Free Last Tales by Isak Dinesen Page A

when we last met. There you will see again both your puppets and your milady. For I take it that you are still Demas, the thief on the cross who had Paradise promised him?”
    “Well, Angelo,” said Pizzuti, scratching his head with his two fingers, “there you bring up something to which I have been giving a good deal of thought. I certainly still do believe that I am that great sinner to whom hope was given. But how, now, did things really go with this thief on the cross?
    “ ‘This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,’ the Saviour said to him. But when on the evening of Good Friday Demas presented himself at the gate of Paradise, Christ was not there, and as you know, forty days passed before He came home in all His splendor. Very likely the young King of Heaven, in those days of great events, gave not much thought to an invitation. But I myself—better than most people—will know with what confusion and anxiety the poorly dressed guest did approach the gate.
    “And I have pondered,” Pino went on, “who will really have been present behind the gate at which Demas was staring, with the authority to let a thief into Paradise? The Rock of the Church, the great Fisherman Peter, at this dark hour crouched at the back of the high priest’s house, farther away from Paradise than ever before or after. Saint Mary Magdalene, whom Demas knew from Jerusalem, was sobbing into her long hair and had not yet made up her mind to go to the grave. Those friendly saints with whom we are now familiar—Francis, Anthony and sweet Catherine—came upon the heavenly stage only many centuries later. The gentle Blessed Virgin, had she by that time been Queen of Heaven, would have understood all that was going on in Demas’ heart, and so would have come to the gate herself, with her crown on and her retinue of angels—but even her strong heart could not hold or bear any more on that Friday night. Yet after a long time, I have imagined, the little children whom King Herodhad had put to death in Bethlehem came running along to throng around the newcomer. No doubt they laughed at the sorry figure collapsed in a small heap over his sundered bones, perhaps they did even point their little fingers at him, as children will do at a ragged cripple. But in the end two of them ran in to fetch Saint Anne, Christ’s blessed grandmother. And as this worthy woman now appeared at the gate and spoke to him, Demas suddenly realized how everything is explained and made clear to the blessed in heaven, for even after the happenings of Good Friday, she was mild and bright as a lighted candle.
    “I have now imagined the following conversation to take place between the two of them.
    “ ‘Come in,’ the lady says, ‘come in, my good man, you are expected. But my grandson has been delayed, for He has found it necessary to descend into hell.’
    “ ‘O Lady,’ Demas answers, much ashamed, ‘there will have been some mistake, just as I expected, and it is down there that I am to see Him once more. May I make so bold as to ask the way, for I want nothing better than to be where He is.’
    “ ‘Certainly not,’ said Saint Anne. ‘You must do as you are told. And I myself very much want to speak with one who has seen Him so recently.’
    “ ‘O Lady,’ says Demas again, ‘how can one such as I discourse with you on that which no man on earth can describe?’
    “ ‘I know, I know,’ says the holy grandmother. ‘Who would know better than I? My good man, you did not see Him when He first learned to walk. I myself held one of His little hands, and His mother held the other—never have I seen a child so like his mother! No, it is as you say—it is indescribable!’
    “And led by Lady Saint Anne’s hand—that same hand of which she had spoken—Demas stepped across the threshold of Paradise.”
    Angelo laughed at his friend’s story.
    “Aye, if I had still got my theater,” said Pizzuti, carried away by his own eloquence, “I