55.The Prince of Darkness
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THE newcomer paused for an instant, as if he were reading what was in the troubled mind of Ninzian, and then he said: “I see. Surkrag, whom mortals hereabouts call Ninzian! O unfaithful servant, now must you be punished for betraying the faith I put in you. Now is your requital coming swiftly from this ravening saint, who will dispose of you without mercy. For your conjuring would disgrace a baby in diapers; you have forgotten long ago what little magic you ever knew; and when this Holmendis gets hold of you with one hand and exorcises you with the other, there will be hardly a cinder left.”
So did Ninzian know himself to stand friendlessly, between the wrath of evil and the malignity of holiness, both bent upon his ruin. He said, “Have patience, my prince!”
But Lucifer answered sternly: “My patience is outworn. No, Surkrag, there is no hope for you, and you become shameless in perfidy as steadily you go from good to better. Once you would have scornedthe least deviation from the faith you owe me: but a little by a little you have made compromises with virtue, through your weak desire to live comfortably with your wives, and this continual indulgence of women’s notions is draining from you the last drop of wickedness. Not fifty centuries ago you would have been shocked by a kindly thought. Twenty centuries back and you at least retained a proper feeling toward the Decalogue. Now you assist in all reforms and build churches without a blush. For is there nowadays, my deluded, lost Surkrag! in candor, is there any virtue howsoever exalted, is there a single revolting decency or any form of godliness, before which your gorge rises? No, my poor friend: you came hither to corrupt mankind, and instead they have made you little worse than human.”
The Angel of Darkness paused. He had spoken, as became such a famous gentleman, very temperately, without rage, but also without any concealing of his sorrow and disappointment. And Ninzian answered, contritely:
“My prince, I have not wholly kept faith, I know. But always the woman tempted me with the droll notion that our sports ought to open with a religious service, and so I have been now and then seduced into marriage. And my wife, no matter what eyes and hair and tint of flesh she might be wearing at the time, has always been bent upon having her husband lookedup to by the neighbors; and in such circumstances a poor devil has no chance.”
“So that these women have been your ruin, and even now the latest of them is betraying your secret to that implacable saint! Well, it is honest infernal justice, for since the time of Kaïumarth you have gained me not one follower in this place, and have lived openly in all manner of virtue when you should have been furthering my power upon Earth.”
Thus speaking, Lucifer took his seat upon the bench. Then Ninzian too sat down, and Ninzian leaned toward this other immortal, in the ever-thickening dusk; and Ninzian’s plump face was sad.
“My prince, what does it matter? From the first I have let my fond wife have her will with me, because it pleased her, and did no real good. What do these human notions matter, even in so dear a form? A little while and Balthis will be dead. A little while and there will be no Yair nor Upper Ardra, and no shining holy sepulchre at Storisende, and all Poictesme will be forgotten. A little while and this Earth will be an icecold cinder. But you and I shall still be about our work, still playing for the universe, with stars and suns for counters. Does it really matter to you that, for the time this tiny trundling Earth exists and has women on it, I pause from playing at the great game, to entertain myself with these happy accidents of nature?”
Lucifer replied: “It is not only your waste of time that troubles me. It is your shirking of every infernal duty, it is your cherubic lack of seriousness. Why, do you but think how many thousand women have passed through your fingers!”
“Yes, like a string of pearls, my prince,” said Ninzian, fondly.
“Is that not childish sport for you that used to contend so mightily in the great game?”
But Ninzian now was plucking up heart, as the saying is, hand over fist. “Recall the old days, my prince,” he urged, with the appropriate emotional quaver, “when we two were only cherubs, with no bodies as yet sprouted from our little curly heads! Do you recall the merry romps and the kissing games we had as tiny angel-faces, sporting together so lovingly among the golden clouds of heaven, without any cares whatever, and with that collar of wings tickling so drolly one’s ears! and do you let the memory move you, even to unmerited indulgence. I have contracted an odd fancy for this inconspicuous sphere of rock and mud, I like the women that walk glowingly about it. Oh, I concede my taste is disputable—”
“I dispute nothing, Surkrag. I merely point out that lechery is nowhere a generally received excuse for good works.”
“Well, but now and then,” said Ninzian, broadmindedly, “the most conscientious may slip into beneficence.And, in any case, how does it matter what I do on Earth? Frankly, my prince, I think you take the place too seriously. For centuries I have watched those who serve you going about this planet in all manner of quaint guises, in curious masks which are impenetrable to any one who does not know that your preëminent servitors tread with the footfall of a bird wherever they pass upon your errands—”
“Yes, but—” said Lucifer.
“—For ages,” Ninzian continued, without heeding him, “I have seen your emissaries devote much time and cunning to the tempting of men to commit wickedness: and to what end? Man rises from the dust: he struts and postures: he falls back into the dust. That is all. How can this midge work good or evil? His virtue passes as a thin scolding: the utmost reach of his iniquity is to indulge in the misdemeanor of supererogation, by destroying a man or two men, whom time would very soon destroy in any event. Meanwhile his sympathies incline—I know,—by a hair-breadth or so, toward Heaven. Yes, but what does it matter? is it even a compliment to Heaven? Ah, prince, had I the say, I would leave men to perish in their unimportant starveling virtues, without raising all this pother over trifles.”
Ninzian could see that he had made a perceptible impression: yet still, dark Lucifer was shaking his head. “Surkrag, in abstract reason you may be right: butwarfare is not conducted by reason, and to surrender anything to the Adversary, though it were no more than Earth and its inhabitants, would be a dangerous example.”
“Come, prince, do you think how many first class constellations there are to strive for, made up of stars that are really desirable possessions! Turn that fine mind of yours to considerations worthy of it, sir! Consider Cassiopeia, and the Bull, and the dear little Triangle! and do you think about Orion, containing such sidereal masterpieces as Bellatrix and Betelgeuse and Rigel, and the most magnificent nebula known anywhere! Do you think also about that very interesting triple sun which is called Mizar, in the Great Bear, a veritable treasure for any connoisseur! and do you let me have this Earth to amuse me!”
Now Lucifer did not answer at once. The bats were out by this time, zigzagging about the garden: the air was touched with the scent of dew-drenched roses: and somewhere in the dusk a nightingale had tentatively raised its thrilling, long-drawn, plaintive voicing of desire. All everywhere about the two fiends was most soothing. And the Angel of Darkness laughed without a trace left in his manner of that earlier reserve.
“No, no, old wheedler! one cannot neglect the tiniest point, in the great game. Besides, I have my pride, I confess it, and to behold Earth given over entirely to good would vex me. Yet, after all, I can detect no unforgivablebeneficence in your continuing to live virtuously here with your seraglio for such a while as the planet may last. These little holidays even freshen one for work. So, if you like, I will summon Amaimon or Baälzebub, or perhaps Succor-Benoth would enjoy the sport, and they will dispose of this two-penny saint.”
But Ninzian seemed hesitant. “My prince, I am afraid that some of those officious archangels would be coming too; and one thing might lead to another, and my wife would not at all like having any supernal battlings in her own garden, among her favorite rose-bushes. No, as I always say, it is much better to avoid these painful scenes.”
“Your wife!” said Lucifer, in high astonishment, “and is it that thin faded pious wretch you are considering! Why, but your wife has repudiated you! She has caught just your trick of treacherousness, and so she has betrayed you to that flint-hearted saint!”
Ninzian in the dusk made bold to smile....