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

glasses of wine while Magnus drank none.⁠ ⁠… His nose is never red. Suddenly he said with determination:

“Do not drink any more wine, Wondergood.”

“Oh, very well. I want no more wine. Is that all?”

Magnus continued to question me at long intervals. His voice was sharp and stern, while mine was⁠ ⁠… melodious, I would say.

“There has been a great change in you, Wondergood.”

“Quite possible, thank you, Magnus.”

“There used to be more life in you. Now you rarely jest. You have become very morose, Wondergood.”

“Oh!”

“You have even grown thin and your brow is sallow. Is it true that you get drunk every night in the company of your⁠ ⁠… friends?”

“It seems so.”

“… that you play cards, squander your gold, and that recently someone had been nearly murdered at your table?”

“I fear that is true. I recollect that one gentleman actually tried to pierce another gentleman with his fork. And how do you know all about that?”

He replied sternly and significantly:

“Toppi was here yesterday. He wanted to see⁠ ⁠… Maria but I myself received him. With all due respect to you, Wondergood, I must say that your secretary is unusually stupid.”

I acquiesced coldly.

“You are quite right. You should have driven him out.”

I must say for my part, that my last two glasses of wine evaporated from me at the mention of Maria’s name, and our attempted conversation was marked by continued evaporation of the wine I drank, like perfume out of a bottle. I have always regarded wine as unreliable matter. We found ourselves again listening to the storm and I remarked:

“The wind seems to be growing more violent, Signor Magnus.”

“Yes, the wind seems to be growing more violent, Mr. Wondergood. But you must admit that I warned you beforehand, Mr. Wondergood.”

“Of what did you warn me beforehand, Signor Magnus?”

He seized his knees with his white hands and directed upon me the gaze of a snake charmer.⁠ ⁠… Ah, he did not know that I myself had extracted my poisoned teeth and was quite harmless, like a mummy in a museum! Finally, he realized that there was no use beating about the bush, and came straight to the point:

“I warned you in regard to Maria,” he said slowly, with peculiar insinuation. “You remember that I did not desire your acquaintance and expressed it plainly enough? You have not forgotten what I told you about Maria, of her fatal influence upon the soul? But you were bold and insistent and I yielded. And now you ask us⁠—me and my daughter⁠—to view the highly exhilarating spectacle of a gentleman in the process of disintegration, one who asks nothing, who reproaches no one, but can find no solace until everyone has smelled his wound.⁠ ⁠… I do not want to repeat your expression, Mr. Wondergood. It has a bad odor. Yes, sir, you have spoken quite frankly of your⁠ ⁠… neighbors and I am sincerely glad you have finally abandoned this cheap play at love and humanity.⁠ ⁠… You have so many other pastimes! I confess, however, that I am not at all overjoyed at your intention of presenting to us the sediment of a gentleman. It seems to me, sir, that you made a mistake in leaving America and your⁠ ⁠… canning business: dealing with people requires quite a different sort of ability.”

He laughed! He was almost driving Me out, this little man, and I, who write my “I” in a super-capital, I listened to him humbly and meekly. It was divinely ridiculous! Here is another detail for those who love the ridiculous: before his tirade began my eyes and the cigar between my teeth were quite bravely and nonchalantly directed toward the ceiling, but they changed their attitude before he had finished.⁠ ⁠… To this very moment I feel the taste of that miserable dangling, extinguished cigar. I was choking with laughter⁠ ⁠… that is I did not yet know whether to choke with laughter or with wrath. Or, without choking at all, to ask him for an umbrella and leave. Ah, he was at home, he was on his own ground, this angry, black bearded man. He knew how to manage himself in this situation and he sang a solo, not a duet, like the inseparable Satan of Eternity and Wondergood of Illinois!

“Sir!” I said with dignity: “There seems to be a sad misunderstanding here. You see before you Satan in human form⁠ ⁠… you understand? He went out for an evening stroll and was lost in the forest⁠ ⁠… in the forest, sir, in the forest! Won’t you be good enough, sir, to direct him to the nearest road to Eternity? Ah, Ah! Thank you. So I thought myself. Farewell!”

Of course, I really did not say that. I was silent and gave the floor to Wondergood. And this is what that respectable gentleman said, dropping his wet, dead cigar:

“The devil take it! You are quite right, Magnus. Thank you, old man. Yes, you warned me quite honestly, but I preferred to play a lone hand. Now I am a bankrupt and at your mercy. I shall have no objection if you should order the removal of the sediment of the gentleman.”

I thought that without waiting for a stretcher, Magnus would simply throw the sediment out of the window, but his generosity proved quite surprising: he looked at Me with pity and even stretched out his hand.

“You are suffering very much, Mr. Wondergood?”⁠—a question quite difficult to answer for the celebrated duet! I blinked and shrugged my shoulders. This appeared to satisfy Magnus and for a few moments we were both silent. I do not know of what Magnus was thinking. I thought of nothing: I simply examined with great interest, the walls, the ceiling, books, pictures⁠—all the furnishings of this human habitation. I was particularly absorbed in the electric light upon which I fixed my attention: why does it burn and give light?

“I am waiting for your answer, Mr. Wondergood.”

So he was really expecting me to reply? Very well.

“It’s very simple, Magnus⁠ ⁠… you warned me, I admit. Tomorrow Toppi will pack my trunks and I shall go back to America