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?”

“I want Napoleonder,” says Satan.

“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.”

The Lord God was greatly astonished.  “How did your Napoleonder ever get into the world?” he says.

“In this way,” Satan replies.  “I made him, as a doll, just for amusement, out of sand.  At that very time, you, Lord, happened to be washing your holy face; and, not being careful, you let a few drops of the water of life splash over.  They fell from heaven right exactly on Napoleonder’s head, and he immediately took breath and became a man.  He is living now, not very near nor very far away, on the island of Buan, in the middle of the ocean-sea.  There is a little less than a verst of land in the island, and Napoleonder lives there and watches geese.  Night and day he looks after the geese, without eating, or drinking, or sleeping, or smoking; and his only thought is—­how to conquer the whole world.”

The Lord God thought and thought, and then he ordered:  “Bring him to me.”