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

am only logical. I am only the conclusion, the symbol of equality, the sum total, the line beneath the column of figures. You may call it Ergo, Magnus, Ergo! They say: ‘two and two’ and I reply: ‘four.’ Exactly four. Imagine that the world has suddenly grown cold and immovable for a moment and you behold some such picture: here is a free and careless head and above it⁠—a suspended axe. Here is a mass of powder and here a spark about to fall upon it. But it has stopped and does not fall. Here is a heavy structure, set upon a single, undermined foundation. But everything has grown rigid and the foundation holds. Here is a breast and here a hand aiming a bullet at it. Have I prepared all this? I merely touch the lever and press it down. The axe falls upon the laughing head and crushes it. The spark falls into the powder⁠—all is off! The building crashes to the ground. The bullet pierces the ready breast. And I⁠—I have merely touched the lever, I, Magnus Ergo! Think: would I be able to kill had I at my disposal only violins or other musical instruments?”

I laughed:

“Only violins!”

Magnus replied with laughter: his voice was hoarse and heavy:

“But they have other instruments, too! And I will use these instruments. See how simple and interesting all this is?”

“And what further, Magnus Ergo?”

“How do I know what’s to follow? I see only this page and solve only this problem. I know not what the next page contains.”

“Perhaps it contains the same thing?”

“Perhaps it does. And perhaps this is the final page⁠ ⁠… well, what of that: the sum total remains as is necessary.”

“You spoke on one occasion about miracles?”

“Yes, that is my lever. You remember what I told you about my explosive? I promise rabbits to make lions of them.⁠ ⁠… You see, a rabbit cannot stand brains. Give a rabbit brains and he will hang himself. Melancholy will drive him to suicide. Brains implies logic and what can logic promise to a rabbit? Nothing but a sorry fate on a restaurant menu. What one must promise a rabbit is either immortality for a cheap price, as does Cardinal X. or⁠—heaven on earth. You will see what energy, what daring, etc., my rabbit will develop when I paint before him on the wall heavenly powers and gardens of Eden!”

“On the wall?”

“Yes⁠—on a stone wall. He will storm it with all the power of his species! And who knows⁠ ⁠… who knows⁠ ⁠… perhaps this mass may really break through this stone wall?”

Magnus lapsed into thought. I drew away from the now extinguished fire and looked upon the explosive head of my repulsive friend.⁠ ⁠… Something naive, like two little wrinkles, almost like those of a child, lay upon his stony brow. I burst into laughter and shouted:

“Thomas Magnus! Thomas Ergo! Do you believe?”

Without raising his head, as if he had not heard my laughter, he lifted his eyes and replied pensively:

“We must try.”

But I continued to laugh: deep, wild⁠—apparently human⁠—laughing malice began to rise within me:

“Thomas Magnus! Magnus Rabbit! Do you believe?”

He thumped the table with his fist and roared in a wild transport:

“Be quiet! I tell you: we must try. How do I know? I have never yet been on Mars nor seen this earth inside-out. Be silent, accursed egotist! You know nothing of our affairs. Ah, if only you could hate!⁠ ⁠…”

“I hate already.”

Magnus suddenly laughed and grew strangely calm. He sat down and scrutinizing me from all possible angles, as if he did not believe me, he burst out:

“You? Hate? Whom?”

“You.”

He looked me over as carefully again and shook his head in doubt:

“Is that true, Wondergood?”

“If they are rabbits, you are the most repulsive of them all, because you are a mixture of rabbit and⁠ ⁠… Satan. You are a coward! The fact that you are a crook, a thief, a liar, a murderer is not important. But you are a coward! That is important. I expected something more of you. I hoped your mind would lift you above the greatest crime, but you lift crime itself into some base philanthropy. You are as much of a lackey as the others. The only difference between you and them is that you have a perverted idea of service!”

Magnus sighed.

“No, that’s not it. You understand nothing, Wondergood.”

“And what you lack is daring, my friend. If you are Magnus Ergo⁠ ⁠… what audacity: Magnus Ergo!⁠—then why don’t you go the limit? Then, I, too, would follow you⁠ ⁠… perhaps!”

“Will you really come?”

“And why should I not come? Let me be Contempt, and you⁠—Hatred. We can go together. Do not fear lest I hang on to your coat tails. You have revealed much to me, my dear putridity, and I shall not seize your hand even though you raise it against yourself.”

“Will you betray me?”

“And you will kill me. Is that not enough?”

But Magnus shook his head doubtfully and said:

“You will betray me. I am a living human being, while you smell like a corpse. I do not want to have contempt for myself. If I do, I perish. Don’t you dare to look at me! Look upon the others!”

I laughed.

“Very well. I shall not look at you. I will look at the rest. I will make it easier for you with my contempt.”

Magnus fell into prolonged thought. Then he looked again at me piercingly and quietly asked:

“And Maria?⁠ ⁠…”

Oh, cursed wretch! Again he hurled my heart upon the floor! I looked at him wildly, like one aroused at night by fire. And three big waves swept my breast. With the first wave rose the silent violins⁠ ⁠… ah, how they wailed, just as if the musician played not upon strings but upon my veins! Then in a huge wave with foamy surf there rolled by all the images, thoughts and emotions of my recent, beloved human state: think of it: everything was there! Even the lizard that hissed at my feet that evening beneath the moonlight. I recalled even the