The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories

hed. 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 anythin

sket every evening, but the spies ascertai

ced 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 recognized 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 pro

Ursula ordered Gottfried to bring a special table for him.

hat you wil

of each. The astrologer, who very likely had never seen such delicacies before, poured out

ers; and there was quite a rustle of whispers: "It's the young stranger we hear so much about and can't get 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?

overturned it. He seized it before much was spilled, and held it up to the light, saying, "What a pity-it i

ring, the red liquor gurgling and gushing into the white bowl and rising higher and higher up i

n Father Adolf rose up, flushed and excited, crossed himself, and began to thunder in his great voice, "This house is b

ait-remain where you are." All stopped where they stood. "Bring a funnel!" Ursula brought it, trembling and scared, and he stuck it in the bottle and took up the great bowl and began to pour the wine back, the people gazing and dazed with astonishmen

wiftly emptied the house of all who did not belong in it except us boys and Meidling. We boys knew the secret, and would h

oafing in, looking pious and unaware, and wanted to rub up against Ursula and be petted, but Ursula was afraid of her and shrank away from her, but pretending she was not meaning any incivility, for she knew very well it wouldn't answer to have straine

excitement and fright; and then Father Adolf appeared, and they fell apart in two walls like the cloven Red Sea, and presently down this lane the astrologer came striding and mumbling, and where he passed the lanes surged back in packed masses, and fell silent with awe, and their eyes stared and their breasts heaved, and several women fainted; an

ho was keeping three brass balls in the air, and took them from him and faced around upon the approac

air and was a shining and glinting and wonderful sight. Then he folded his arms and told the balls to go on spinning without his help-and they did it. After a couple of minutes he said, "There, that will do," and the oval broke and came crashing down, and the balls scattered abroad and rolled every whither. And wherever one of them came the people fell back in dread, and no one would touch it. It made him laugh, and he scoffed at the people and called them cowards and old

up the road and around the corner and disappeared. Then that great, pale, silent, solid crowd drew a deep breath and looked into one another's faces as if they said: "Was it real? Did you see it, or was it only I-and was I dreaming?" Then they broke into a lo

their talk they still had us for company. They were in a sad mood, for it was certain, they said, that disaster for the village must follow th

nt of God before," he said; "and how they could have dared it thi

the others,

ery serious. Always before, we h

hill, and muttered those words over-"

hlmeyer's father; "there is

the judge, "and despair will take away their courage and

all will go about the country, and our village will be shunned as bein

"all of us will suffer-all in repu

t is

come-to

um Gottes

Inter

opped brooding and began to consider ways to avert it. They discussed this, that, and the other way, and talked till the afternoon was far spent,

ought to have been surprising, but it was not, for they were so distraught with fear and dread that they were not in their right minds, I think; they were white and haggard, an

a, but said nothing, and not even holding hands. Both were steeped in gloo

. I cannot bear to be his murderer. This house is bewitched, and no inmate

bout the awful fears which were freezing the blood in the hearts of the community, but began to talk and rattle on about all manner of gay and pleasant things; and next about music-an artful stroke which cleared away the remnant of Marget's depression and brought her spirits and her interests broad awake. She had not heard any one talk so well and so knowingly on that subject before, and she was

he panes and the dull growling of distant thunder. Away in the night

-so it is

glare of sunlight, and h

t opinion of his travels. We buzzed around over that empire for more than half an hour, and saw the whole of it. It was wonderful, the spectacles we saw; and some were beautiful, others too horrible to think

blue sea on the farther verge. It was a tranquil and dreamy picture, beautiful to the eye and restful to the spirit. If we could only make a change like that whenever we wanted to,

be more considerate and stop making people unhappy. I said I knew he did not mean any harm, but that he ought to stop and consider the possible consequences of a thing before l

and consider possible consequences? Where is the need?

how could you d

dozen. In most cases the man's life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the unhappiness predominates-always; never the other. Sometimes a man's make and disposition are such that his misery-machine is able to do nearly all the business. Such a man goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he do

out too flatly, so I s

possible that they should be. The difference between them

ntell

ne an elephant being interested in him-caring whether he is happy or isn't, or whether he is wealthy or poor, or whether his sweetheart returns his love or not, or whether his mother is sick or well, or whether he is looked up to in society or not, or whether his enemies will smite him or his friends desert him, or whether his hopes will suffer blight or his political ambitions fail, or whether he shall die in the bosom of his family or neglected and despised in a foreign land? These things can never be important to

eature is separated from the other by a distance which is simply astronomical. Yet in these, as

g it desires-and in a moment. Creates without material. Creates fluids, solids, colors-anything, everything-out of the airy nothing which is called Thought. A man imagines a silk thre

ed to open a book; I take the whole of its contents into my mind at a single glance, through the cover; and in a million years I could not forget a single word of it, or its place in the volume. Nothing goes on in the skull of man, bird,

is own kind-for his equals. An angel's love is sublime, adorable, divine, beyond the imagination of man-infinitely beyond it! But it is limited to his own august order. If it fell upon one of your race for only an instant, it would consum

king a sarcasm, and he

se, but it will be none the less true, for all that. Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks over the next brick-and so on till all the row is prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the fut

order th

fferent from the career which his first act as a child had arranged for him. Indeed, it might be that if he had gone to the well he would have ended his career on a throne, and that omitting to do it would set him upon a career that would lead to beggary and a pauper's grave. For instance: if at any time-say in boyhood-Columbus had skipped the triflingest little link in the chain of acts projected and made inevitable by his first childish act, it would have changed his whole subsequent life, and he would have beco

ng of a continen

as its proper place in his chain; and when he finally decides an act, that also was the thing which he was absolutely certain to do. You see, now, that a man will never drop a link in his chain. H

med so

ife," I said sorrowfull

from the consequences of his firs

d up wi

careers of a numbe

, but found it diffi

er changes. You know t

that she is not like any other child. She says she will be the pride o

change he

better?

change the futu

on't need to ask about his case; you

my inte

nd hofmeister at the court, when I noticed that Satan was waiting for me to get ready to listen again. I was ashamed of havi

nted life is s

grand!

I have appointed that he shall get up and close the window first. That trifle will change his career entirely. He will rise in the morning two minutes later than the chain of his life had appointed him to rise. By consequence, thenceforth nothing will

el creepy; it

scene at exactly the right moment-four minutes past ten, the long-ago appointed instant of time-and the water would be shoal, the achievement easy

es, "save them! Don't let it happen. I can't bear to lose Nikolaus,

ut he was not moved. He made me sit down

his drenching; one of your race's fantastic and desolating scarlet fevers would follow, with pathetic after-effects; for forty-six years he wo

world! In charity and

ries and disasters. But for my intervention he would do his brave deed twelve days from now-a deed begun and ended in six minutes-and get for all reward those forty-six years of sorrow and suffering I told

sa's early death would save he

tion, shame, depravity, crime, ending with death at the hands of the executioner. Twelve days h

ndeed yes;

sently. He will be acquitted, through

an that be? Do you

ame will be restored, and the

restore his good name

I shall change his life that day, for his good. H

tan paid no attention to my thought. Next, my mind wand

pleasant time; still, it is good enough for him, a good place for his star studies. I shall need him presently; then I shall bring him back and possess him again. He has a l

our ways; and, besides, human beings are nothing to them; they think they are only freaks. It seems to me odd that

es from here, and the light that is falling upon us has taken eight minutes to come; but I can make that flight, or any other,

The light lies upon it; think

. I drank

e glass,"

rok

fraid to touch them. You are a curious lot-your race. But come along; I have business. I will put you to bed." Said and d

answer to