“The devil!” I cried, for indeed I greatly marveled that this should be so.
Said the angel: “Guess again.”
“Compound now, I beseech thee,” I said, “the best that thou hast use for in thy business: a tipple of surpassing richness—one which maketh the hair to curl.”
Thereupon he put into the second vessel 1 part of bitter and 9 of sweet. And he looked upon it saying: “It is the best that it is permitted to me to do.”
“Show me,” I said, “the worst; for truly it must be exceeding fierce, slaying at eighty rods.”
“It is bad to take,” he answered, and straightway poured into the third vessel 10 parts of sweet. Then, upraising the other skin, he filled the vessel to the brim, and a great compassion fell upon my spirit, thinking on the unhappy man who should get himself outside that unholy tope.
“Behold,” said the angel, “Heaven is just! The ratio of pain to joy in the lot of the happiest mortal is the same as that of joy to pain in his who is most wretched. It is 1 to 10.” And after some little time he spake again:
“I’m a dandy for fairness.”
“True, O Dandy Allotter,” I said: “the proportions are only reversed. But these two vessels, the second and the third, holding the good draught and the bad—lo! the good is but a tenth part full, whilst the latter overfloweth the vessel. Is each quantity a dose?”
And the angel said: “Each is a dose.”