"Because," Lothair said, "belief in a diabolical compact actually brought such a compact about."
"How do you mean? What do you say?" the two others cried together.
"Understand me properly, that is all I ask," said Lothair, "It is matter of certainty that, in the times when nobody doubted of the direct and immediate influence of the Devil, or that he constantly appeared visibly, those miserable creatures, who were hunted down and put so mercilessly to fire and sword, actually and firmly believed in all that they were accused of; and that many, in the wickedness of their hearts, tried their utmost, by means of every description of supposed arts of witchcraft, to enter into compact with the Devil, for the sake of gain, or for the doing of evil deeds; and then, in conditions of brain-excitement, produced by beverages affecting their senses, and by terrible oaths and ceremonies of conjuration, saw the Evil One, and entered into those compacts which were to confer upon them supernatural powers. The wildest of the fabrications of the brain which those confessions contain--based upon inward conviction--do not seem too wild when one considers what strange fancies--nay, what terrible infatuations--even hysteria itself is capable of producing in women. Thus the wickedness of the hearts of those putative witches was often paid for by a fearful death. We cannot reasonably reject the testimony of those old witch-trials, for they are supported by the evidence of witnesses, or other clearly recorded facts; and there are many instances of people who have committed crimes deserving of death. Remember Tieck's magnificent tale, 'The Love-Spell.' There is a deed mentioned in the papers I have been speaking of very analogous to the crime of the horrible woman in Tieck's tale. So that a death on the funeral pyre was often really the proper punishment for those fearful misdoings."
"There occurs to my remembrance," Theodore said, "an occasion when an accursed crime of that description chanced to be brought vividly before my own eyes, filling me with the profoundest pain and sorrow. When I was living in W---- I went to see a certain charming country seat, L----, which you know. It has been justly said of it that it seems to float like some stately swan mirrored on the beautiful lake which lies at its feet. I had heard, before, that there were dark rumours to the effect that the unfortunate possessor of it, who had died but a short time before, had carried on magical practices, with the help of an old woman; and that the aged keeper of the chateau could tell a good deal about this business, could one gain his confidence. As soon as I saw this man he struck me as a very remarkable person. Imagine to yourselves a hoary-headed old man with imprints of the profoundest terror in his face, dressed poorly, like a peasant, but indicating, by his manner, unusual cultivation. Remark that this man, whom you would have taken for an ordinary labourer at the first glance, would talk to you--if you did not happen to understand the patois of the district--in the purest French, or in equally good Italian, just as you chose. I managed to interest and to animate him by touching, as we wandered through the great halls, on the troubles which his late master had had to go through, and by showing that I was, to some extent, acquainted with the subject, and with what had happened in those bygone days. He explained the deeper meaning of many of the paintings and adornments (which, to the uninitiated, seemed mere unmeaning prettinesses), and grew more and more frank and confidential. At last he opened a small closet, floored with slabs of white marble, in which the only piece of furniture was a cauldron of brass. The walls seemed to have been stripped of their former adornments. I knew, I felt, that I was in the place where the former master of the house, blinded and befooled by his lust for sensuous enjoyment, had descended to diabolical practices. When I dropped a word or two hinting at this subject, the old man raised his eyes to heaven with an expression of the bitterest melancholy, and said, with a deep sigh, 'Ah! Holy Virgin! hast thou forgiven him?' He then silently pointed to a large marble slab embedded in the middle of the flooring. I looked at this slab with much closeness of observation, and became aware that there were reddish veins meandering about through the stone. And, as I fixed my attention upon them more and more closely, heaven aid me! the features of a human face grew more and more distinctly traceable and visible, just as when, on looking at a distorted picture through a lens specially constructed, all its lines and effects then, and not till then, grow clear and sharp.
"It was the face of a child that was looking at me out of that stone, marked with the heartrending anguish of the agony of death. I could see drops of blood welling from the breast; but the rest of the form of the body seemed to flow vaguely into indistinctness, as if a stream of water were carrying it away. It was with a hard struggle that I overcame the horror which well-nigh overmastered me. I could not bring myself to utter a word. We left that terrible, mysterious place in silence. Not till I had walked about in the park and the lawns for some time could I overcome the inexplicable feeling which had so annulled my enjoyment of that little earthly paradise. From many things which I gathered from the detached utterances of the old man, I was led to conclude that the crazy being who had thrust herself into such intimate relations with the last proprietor of the place (in other respects a large-hearted and cultivated man) had worked upon him by promising him, through the exercise of her accursed arts, the fulfilment of his dearest wishes--unfailing and everlasting happiness in love--and so led him on to unutterable crime."
"This is an affair for Cyprian," Ottmar said. "He would be as delighted over the bleeding baby in the marble, and in the old Castellan, as we." "Well," Theodore went on to say, "although all this affair may be traceable to foolish fancies--although it may be nothing but a fable kept up by the people--still, if that strangely-veined slab of marble is capable, even under the influence of a lively imagination, of showing the lineaments of a bleeding baby when looked at closely and carefully, something uncanny must have happened, or the faithful old servant could not have felt his master's guilt so deeply in his heart, nor would that strange stone give such a terrible evidence of it."
Ottmar said, replying, "We will take an early opportunity of laying this matter before Saint Serapion, that we may ascertain exactly how it stands; but for the time, I think we ought to let witches alone, and go back to our subject of the 'German Devil,' as to which I would fain say a word or two. What I am driving at is--that the characteristic German manner of treating this subject is seen in its truest colour when it is a question of the Devil's manner of conducting himself in ordinary everyday life. Whenever he takes part in that, he is thoroughly 'up' in every description of evil and mischief--in everything that is terrible and alarming. He is always on the alert to set traps for the good, so as to lead as many of them as possible over to his own kingdom; but yet he is a thoroughly fair and honourably-dealing personage, abiding by his compacts and contracts in the most accurate and punctilious manner. From this it results that he is often outwitted, so that he appears in the character of a 'stupid' Devil (and this is not improbably the origin of the common expression 'stupid devil'); but, besides all this, the character of the German Satan has a strong tincture of the burlesque mixed up with the more predominant quality of mind-disturbing terror--that horror which oppresses the mind and disorganizes it. Now, the art of portraying the Devil in this distinctively German fashion seems to be very much lost. For this aforesaid amalgamation of his characteristics does not seem to occur in any of the more recent attempts at representing him. He is either shown as a mere buffoon, or as a being so terrible that the mind is revolted by him."
"I think," said Lothair, "you are forgetting one recent story in which this said mingling of the brightly Intellectual (verging sometimes on the comic) with the Terrific is very finely managed, and in which the full effectiveness of the old-world sort of devil-spook-story is carried out in a masterly manner. I mean Fouqué's splendid tale, the 'Galgenmännlein.'[1] The terribly vivacious little creature in the phial--who comes out of it at night, and lays himself down on the breast of that master of his, who has such awful dreams--the fearsome man in the mountain glen, with his great coal-black steed which crawls up the perpendicular cliffs like a fly on a wall--in short, all the uncanny and supernatural elements which are present in the story in such plentiful measure--together rivet and strain the attention to an extent absolutely frightening; it affects one like some powerful drink, which immensely excites the senses and at the same time sheds a beneficent warmth through the heart. It is owing to the tone which pervades it all through, and to the vividness of the separate pictures, that, although at the end one is thoroughly delighted that the poor wretch does get out of the Devil's clutches, still, the element of the Intellectuality of the evil beings, and the scenes which touch upon the realm of comedy (such as the part about the 'Half Heller') stand out with the principal high-lights upon them. I scarcely can think of any tale of diablerie which has produced such an impression upon me."
[Footnote 1: Known in English as "The Bottle Imp.">[
"There can't be much doubt," said Theodore, "that Fouqué got the materials for that story out of some old chronicle."