The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories

tuous of Bartel Sperling, "the traveler," as he called himself, and looked down upon us others because he had been to Vienna once and was the only

to hear him laugh, and see him do lightsome and frivolous things, for to me he would be a corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes, and I should see the shroud around his face; and next day he would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time his handful of days would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming nearer and nearer, his fate closing steadily around him and no one knowing it but Seppi and me. Twelve days-only twelve days. It was awful to think of. I noticed that in my thoughts I was not calling him by his familiar names, Nick and Nicky, b

nd when he overtook me I offered him the core, which was all that was left; and I laughed. Then he turned away, crying, and said he had meant to give it to his little sister. That smote me, for she was slowly getting well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud moment for him, to see her joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was ashamed to say I was ashamed

spoiled four copy-books, and was in danger of severe pun

nd ones. The first fish he caught broke the hook, but he did not know I was blamable, and he refused to take back one of the smal

r than one feels when the wrongs have been done to the living. Nikolaus was living, but no matter; he was to

ew moments, the tears welling into his eyes, then he turned away and I locked my arm in his and we walked along thinking, but not speaking. We crossed the bridge and wandered through the meadows and up among

!-less than

ot go to seek him. It would be like meeting the dead, and we were afraid. We did not say it, but that was what we we

he matter? Have y

to China, and he had begged Satan to take him a journey, and Satan had promised. It was to be a far journey, and wonderful and beautiful; and Nikolaus had begged him to take

y. We were already co

s pleased; and we were constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying, "Wait, let me do that for you," and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks-all I had-and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow-atonements for swindles practised upon him for

"We always prized him, but never so muc

"Only ten days left;" "only nine days left;" "only eight;" "only seven." Always it was narrowing. Always Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled because we were not. He wore his invention to the bone trying to invent ways to cheer us up, but it was only a hollow success; he could see that our jollity had no he

st, when he had but three days to live, he fell upon the right idea and was jubilant over it-a boys-and-girls' frolic and dance in the woods, up there where we first met Satan, and this was to occur on the 14th. It was ghastly, for that was his funeral day. We

s of companionship with one's sacred dead, and I have known no comradeship that was so close or so precious. We clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they was

him at his door. We lingered near awhile, listening; and that happened which we were fearing. His father gave him the promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks. But we

the appointed place, so we went to his home

be found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two. His father gave him a flogging last night. It always grieved me

said, my voice trembling a little; "it would ea

oward me. She turned about with a startled or wonderin

to say; so it was awkward, for she kept loo

got to telling how good you are to him, and how he never got whipped when you were by to save him; and he wa

d he?" and she put h

odor-he will tel

tting here last night, fretting and angry at him, he was loving me and praising me! Dear, dear, if we could only know! Then we shouldn't

ched days, without saying something that made us shiver. They were "groping around,

Nikolaus might

To punish him further, his father doesn't

We thought, "If he cannot leave the house, he

n all day, or o

so unused to being shut up. But he is busy planning his party, an

mboldened him to ask if we might

fields and the woods, having a happy time. You are good boys, I'll allow that, though you don't always find

correct? Only such a few minutes to live! I felt a contraction at my heart. Nikolaus jumped up and ga

ng. And I've finished a kite that you will say is a

f various kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were

get mother to touch up the kite with

nd went clattering do

at it in silence, listening to the ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped we nodded recognition

nd he will pass the death-point. Theodor,

les. Watch the clo

strain and the excitement. Another three min

jumped up and

fore you came." She stood it against the wall, and stepped back to take a view of it. "He drew the pictures his own self, and I think they are very good. The church isn't so v

here i

here soon; he's

ne

little uneasy I told Nikolaus to never mind about his father's orders-go and look her up.... Why, how white you two do look! I

ack window and looked toward the river. There was a great crowd at the other en

olaus! Why, oh, why did she

g, "come quick-we can't bear to meet

and made us come in and sit down and take the medicine. Then she watched the effect, and it did not s

ound of tramping and scraping outside, and a crowd came solemnly i

ace with kisses. "Oh, it was I that sent him, and I have been his death. If I had obeyed, and kept him in the house, this would n

er, but she could not forgive herself and could not be comforted, and kept on saying if sh

r the scheme or do a thing that will break a link. Next we heard screams, and Frau Brandt came wildly plowing and plunging through the crowd with her dress in disorder and hair flying loose, and flung herself upon her dead child with moans an

ke what was most precious to me, and day and night and night and day I have groveled in the dirt be

it from harm-but

child and caressing its face and its hair with her hands; then she spoke again in

ords they had heard. Ah, that poor woman! It is as Satan said, we do not know good fortune from bad, and are always mistaking the

ad departed this life without absolution, and a collection was taken up for masses, to get him out of purgatory. Only two-thirds of the required money was gathered, and the parents were going to try to borrow the rest, but Satan furnished it

e buried it in his brother's cattle-yard, without religious ceremonies. It drove the mother wild with grief and shame, and she forsook her work and went daily about the town, cursing the carpenter and blaspheming the laws of the emperor and the church, and it was pitiful to see. Seppi asked Satan to interfere, but he said the carpenter and the

od gave her forty-two years to live, and her shortest one twenty-nine, and that both were charged with grief and hunger and cold and pain. The only improvement he could make would be to enable her to skip a certain three minutes from now; and he asked us if

ng around a corner; I have turned h

will happ

Fischer will straightway do what he would not have done but for this accident. He

will h

ying her. In three days s

had not meddled with her career she would have been spar

ged. Die when she might, she would go to heaven. By this prompt death she gets twenty-nine

ours, for he did not seem to know any way to do a person a kindness but by killing him; but the whole aspect

ut Fischer, and asked, timidly, "Does this

ago he would die next year, thirty-four years of age. Now he will live to be nin

e showed no sign and this made us uneasy. We waited for him to speak, but he didn't; so, to assuage our solicitude we had to a

oint. Under his several former possibl

"Oh, Satan! and

u were sincerely trying to do him

. You ought to have told us what we wer

rant notion of such things except by experience. We tried our best to make him comprehend the awful thing that had been done and how we were compromised by it, but he couldn't seem to get hold of it. He said he did not think it important where Fischer went to; in heaven he would not be m

and his alert manner that he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn for poor Frau Brandt. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expectantly. And, sure enough, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed after, in charge of the officers and wearing jinglin

a little puff toward them with his lips and they began to reel and stagger and grab at the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in every direction, s

have lost them. Some few will profit in var

n's desire to do us kindnesses, but we were losing confidence in his judgment. It was at this time that our growing anx

r blasphemies, for she uttered those terrible words again and said she would not take them back. When warned that she was imperiling her life, she said they could take it in welcome, she did not want it, she would r

alive five minutes? No; I would strike you all dead. Pronou

robe and delivered to the secular arm, and conducted to the market-place, the bell solemnly tolling the while. We saw her chained to the stake, and saw the

days when we were innocent little creatu

we put our fingers in our ears. When they ceased we knew she was in heaven, notwithstanding t

or life was never very stagnant when he was by. He came upon us at that place in the woods where

tory of the progress of the human race?-its develo

d we s

ad not drawn it in. He spoke to his brother in a language which we did not understand; then he grew violent and threatening, and we knew what was going to happen, and turned away our heads for the moment; but we heard th

nd massacres. Next we had the Flood, and the Ark tossing around in the stormy waters, w

was not satisfactory. It is

and we saw Noah o

scover two or three respectable persons there," as Sata

massacre the survivors and their cattle, and save

sleeping guest; and we were so close that when the blood gushed out it trickled in a litt

thaginians, and the sickening spectacle of the massacre of those brave people. Also we saw Caesar invade Britain-"not that those barbarians had done h

ianity and Civilization march hand in hand through those ages, "leaving famine and death and d

imes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but nev

n to the present, and you must confess that it is w

eir destruction of life, more devastating i

protective armor and the fine arts of military organization and generalship; the Christian has added guns and gunpowder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly improved t

e knew that what he had been saying shamed us and wounded us. No one but an angel could have

sarily, then, this talk of his was a disappointment to us, for it showed that we had made no deep impression upon him. The thought made us sad, and we knew then how the mi

latest ever invented any sweeping and adequate way to kill people. They all did their best-to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the earliest incident in its history-but only the Christian civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two or thr

ghty procession, an endless procession, raging, struggling, wallowing through seas of blood, smothered in battle-smoke through whic

and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave, and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your heart-if you have one-you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line; it is the foun

colors in them were in motion. They were very brilliant and sparkling, and of every tint, and they were never still, but flowed to and fro in rich tides which met and broke and flashed out dainty explosions of enchanting color. I think it was most like

there some da

de me feel ghastly, for I knew he had heard; nothing, spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi looked distressed, and did not finish his remark. The goblets rose and clove the