Johannes looked at him. He now appeared wholly different. His brown suit had disappeared, and his smooth supple body—as shiny as a snakeskin—was as iridescent as water stirred by dripping tar. His face, too, was far less affable. Hollow and grinning, it began to look like a death's head.
"You are the real Death!" exclaimed Johannes. "The other is a good friend of mine. I have no more fear of him."
The Devil laughed and reached out his hand toward Johannes' little flower. But Johannes caught it up close to his breast. The flower hung limp and seemed to be perishing. The little mirror shook like a leaf in his hand, so that he could scarcely hold it.
"Wistik!" he cried.
He listened, but could hear nothing. And now he seemed to be falling with whizzing speed. Johannes was greatly alarmed. The long ward with its rows of little beds grew ever longer, ever narrower.
"Wistik! Marjon! Let me out! Let me out! Set me free!"
"I have also a classification 'Freedom'," remarked the Devil, pointing out a mannikin who, busy with a long ribbon inscribed with the words "Freedom and 'Justice," kept winding it around his head, arms, and legs until he could not move a muscle.
"No!" cried Johannes, banging with both hands—in which were still clutched his flower and mirror—at a hard, spotted door. This door was marked "Sin and Crime."
"Look out!" said the Devil. "Do you not see what it says over it?"
"I do not care what it says!" cried Johannes, pounding away.