Beelzebub’s Tales About His Second Descent on to the Planet Earth

“And this occurred in the following way:

“My friend had no relatives at all in the city Koorkalai, having been born in some distant place.

“And as for the hundreds of servants and other ordinary terrestrial nullities who had been around him owing to his former importance, they, by this time, had gradually left him, naturally because my friend was no longer important.

“Toward the end there remained with him only one very old being who had been with him quite a long time.

“To tell the truth, this old man had remained with him only on account of old age which, owing to abnormal being-existence, most of the beings there reach; that is to say, on account of his complete uselessness for anything required under the conditions of being-existence there.

“He simply had no other place to go to, and that was why he did not desert my friend, but stayed with him even when he had lost his importance and was being persecuted.

“Going into my friend’s room one sad morning, this old man saw that he had been killed and that his planetary body had been hacked to pieces.

“Knowing that I was his friend, he at once ran to me to tell me about it.

“I have already told you, that I had begun to love him as one of my nearests. So when I learned about this terrible fact, there almost occurred in my whole presence a ‘Skinikoonartzino,’ that is to say, the connection between my separate being-centers was almost shattered.

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