Satan came in. His face was as black as tanned calfskin, his voice was hoarse, and a long tail hung down from under his overcoat.
"If you so order," he says, "I'll distribute your calamities for you with my own hands."
"Go ahead with your distribution," says the Lord God; "nobody shall hinder you."
"Will you permit me," Satan says, "to bring about an invasion of foreigners?"
The Lord God shook his finger at Satan and cried: "Is that all you can think of? And you so wise!"
"Excuse me," Satan says. "Why doesn't my plan show wisdom?"
"Because," replies the Lord God, "you propose to afflict the people with war, and war is just what they want. They're all the time fighting among themselves, one people with another, and that's the very thing I want to punish them for."
"Yes," says Satan, "they re greedy for war, but that's only because they have never yet seen a real warrior. Send them a regular conqueror, and they'll soon drop their tails between their legs and cry, 'Have mercy, Lord! Save us from the man of blood!'"
The Lord God was surprised. "Why do you say, my little brother, that the people have never seen a real warrior? The Tsar Herod was a conqueror; the Tsar Alexander subdued a wonderful lot of people; Ivan-Tsar destroyed Kazan; Mamai-Tsar the furious came with all his hordes; and the Tsar Peter, and the great fighter Anika--how many more conquerors do you want?"
"Napoleonder!" cries the Lord God. "Who's he? Where did he come from?"
"He's a certain little man," Satan says, "who may not be wise enough to hurt, but he's terribly fierce in his habits."
The Lord God says to the archangel Gabriel: "Look in the Book of Life, Gabriel, and see if we've got Napoleonder written down."
The archangel looked and looked, but he couldn't look up any such person.
"There isn't any kind of Napoleonder in the Book," he says. "Satan is a liar. We haven't got Napoleonder written down anywhere."
Then Satan replies: "It isn't strange that you can't find Napoleonder in the Book of Life, because you write in that Book only the names of those who were born of human fathers and mothers, and who have navels. Napoleonder never had a father or a mother, and, moreover, he hasn't any navel--and that's so surprising that you might exhibit him for money."