At this, the seraphim ruffled their wings, heavy with boredom and sleep. The archangels Michael and Gabriel gazed at the Lord imploringly. God interrupted the Devil.

“You talk in clichés, which is the worst thing that could happen to a spirit of your sort,” replied the Lord. “All that you say or may say has been said and resaid by the world’s moralists. It’s been done to death, and if you have neither the ability nor the originality to breathe new life into it, it would be better for you to be quiet and keep your thoughts to yourself. See? The faces of all my legions show clear signs of the tedium you’re inflicting on them. The old man here looks thoroughly fed up, and do you know what he did?”

“I’ve already said that I don’t.”

“After an honest life, he died a truly sublime death. Caught in a shipwreck, he was going to seize hold of a plank and save himself, when he spied a couple of newlyweds, in the flower of youth, already grappling with death. He gave them that plank and plunged into eternity. No one was watching, only the water and the sky above. Where in that do you find your cotton fringe?”

“As you know, Lord, I am the spirit who denies.”

“Do you deny this death?”

“I deny everything. Misanthropy can look like charity, because, to a misanthrope, leaving life to others is actually a way of despising them . . .”

“A windbag, and a crafty one at that!” exclaimed the Lord. “Go on, go and set up your church. Call upon all the virtues, gather together all the fringes, summon all of mankind . . . But go! Go!”

In vain, the Devil tried to say something more, but God had silenced him, and, upon a divine signal, the seraphim filled Heaven with the harmonious sound of their singing. The Devil suddenly found himself in midair; he furled his wings and, like a bolt of lightning, plunged to Earth.

Chapter 3

GOOD NEWS FOR MANKIND

Once on Earth, the Devil did not waste a single minute. He hurriedly donned a Benedictine cowl—as being a habit of good repute—and began to spread a new and extraordinary doctrine with a voice that echoed down through the bowels of the century. He promised his faithful disciples all of Earth’s delights, all its glories, and all its most intimate pleasures. He admitted that he was indeed the Devil, but did so in order to rectify mankind’s view of him and to deny the stories pious old women told about him.