Austria -- Fiction; Devil -- Fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
Then I caught my breath, for we were there. There in the parlor, and
Marget standing looking at us, astonished. She was feeble and pale,
but I knew that those conditions would not last in Satan’s atmosphere,
and it turned out so. I introduced Satan--that is, Philip Traum--and
we sat down and talked. There was no constraint. We were simple folk,
in our village, and when a stranger was a pleasant person we were
soon friends. Marget wondered how we got in without her hearing us.
Traum said the door was open, and we walked in and waited until she
should turn around and greet us. This was not true; no door was open;
we entered through the walls or the roof or down the chimney, or
somehow; but no matter, what Satan wished a person to believe, the
person was sure to believe, and so Marget was quite satisfied with that
explanation. And then the main part of her mind was on Traum, anyway;
she couldn’t keep her eyes off him, he was so beautiful. That gratified
me, and made me proud. I hoped he would show off some, but he didn’t.
He seemed only interested in being friendly and telling lies. He said
he was an orphan. That made Marget pity him. The water came into her
eyes. He said he had never known his mamma; she passed away while he
was a young thing; and said his papa was in shattered health, and had
no property to speak of--in fact, none of any earthly value--but he had
an uncle in business down in the tropics, and he was very well off and
had a monopoly, and it was from this uncle that he drew his support.
The very mention of a kind uncle was enough to remind Marget of her
own, and her eyes filled again. She said she hoped their two uncles
would meet, some day. It made me shudder. Philip said he hoped so, too;
and that made me shudder again.
“Maybe they will,” said Marget. “Does your uncle travel much?”
“Oh yes, he goes all about; he has business everywhere.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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