For as much as a year
Satan continued these
visits, but at last he came
less often, and then
for a long time
he did not come at all.
This always made me
lonely and melancholy.Â
I felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world
and might at any time
abandon his visits entirely.
When one day he finally
came to me I was overjoyed,
but only for a little while.Â
He had come to say
good-by, he told me,
and for the last time.
He had investigations and undertakings in other
corners of the universe,
he said, that would keep
him busy for a longer
period than I could
wait for his return.
"And you are going away,
and will not come back
any more?"
"Yes," he said.
"We have comraded
long together,
and it has been pleasant--
pleasant for both;
but I must go now,
and we shall not see each
other any more."
"In this life, Satan,
but in another?
We shall meet in
another, surely?"
Then, all tranquilly
and soberly, he made
the strange answer,
"There is no other."
A subtle influence
blew upon my
spirit from his,
bringing with it a vague,
dim, but blessed and
hopeful feeling
that the incredible words
might be true--
even must be true.
"Have you never
suspected this, Theodor?"
"No. How could I?
But if it can only be true--"
"It is true."
A gust of thankfulness
rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it could issue in words,
and I said,
"But--but--we have seen that future life-- seen it in its actuality, and so--"
"It was a vision--
it had no existence."
I could hardly breathe
for the great hope that
was struggling in me.
"A vision?--a vi--"
"Life itself is only
 a vision, a dream."
It was electrical.
By God! I had had
that very thought
a thousand times
in my musings!
"Nothing exists;
 all is a dream.
God -- man -- the world --
the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars --
a dream, all a dream;
they have no existence.
Nothing exists save
empty space -- and you!"
"I!"
"And you are not you--
you have no body,
no blood, no bones,
you are but a thought.Â
I myself have no
existence; I am but a
dream--your dream,
creature of your
imagination.Â
In a moment you will
have realized this,
then you will banish
me from your visions
and I shall dissolve
into the nothingness
out of which you
made me....
"I am perishing already--
I am failing--
I am passing away.
In a little while you
will be alone
in shoreless space,
to wander its limitless solitudes without friend
or comrade forever--
for you will remain a
thought, the only
existent thought,
and by your nature
inextinguishable, indestructible.
 But I, your poor
servant, have revealed
you to yourself
and set you free.
Dream other dreams,
and better!