FullReads

“I bid the fellow hold his tongue, but you may conceive the feelings that were awakened in me at this strange discourse of Paul’s, whom I suddenly found initiated into my dark secret, and who so unexpectedly displayed a knowledge of cabalistic matters, for which he was probably indebted to the coffee-prophetess. I passed the most uneasy day I ever had in my life. Paul was not to be got out of the room all that evening, but was constantly returning and finding something to do. When it was near midnight, and he was at last obliged to go, he said softly, as if praying to himself: ‘Bear God in thy heart–think of the salvation of thy soul–and thou wilt resist the enticements of Satan.’

“I cannot describe the manner–I may almost say, the fearful manner–in which my soul was moved at these simple words of my servant. All my endeavours to keep myself awake were in vain. I fell into that state of confused dreaming, which I could not look upon as natural, but as the operation of some foreign principle. The magical beaming woke me as usual. Aurora in the full lustre of supernatural beauty, stood before me, and passionately stretched her arms towards me. Nevertheless, Paul’s pious words shone in my soul as if written there with letters of fire. ‘Depart, thou seductive birth of hell!’ I cried, when the terrible O’Malley, now of a gigantic stature, rose before me, and piercing me with eyes, from which an infernal fire was flashing, howled out: ‘Resist not–poor atom of humanity. Thou hast become ours!’ My courage could have withstood the frightful aspect of the most hideous spectre, but I lost my senses at the sight of O’Malley, and fell to the ground.

“A loud report awoke me from this state of stupefaction. I felt myself held by the arms of a man, and struggled with all the force of despair, to free myself. ‘Gracious lieutenant, it is I,’ said a voice in my ears. It was honest Paul who endeavoured to raise me from the ground. I let him have his own way. He would not at first tell me plainly how all had happened, but he at last assured me, with a mysterious smile, that he knew better to what unholy acquaintance the major had lured me, than I could suspect. The old pious Lizzy had revealed every thing to him. He had not gone to sleep the night before, but had well loaded his gun, and had watched at the door. When he had heard me cry aloud and fall to the ground, he had, although his courage failed him a little, burst open the door and entered. ‘There,’ he continued in his mad way, ‘there stood Major O’Malley before me, as frightful to look upon as in the cup of coffee. He grinned at me hideously, but I did not allow myself to be stirred from my purpose and said: ‘If, gracious major, you are the devil, pardon me for stepping boldly up to you as a pious Christian and saying to you: ‘Avaunt, thou cursed Satan-Major, I command thee in the name of the Lord. Begone, or I will fire!’ The major would not give way, but kept on grinning at me, and began to abuse me. I then cried, ‘Shall I fire?–shall I fire? and when he persisted in keeping his place I fired in reality. But all had vanished–both Major Satan and Mam’sell Belzebub had departed through the wall!’

“The continued strain upon the mind during the period that had just passed, together with the last frightful moments, threw me upon a tedious sick-bed. When I recovered I left Potsdam, without seeing any more of O’Malley, whose further fate has remained unknown to me. The image of those portentous days grew fainter and fainter, and at last vanished all together, so that I recovered perfect freedom of mind, until here–“