What Grandfather Satan Reported  
Next the tale tells how three inferior devils made a loud music with bagpipes as Jurgen went into the Black House of Barathum, to talk with Grandfather Satan.
 
Satan was like a man of sixty, or it might be sixty-two, in all things save that he was covered with gray fur, and had horns like those of a stag. He wore a breech-clout of very dark gray, and he sat in a chair of black marble, on a daïs: his bushy tail, which was like that of a squirrel, waved restlessly over his head as he looked at Jurgen, without speaking, and without turning his mind from an ancient thought. And his eyes were like light shining upon little pools of ink, for they had no whites to them.
 
"What is the meaning of this insane country?" says Jurgen, plunging at the heart of things. "There is no sense in it, and no fairness at all."
 
"Ah," replied Satan, in his curious hoarse voice, "you may well say that: and it is what I was telling my wife only last night."
 
"You have a wife, then!" says Jurgen, who was always interested in such matters. "Why, but to be sure! either as a Christian or as a married man, I should have comprehended this was Satan's due. And how do you get on with her?"
 
"Pretty well," says Grandfather Satan: "but she does not understand me."
 
"Et tu, Brute!" says Jurgen.
 
"And what does that mean?"
 
"It is an expression connotating astonishment over an event without parallel. But everything in Hell seems rather strange, and the place is not at all as it was rumored to be by the priests and the bishops and the cardinals that used to be exhorting me in my fine palace at Breschau."
 
"And where, did you say, is this palace?"
 
"In Noumaria, where I am the Emperor Jurgen. And I need not insult you by explaining Breschau is my capital city, and is noted for its manufacture of linen and woolen cloth and gloves and cameos and brandy, though the majority of my subjects are engaged in cattle-breeding and agricultural pursuits."
 
"Of course not: for I have studied geography. And, Jurgen, it is often I have heard of you, though never of your being an emperor."
 
"Did I not say this place was not in touch with new ideas?"
 
"Ah, but you must remember that thoughtful persons keep out of Hell. Besides, the war with Heaven prevents us from thinking of other matters. In any event, you Emperor Jurgen, by what authority do you question Satan, in Satan's home?"
 
"I have heard that word which the ass spoke with the cat," replied
Jurgen; for he recollected upon a sudden what Merlin had shown him.
 
Grandfather Satan nodded comprehendingly. "All honor be to Set and Bast! and may their power increase. This, Emperor, is how my kingdom came about."
 
Then Satan, sitting erect and bleak in his tall marble chair, explained how he, and all the domain and all the infernal hierarchies he ruled, had been created extempore by Koshchei, to humor the pride of Jurgen's forefathers. "For they were exceedingly proud of their sins. And Koshchei happened to notice Earth once upon a time, with your for............