it
back--but I was ashamed to ask it; it might be a rudeness. Satan set an
ox down that he had been making, and smiled up at me and said:

"It wouldn't be a rudeness, and I should forgive it if it was. Have I
seen him? Millions of times. From the time that I was a little child a
thousand years old I was his second favorite among the nursery angels of
our blood and lineage--to use a human phrase--yes, from that time until
the Fall, eight thousand years, measured as you count time."

"Eight--thousand!"

"Yes." He turned to Seppi, and went on as if answering something that
was in Seppi's mind: "Why, naturally I look like a boy, for that is what
I am. With us what you call time is a spacious thing; it takes a long
stretch of it to grow an angel to full age." There was a question in my
mind, and he turned to me and answered it, "I am sixteen thousand years
old--counting as you count." Then he turned to Nikolaus and said: "No,
the Fall did not affect me nor the rest of the relationship. It was
only he that I was named for who ate of the fruit of the tree and then
beguiled the man and the woman with it. We others are still ignorant
of sin; we are not able to commit it; we are without blemish, and
shall abide in that estate always. We--" Two of the little workmen were
quarreling, and in buzzing little bumblebee voices they were cursing
and swearing at each other; now came blows and blood; then they locked
themselves together in a life-and-death struggle. Satan reached out his
hand and crushed the life out of them with his fingers, threw them away,
wiped the red from his fingers on his handkerchief, and went on
talking where he had left off: "We cannot do wrong; neither have we any
disposition to do it, for we do not know what it is."

It seemed a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed
that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had
committed--for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without
palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It
made us miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and so
beautiful and gracious, and had honestly believed he was an angel; and
to have him do this cruel thing--ah, it lowered him so, and we had had
such pride in him. He went right on talking, just as if nothing had
happened, telling about his travels, and the interesting things he had
seen in the big worlds of our solar systems and of other solar systems