The Mysterious Stranger | Page 9

reverently uncovered, with their bare
heads bowed, and many with the tears running down--a scene which Satan paid no
attention to until the small noise of the weeping and praying began to annoy him, then he
reached out and took the heavy board seat out of our swing and brought it down and
mashed all those people into the earth just as if they had been flies, and went on talking
just the same.
An angel, and kill a priest! An angel who did not know how to do wrong, and yet
destroys in cold blood hundreds of helpless poor men and women who had never done
him any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed, and to think that none of those poor
creatures was prepared except the priest, for none of them had ever heard a mass or seen
a church. And we were witnesses; we had seen these murders done and it was our duty to
tell, and let the law take its course.
But he went on talking right along, and worked his enchantments upon us again with that
fatal music of his voice. He made us forget everything; we could only listen to him, and

love him, and be his slaves, to do with us as he would. He made us drunk with the joy of
being with him, and of looking into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that
thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand.





Chapter 3
The Stranger had seen everything, he had been everywhere, he knew everything, and he
forgot nothing. What another must study, he learned at a glance; there were no difficulties
for him. And he made things live before you when he told about them. He saw the world
made; he saw Adam created; he saw Samson surge against the pillars and bring the
temple down in ruins about him; he saw Caesar's death; he told of the daily life in heaven;
he had seen the damned writhing in the red waves of hell; and he made us see all these
things, and it was as if we were on the spot and looking at them with our own eyes. And
we felt them, too, but there was no sign that they were anything to him beyond mere
entertainments. Those visions of hell, those poor babes and women and girls and lads and
men shrieking and supplicating in anguish--why, we could hardly bear it, but he was as
bland about it as if it had been so many imitation rats in an artificial fire.
And always when he was talking about men and women here on the earth and their
doings--even their grandest and sublimest--we were secretly ashamed, for his manner
showed that to him they and their doings were of paltry poor consequence; often you
would think he was talking about flies, if you didn't know. Once he even said, in so many
words, that our people down here were quite interesting to him, notwithstanding they
were so dull and ignorant and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and such
a shabby, poor, worthless lot all around. He said it in a quite matter-of-course way and
without bitterness, just as a person might talk about bricks or manure or any other thing
that was of no consequence and hadn't feelings. I could see he meant no offense, but in
my thoughts I set it down as not very good manners.
"Manners!" he said. "Why, it is merely the truth, and truth is good manners; manners are
a fiction. The castle is done. Do you like it?"
Any one would have been obliged to like it. It was lovely to look at, it was so shapely and
fine, and so cunningly perfect in all its particulars, even to the little flags waving from the
turrets. Satan said we must put the artillery in place now, and station the halberdiers and
display the cavalry. Our men and horses were a spectacle to see, they were so little like
what they were intended for; for, of course, we had no art in making such things. Satan
said they were the worst he had seen; and when he touched them and made them alive, it

was just ridiculous the way they acted, on account of their legs not being of uniform
lengths. They reeled and sprawled around as if they were drunk, and endangered
everybody's lives around them, and finally fell over and lay helpless and kicking. It made
us all laugh, though it was a shameful thing to see. The guns were charged with dirt, to
fire a salute, but they were so crooked and so badly made that they all burst when they
went