as if Eternal Death was accompanying
him on the bassoon, 'don't require me to tell you.' 'Out with it! what
did he want? Out with it!' cried all. 'My soul.' 'What for?' 'For
wine.' 'Speak plainly, old fellow, what did he do with your soul?' He
was silent for a long time, and at last said, 'Why should I tell this,
gentlemen? It is a dreadful thing, and you don't know what it is to
lose a soul as none of you ever had one.' 'All the more reason why you
shouldn't be afraid of hurting our feelings,' said another. 'But there
is a mortal here, I may not say it before him.' 'Go on,' said I,
trembling all over, 'I'm not easily shocked; after all, I suppose it
was only the Devil who came for you, and he does that every night on
the stage.' 'Well then,' said the old man, 'it was the man with the tap
who had begun by selling _his_ soul to the Devil, but on condition that
he should redeem it if he could find a substitute. He had tried many
but all had escaped him; so he made sure of me. I had grown up a wild
youth with no teaching, and the wars had left me no time for thinking
of my own soul, or Heaven, or Hell, and my only idea was to have a good
time during my life. And my idea of a good time was plenty to drink and
all day to drink it in. Walther perceived this, and says he, "To live
and swill in this Vinous Paradise for two or three decades that would
be a life, hey Balthasar? Wouldn't it?" "Ah!" said I, "I should think
it would, but how could I attain such felicity?" "Which would you think
most of, living here and drinking to your heart's content as long as
you _do_ live, or of the stories about what will happen afterwards?" I
swore a dreadful oath, "My bones will go where so many of my comrades'
bones are lying. When a man is dead he neither feels nor thinks. I have
seen that plainly enough in the case of many a poor fellow whose skull
has been smashed by a bullet; and therefore I will choose to live and
be merry." "Very well," said he. "Then you renounce and forswear the
hereafter, do you? then I can easily manage to make you cellarmaster
here; only write your name in this book, and swear a binding oath at
the same time." I swore again that the Devil or whoever else liked
might have all that remained of me after death. When I had said this I
was aware that we were no longer two, but a third sat by me and gave me
the book to sign.' 'Who was it?' cried all the company. 'It was the
Devil.' Weird words: even the spirits of the Vine