Satan’s Diary, Leonid Andreyev [the beginning after the end read novel .TXT] 📗

began to move the feet: it was the appearance of the jovial clown in the tragedy!

Suddenly a dream seized Me by the feet and dragged me rapidly below. I hardly had time enough to shout. And what nonsense arose before me! Do you ever have such dreams? I felt that I was a bottle of champagne, with a thin neck and sealed, but filled not with wine but with blood! And it seemed that not only I but all people had become bottles with sealed tops and all of us were arranged in a row on a seashore. And, Someone horrible was approaching from Somewhere and wanted to smash us all. And I saw how foolish it would be to do so and wanted to shout: “Don’t smash them. Get a corkscrew!” But I had no voice. I was a bottle. Suddenly the dead lackey George approached. In his hands was a huge sharp corkscrew. He said something and seized me by the throat⁠—Ah, ah, by the throat!⁠—

I awoke in pain. Apparently he did try to open me up. My wrath was so great that I neither sighed nor smiled nor moved. I simply killed Wondergood again. I gnashed my teeth, straightened out my eyes, closed them calmly, stretched out at full length and lay peacefully in the full consciousness of the greatness of my Ego. Had the ocean itself moved up on me I would not have batted an eye! Get thee hence, my friend, I wish to be alone.

And the body grew silent, colorless, airy and empty again. With light step I left it and before my eyes there arose a vision of the extraordinary, that which cannot be expressed in your language, my poor friend! Satisfy your curiosity with the dream I have just confided to you and ask no more! Or does not the “huge, sharp corkscrew” suit you? But it is so⁠—artistic!

In the morning I was well again, refreshed and beautiful. I yearned for the play, like an actor who has just left his dressing room. Of course I did not forget to shave. This canaille Wondergood gets overgrown with hair as quickly as his golden skinned pigs. I complained about this to Toppi with whom, while waiting for Magnus, I was walking in the garden. And Toppi, thinking a while, replied philosophically:

“Yes, man sleeps and his beard grows. This is as it should be⁠—for the barbers!”

Magnus appeared. He was no more hospitable than yesterday and his pale face carried unmistakable indications of weariness. But he was calm and polite. How black his beard is in the daytime! He pressed my hand in cold politeness and said: (we were perched on a wall.)

“You are enjoying the Roman Campagna, Mr. Wondergood? A magnificent sight! It is said that the Campagna is noted for its fevers, but there is but one fever it produces in me⁠—the fever of thought!”

Apparently Wondergood did not have much of a liking for nature, and I have not yet managed to develop a taste for earthly landscape: an empty field for me. I cast my eyes politely over the countryside before us and said:

“People interest me more, Signor Magnus.”

He gazed at me intently with his dark eyes and lowering his voice said dryly and with apparent reluctance:

“Just two words about people, Mr. Wondergood. You will soon see my daughter, Maria. She is my three billions. You understand?”

I nodded my head in approval.

“But your California does not produce such gold. Neither does any other country on this dirty earth. It is the gold of the heavens. I am not a believer, Mr. Wondergood, but even I experience some doubts when I meet the gaze of my Maria. Hers are the only hands into which you might without the slightest misgiving place your billions⁠—”

I am an old bachelor and I was overcome with fear, but Magnus continued sternly with a ring of triumph in his voice:

“But she will not accept them, Sir! Her gentle hands must never touch this golden dirt. Her clean eyes will never behold any sight but that of this endless, godless Campagna. Here is her monastery, Mr. Wondergood, and there is but one exit for her from here: into the Kingdom of Heaven, if it does exist!”

“I beg your pardon but I cannot understand this, my dear Magnus!” I protested in great joy. “Life and people⁠—”

The face of Thomas Magnus grew angry, as it did yesterday, and in stern ridicule, he interrupted me:

“And I beg you to grasp, dear Wondergood, that life and people are not for Maria. It is enough that I know them. My duty was to warn you. And now”⁠—he again assumed the attitude of cold politeness⁠—“I ask you to come to my table. You too, Mr. Toppi!”

We had begun to eat, and were chattering of small matters, when Maria entered. The door through which she entered was behind my back. I mistook her soft step for those of the maid carrying the dishes, but I was astonished by the long-nosed Toppi, sitting opposite me. His eyes grew round like circles, his face red, as if he were choking. His Adam’s apple seemed to be lifted above his neck as if driven by a wave, and to disappear again somewhere behind his narrow, ministerial collar. Of course, I thought he was choking to death with a fishbone and shouted:

“Toppi! What is the matter with you? Take some water.”

But Magnus was already on his feet, announcing coldly:

“My daughter, Maria. Mr. Henry Wondergood!”

I turned about quickly and⁠—how can I express the extraordinary when it is inexpressible? It was something more than beautiful. It was terrible in its beauty. I do not want to seek comparisons. I shall leave that to you. Take all that you have ever seen or ever known of the beautiful on earth: the lily, the stars, the sun, but add, add still more. But not this was the awful aspect of it: There was something else: the elusive yet astonishing similarity⁠—to whom? Whom have I met upon this earth who was