The Sorrows of Satan

The Sorrows of Satan

Marie Corelli

Do you know what it is to be poor? Not poor with the arrogant poverty complained of by certain people who have five or six thousand a year to live upon, and who yet swear they can hardly manage to make both ends meet, but really poor,--downright, cruelly, hideously poor, with a poverty that is graceless, sordid and miserable? Poverty that compels you to dress in your one suit of clothes till it is worn threadbare,--that denies you clean linen on account of the ruinous charges of washerwomen,--that robs you of your own self-respect, and causes you to slink along the streets vaguely abashed, instead of walking erect among your fellow-men in independent ease,--this is the sort of poverty I mean. This is the grinding curse that keeps down noble aspiration under a load of ignoble care; this is the moral cancer that eats into the heart of an otherwise well-intentioned human creature and makes him envious and malignant, and inclined to the use of dynamite.

When he sees the fat idle woman of society passing by in her luxurious carriage, lolling back lazily, her face mottled with the purple and red signs of superfluous eating,--when he observes the brainless and sensual man of fashion smoking and dawdling away the hours in the Park, as if all the world and its millions of honest hard workers were created solely for the casual diversion of the so-called 'upper' classes,--then the good blood in him turns to gall, and his suffering spirit rises in fierce rebellion, crying out--"Why in God's name, should this injustice be? Why should a worthless lounger have his pockets full of gold by mere chance and heritage, while I, toiling wearily from morn till midnight, can scarce afford myself a satisfying meal?"

Why indeed! Why should the wicked flourish like a green bay-tree? I have often thought about it. Now however I believe I could help to solve the problem out of my own personal experience. But ... such an experience!

Who will credit it? Who will believe that anything so strange and terrific ever chanced to the lot of a mortal man? No one. Yet it is true;--truer than much so-called truth. Moreover I know that many men are living through many such incidents as have occurred to me, under precisely the same influence, conscious perhaps at times, that they are in the tangles of sin, but too weak of will to break the net in which they have become voluntarily imprisoned. Will they be taught, I wonder, the lesson I have learned? In the same bitter school, under the same formidable taskmaster? Will they realize as I have been forced to do,--aye, to the very fibres of my intellectual perception,--the vast, individual, active Mind, which behind all matter, works unceasingly, though silently, a very eternal and positive God? If so, then dark problems will become clear to them, and what seems injustice in the world will prove pure equity! But I do not write with any hope of either persuading or enlightening my fellow-men. I know their obstinacy too well;--I can gauge it by my own. My proud belief in myself was, at one time, not to be outdone by any human unit on the face of the globe. And

I am aware that others are in similar case. I merely intend to relate the various incidents of my career in due order exactly as they happened,--leaving to more confident heads the business of propounding and answering the riddles of human existence as best they may.

During a certain bitter winter, long remembered for its arctic severity, when a great wave of intense cold spread freezing influences not alone over the happy isles of Britain, but throughout all Europe, I, Geoffrey

Tempest, was alone in London and well-nigh starving. Now a starving man seldom gets the sympathy he merits,--so few can be persuaded to believe in him. Worthy folks who have just fed to repletion are the most incredulous, some of them being even moved to smile when told of existing hungry people, much as if these were occasional jests invented for after-dinner amusement. Or, with that irritating vagueness of attention which characterizes fashionable folk to such an extent that when asking a question they neither wait for the answer nor understand it when given, the well-dined groups, hearing of some one starved to death, will idly murmur 'How dreadful!' and at once turn to the discussion of the latest 'fad' for killing time, ere it takes to killing them with sheer _ennui_. The pronounced fact of being hungry sounds coarse and common, and is not a topic for polite society, which always eats more than sufficient for its needs. At the period I am speaking of however, I, who have since been one of the most envied of men, knew the cruel meaning of the word hunger, too well,--the gnawing pain, the sick faintness, the deadly stupor, the insatiable animal craving for mere food, all of which sensations are frightful enough to those who are, unhappily, daily inured to them, but which when they afflict one who has been tenderly reared and brought up to consider himself a

Steadying my thoughts with an effort, I read every word of the document over again deliberately, and the stupefaction of my wonder increased. Was I going mad, or sickening for a fever? Or could this startling, this stupendous piece of information be really true? Because,--if indeed it were true, ... good heavens!--I turned giddy to think of it,--and it was only by sheer force of will that I kept myself from swooning with the agitation of such sudden surprise and ecstasy. If it were true--why then the world was mine!--I was king instead of beggar;--I was everything I chose to be! The letter,--the amazing letter, bore the printed name of a noted firm of London solicitors, and stated in measured and precise terms that a distant relative of my father's, of whom I had scarcely heard, except remotely now and then during my boyhood, had died suddenly in South America, leaving me his sole heir.

"_The real and personal estate now amounting to something over Five Millions of Pounds Sterling, we should esteem it a favour if you could make it convenient to call upon us any day this week in order that we may go through the necessary formalities together. The larger bulk of the cash is lodged in the Bank of England, and a considerable amount is placed in French government securities. We should prefer going into further details with you personally rather than by letter. Trusting you will call on us without delay, we are, Sir, yours obediently...._"

Five Millions! I, the starving literary hack,--the friendless, hopeless, almost reckless haunter of low newspaper dens,--I, the possessor of "over Five Millions of Pounds Sterling"! I tried to grasp the astounding fact,--for fact it evidently was,--but could not. It seemed to me a wild delusion, born of the dizzy vagueness which lack of food engendered in my brain. I stared round the room;--the mean miserable furniture,--the fireless grate,--the dirty lamp,--the low truckle bedstead,--the evidences of penury and want on every side;--and then,--then the overwhelming contrast between the poverty that environed me and the news I had just received, struck me as the wildest, most ridiculous incongruity I had ever heard of or imagined,--and I gave vent to a shout of laughter.

"Was there ever such a caprice of mad Fortune!" I cried aloud--"Who would have imagined it! Good God! I! I, of all men in the world to be suddenly chosen out for this luck! By Heaven!--If it is all true, I'll make society spin round like a top on my hand before I am many months older!"

And I laughed loudly again; laughed just as I had previously sworn, simply by way of relief to my feelings. Some one laughed in answer,--a laugh that seemed to echo mine. I checked myself abruptly, somewhat startled, and listened. Rain poured outside, and the wind shrieked like a petulant shrew,--the violinist next door was practising a brilliant roulade up and down his instrument,--but there were no other sounds than these. Yet I could have sworn I heard a man's deep-chested laughter close behind me where I stood.

"It must have been my fancy;" I murmured, turning the flame of the lamp up higher in order to obtain more light in the room--"I am nervous I suppose,--no wonder! Poor Boffles!--good old chap!" I continued, remembering my friend's draft for fifty pounds, which had seemed such a godsend a few minutes since--"What a surprise is in store for you! You shall have your loan back as promptly as you sent it, with an extra fifty added by way of interest for your generosity. And as for the new Mæcenas you are sending to help me over my difficulties,--well, he may be a very excellent old gentleman, but he will find himself quite out of his element this time. I want neither assistance nor advice nor patronage,--I can buy them all! Titles, honours, possessions,--they are all purchaseable,--love, friendship, position,--they are all for sale in this admirably commercial age and go to the highest bidder! By my soul!--The wealthy 'philanthropist' will find it difficult to match me in power! He will scarcely have more than five millions to waste, I warrant! And now for supper,--I shall have to live on credit till I get some ready cash,--and there is no reason why I should not leave this wretched hole at once, and go to one of the best hotels and swagger it!"