"Come, I think I will be tempted to say 'Let there be no more bores,'" replied the marquise; "for, truly, it is a perpetual source of anxiety. One has to be always on guard as to what one is saying, and it is an intolerable annoyance. But, with all this folly, you have reminded me of a very strange story that I lately read in an old German book, which might be taken for a touchstone, or thermometer, to measure human selfishness by, if every one would but truly answer the question asked in the story. "The story tells of a poor student in Leipsic, who, in a fit of despair, invoked the wicked spirit, who appeared, and proposed to make this strange compact with him. "'Every wish of yours shall be granted, but on this condition, that you pronounce aloud this word, _Sathaniel_; and that every time you utter the word one of your fellow creatures shall die; a man in some distant country shall die. You will not see him suffer, and no one in the world but yourself will know that the realisation of your desires has cost the life of one of your fellow men.' 'And may I choose the country, the nation of my victim?' said the student. 'Certainly.' 'Shake hands, master, it is a bargain,' said he to the demon. Now the Turks were besieging Belgrade at that period, and it was at their expense that the student satisfied all his wishes, which amounted to fifty or sixty thousand Turks. It is a very vulgar story," said the marquise, "but I should like to know if there are many human beings who, if they were assured of secrecy, could resist the temptation of pronouncing the fatal word, if they were sure of realising an ardently desired wish." "It is simply what might be called a venial homicide," said Lord Falmouth; "and, as for me, if the wish was worth the trouble, if it were some impossible thing, as if, for example, it were a question of being honoured by your friendship, madame la marquise, I certainly would not hesitate at such a trifle as the life of some obscure inhabitant of Greenland, for example, or a Laplander, because, as he is the smallest sort of a man, the sin would no doubt be less." The marquise smiled and shrugged her shoulders, saying to me, "And you, monsieur, do you think that most men would hesitate very long between their wish and the fatal word?" "I believe there would be so little hesitation, madame, even among the most honourable of men, that if in our golden age the wicked spirit should make such a proposition, the world would become a wilderness in eight days; and, perhaps, you, madame, you and Lord Falmouth and I, would be immolated by the caprice of one of our intimate friends, who, instead of taking the trouble of going all the way to Greenland for a victim, would treat us in a neighbourly way."