thing is, Wondergood, that all that I have so picturesquely described to you, all this passion and despair and all these sufferings of…Prometheus really belong to the past. I now look upon Maria without pain and even with a certain amount of pleasure, as upon a beautiful and useful little beast…useful for domestic considerations. You understand? What after all, is the liver of Prometheus? It is all nonsense! In reality, I should be thankful to Maria. She gnawed out with her little teeth my silly faith and gave me that clear, firm and realistic outlook upon life which permits of no deceptions and…sentimentalisms. You, too, ought to experience and grasp it, Wondergood, if you would follow Magnus Ergo.”

I remained silent, lazily chewing my cigar. Magnus lowered his eyes and continued still more calmly and dryly:

“Desert pilgrims, to accustom themselves to death, used to sleep in coffins: let Maria be your coffin and when you feel like going to church, kissing a woman and stretching your hand to a friend, just look at Maria and her father, Thomas Magnus. Take her, Wondergood, and you will soon convince yourself of the value of my gift. I don’t need her any longer. And when your humiliated soul shall become inflamed with truly inextinguishable, human hatred and not with weak contempt, come to me and I shall welcome you into the ranks of my yeomanry, which will very soon… Are you hesitating? Well, then go, catch other lies, but be careful to avoid scoundrels and Madonnas, my gentleman from Illinois!”

He broke into loud laughter and swallowed a glass of wine at one gulp. His swollen calm evaporated. Little flames of intoxication, now merry, now ludicrous, like the lights of a carnival, now triumphant, now dim, like funeral torches at a grave, again sprang forth in his bloodshot eyes. The scoundrel was drunk but held himself firmly, merely swaying his branches, like an oak before a south wind. Rising and facing me, he straightened his body cynically, as if trying to reveal himself in his entirety, and well nigh spat these words at me:

“Well? How long do you intend to think about it, you ass? Come, quick, or I’ll kick you out! Quick! I’m tired of you! What’s the use of my wasting words? What are you thinking of?”

My head buzzed. Madly pulling up that accursed sleeve of mine, I replied:

“I am thinking that you are an evil, contemptible, stupid and repulsive beast! I am thinking in what springs of life or hell itself I could find for you the punishment you deserve! Yes, I came upon this earth to play and to laugh. Yes, I myself was ready to embrace any evil. I myself lied and pretended, but you, hairy worm, you crawled into my very heart and bit me. You took advantage of the fact that my heart was human and bit me, you hairy worm. How dared you deceive me? I will punish you.”

“You? Me?”

I am glad to say that Magnus was astonished and taken aback. His eyes widened and grew round and his open mouth naïvely displayed a set of white teeth. Breathing with difficulty, he repeated:

“You? Me?”

“Yes. I – you.”

“Police?”

“You are not afraid of it? Very well. Let all your courts be powerless, remain unpunished on this earth, you evil conscienceless creature! The day will come when the sea of falsehood, which constitutes your life, will part and all your falsehood, too, will give way and disappear. Let there be no foot upon this earth to crush you, hairy worm. Let! I, too, am powerless here. But the day will come when you will depart from this earth. And when you come to Me and fall under the shadow of my kingdom…”

“Your kingdom? Hold on, Wondergood. Who are you, then?”

And right at this point there occurred the most shameful event of my entire earthly life. Tell me: is it not ridiculously funny when Satan, even in human form, bends his knee in prayer to a prostitute and is stripped naked by the very first man he meets? Yes, this is extremely ridiculous and shameful of Satan, who bears with him the breath of eternity. But what would you say of Satan when he turned into a powerless and pitiful liar and pasted upon his head with a great flourish the paper crown of a theatrical czar? I am ashamed, old man. Give me one of your blows, the kind on which you feed your friends and hired clowns. Or has this torn sleeve brought me to this senseless, pitiful wrath? Or was this the last act of my human masquerade, when man’s spirit descends to the mire and sweeps the dust and dirt with its breath? Or has the ruin of Madonna, which I witnessed, dragged Satan, too, into the same abyss?

But this was – think of it! – this was what I answered Magnus. Thrusting out my chest, barely covered with my torn shirt, stealthily pulling up my sleeve, so that it might not slip off entirely, and looking sternly and angrily directly into the stupid, and as they seemed to me, frightened eyes of the scoundrel Magnus, I replied triumphantly:

“I am – Satan!”

Magnus was silent for a moment – and then broke out into all the laughter that a drunken, repulsive, human belly can contain. Of course you, old man, expected that, but I did not. I swear by eternal salvation, I did not! I shouted something but the brazen laughter of this beast drowned my voice. Finally, taking advantage of a moment’s interval between his thundering peals of laughter, I exclaimed quickly and modestly…like a footnote at the bottom of a page, like a commentary of a publisher:

“Don’t you understand: I am Satan. I have donned the human form! I have donned the human form!”

He heard me with his eyes bulging, and with fresh thunderous roars of laughter, the outbursts shaking his entire frame, he moved toward the door, flung it open and shouted:

“Here! Come here! Here is Satan! In human…human garb!”

And he disappeared behind the door.

Oh, if I could only have fallen through the floor, disappeared or flown away, like a real devil, on wings, in that endless moment, during which he was gathering the public for an extraordinary spectacle. And now they came – all of them, damn them: Maria and all the six aides and my miserable Toppi, and Magnus himself, and completing the procession – His Eminence, Cardinal X.! The cursed, shaven monkey walked with great dignity and even bowed to me, after which he sat down, just as dignified, in an armchair and carefully covered his knees with his robes. All were wondering, not knowing yet what it was all about, and glanced now at me and now at Magnus, who tried hard to look serious.

“What’s the trouble, Signor Magnus?” asked the Cardinal in a benevolent tone.

“Permit me to report the following, your Eminence: Mr. Henry Wondergood has just informed me that he is – Satan. Yes, Satan, and that he has merely donned the human form. And thus our assumption that he is an American from Illinois falls. Mr. Wondergood is Satan and apparently has but recently deigned to arrive from Hell. What shall we do about it, Your Eminence?”

Silence might have saved me. But how could I restrain this maddened Wondergood, whose heart was aflame with insult! Like a lackey who has appropriated his celebrated master’s name and who faintly senses something of his grandeur, power and connections – Wondergood stepped forward and said with an ironic bow:

“Yes, I am Satan. But I must add to the speech of Signor Magnus that not only do I wear the human form but also that I have been robbed. Are those two scoundrels who have robbed me known to you, Your Eminence? And are you, perhaps, one of them, Your Eminence?”

Magnus alone continued to smile. The rest, it seemed to me, grew serious and awaited the Cardinal’s reply. It followed. The shaven monkey, it developed, was not a bad actor. Pretending to be startled, the Cardinal raised his right hand and said with an expression of extreme goodness, contrasting sharply with his words and gesture:

“Vade Petro Satanas!”

I am not going to describe to you how they laughed. You can imagine it. Even Maria’s teeth parted slightly. Almost losing consciousness from anger and impotence, I turned to Toppi for sympathy and aid. But Toppi, covering his face with his hands, was cringing in the corner, silent. Amid general laughter, and ringing far above it, came the heavy voice of Magnus, laden with infinite ridicule:

“Look at the plucked rooster. That is Satan!”

And again there came an outburst of laughter. His Eminence continuously shook, as though flapping his wings, and choked and whined. The monkey’s gullet could hardly pass the cascades of laughter. I tore off that accursed sleeve madly and waving it like a flag, I ventured into a sea of falsehood, with full sails set. I knew that somewhere ahead there were rocks against which I might be shattered but the tempest of impotence and anger bore me on like a chip of wood.

I am ashamed to repeat my speech here. Every word of it was trembling and wailing with impotency. Like a village vicar, frightening his ignorant parishioners, I threatened them with Hell and with all the Dantean tortures of literary fame. Oh, I did know something that I might really have frightened them with but how could I express the extraordinary which is inexpressible in their language? And so I prattled on of eternal fire. Of eternal torture. Of unquenchable thirst. Of the gnashing of teeth. Of the fruitlessness of tears and pleading. And what else? Ah, even of red hot forks I prattled, maddened more and more by the indifference and shamelessness of these shallow faces, these small eyes, these mediocre souls, regarding themselves above punishment. But they remained unmoved and smug, as if in a fortress, beyond the walls of their mediocrity and fatal blindness. And all my words were shattered against their impenetrable skulls! And think of it, the only one who was really frightened was my Toppi! And yet he alone could know that all my words were lies! It was so unbearably ridiculous when I met his pleading frightened eyes, that I abruptly ended my speech, suddenly, at its very climax. Silently, I waved my torn sleeve, which served me as a standard, once or twice, and hurled it into the corner. For a moment it seemed to me that the shaven monkey, too, was frightened: the blue of his cheeks seemed to stand out sharply upon the pale, square face and the little coals of his eyes were glowing suspiciously beneath his black, bushy eyebrows. But he slowly raised his hand and the same sacrilegiously-jesting voice broke the general silence:

“Vade Petro Satanas!”

Or did the Cardinal try to hide behind this jest his actual fright? I do not know. I know nothing. If I could not destroy them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is it worth while speaking of cold shivers and goose flesh? A mere glass of wine can conquer them.

And Magnus, like the skilled healer of souls that he was, said calmly:

“Will you have a glass of wine, Your Eminence?”

“With pleasure,” replied the Cardinal.

“But none for Satan,” added Magnus jestingly, pouring out the wine. But he could speak and do anything he pleased now: Wondergood was squeezed dry and hung like a rag upon the arm of the chair.

After the wine had been drunk, Magnus lit a cigarette (he smokes cigarettes), cast his eye over the audience, like a lecturer before a lecture, motioned pleasantly to Toppi, now grown quite pale, and said the following…although he was obviously drunk and his eyes were bloodshot, his voice was firm and his speech flowed with measured calm:

“I must say, Wondergood, that I listened to you very attentively and your passionate tirade created upon me, I may say, a great, artistic impression…at certain points you reminded me of the best passages of Brother Geronimo Savanarola. Don’t you also find the same striking resemblance, Your Eminence? But alas! You are slightly behind the times. Those threats of hell and eternal torture with which you might have driven the beautiful and merry Florence to panic ring extremely unconvincing in the atmosphere of contemporary Rome. The sinners have long since departed from the earth, Mr. Wondergood. Have not you noticed that? And as for criminals, and, as you have expressed it, scoundrels, – a plain commissary of police is much more alarming to them than Beelzebub himself with his whole staff of devils. I must also confess that your reference to the court of history and posterity was rather strange when contrasted with the picture you painted of the tortures of hell and your reference to eternity. But here, too, you failed to rise to the height of contemporary thought: every fool nowadays knows that history records with equal impartiality both the names of saints and of rogues. The whole point, Mr. Wondergood, which you, as an American, should be particularly familiar with, is in the scope with which history treats its respective subjects and heroes. The lashings history administers to its great criminals differ but little from her laurels – when viewed at a distance and this little distinction eventually becomes quite invisible – I assure you, Wondergood. In fact, it disappears entirely! And in so far as the biped strives to find a place in history – and we are all animated by this desire, Mr. Wondergood – it need not be particular through which door it enters: I beg the indulgence of His Eminence, but no prostitute received a new guest with greater welcome than does history a new…hero. I fear, Wondergood, that your references to hell as well as those to history have fallen flat. Ah, I fear your hope in the police will prove equally ill-founded: I have failed to tell you that His Eminence has received a certain share of those billions which you have transferred to me in such a perfectly legal manner, while his connections…you understand?”

Poor Toppi: all he could do was to keep on blinking! The aides broke into loud laughter, but the Cardinal mumbled angrily, casting upon me the burning little coals of his eyes:

“He is indeed a brazen fellow. He said he is Satan. Throw him out, Signor Magnus. This is sacrilege!”