“Will you have a glass of wine, Your Eminence?”
“With pleasure,” replied the Cardinal.
“But none for Satan,” added Magnus jestingly, pouring out the wine. But he could speak and do anything he pleased now: Wondergood was squeezed dry and hung like a rag upon the arm of the chair.
After the wine had been drunk, Magnus lit a cigarette (he smokes cigarettes), cast his eye over the audience, like a lecturer before a lecture, motioned pleasantly to Toppi, now grown quite pale, and said the following...although he was obviously drunk and his eyes were bloodshot, his voice was firm and his speech flowed with measured calm:
“I must say, Wondergood, that I listened to you very attentively and your passionate tirade created upon me, I may say, a great, artistic impression...at certain points you reminded me of the best passages of Brother Geronimo Savanarola. Don’t you also find the same striking resemblance, Your Eminence? But alas! You are slightly behind the times. Those threats of hell and eternal torture with which you might have driven the beautiful and merry Florence to panic ring extremely unconvincing in the atmosphere of contemporary Rome. The sinners have long since departed from the earth, Mr. Wondergood. Have not you noticed that? And as for criminals, and, as you have expressed it, scoundrels,—a plain commissary of police is much more alarming to them than Beelzebub himself with his whole staff of devils. I must also confess that your reference to the court of history and posterity was rather strange when contrasted with the picture you painted of the tortures of hell and your reference to eternity. But here, too, you failed to rise to the height of contemporary thought: every fool nowadays knows that history records with equal impartiality both the names of saints and of rogues. The whole point, Mr. Wondergood, which you, as an American, should be particularly familiar with, is in the scope with which history treats its respective subjects and heroes. The lashings history administers to its great criminals differ but little from her laurels—when viewed at a distance and this little distinction eventually becomes quite invisible—I assure you, Wondergood. In fact, it disappears entirely! And in so far as the biped strives to find a place in history—and we are all animated by this desire, Mr. Wondergood—it need not be particular through which door it enters: I beg the indulgence of His Eminence, but no prostitute received a new guest with greater welcome than does history a new...hero. I fear, Wondergood, that your references to hell as well as those to history have fallen flat. Ah, I fear your hope in the police will prove equally ill-founded: I have failed to tell you that His Eminence has received a certain share of those billions which you have transferred to me in such a perfectly legal manner, while his connections...you understand?”
Poor Toppi: all he could do was to keep on blinking! The aides broke into loud laughter, but the Cardinal mumbled angrily, casting upon me the burning little coals of his eyes:
“He is indeed a brazen fellow. He said he is Satan. Throw him out, Signor Magnus. This is sacrilege!”
“Is that so?” smiled Magnus politely: “I did not know that Satan, too, belonged to the heavenly chair....”
“Satan is a fallen angel,” said the Cardinal in an instructive tone.
“And as such he is in your service? I understand,” Magnus bowed his head politely in acceptance of this truth and turned smilingly to me: “Do you hear, Wondergood? His Eminence is irritated by your audacity.”