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The Devil 47tie, gloves, though I was God knows where and had to fly throughspace to reach your earth…Of course, it took only an instant, butyou know a ray of light from the sun takes fully eight minutes,and fancy! – in an evening suit and open waistcoat. Spirits don’tfreeze, but when one’s in human form, well…in brief, I didn’tthink and set off, and you know in those ethereal spaces, in thewater that is above the firmament, there’s such a frost…one can’tcall it mere frost, just fancy, 150° below zero! You know the gamethe village girls play – they invite the unwary to lick an axe inthirty degrees below zero; the tongue instantly freezes to it, andthe stupid fellow jerks his tongue away, torn and bleeding. Butthat’s only in 30°; in 150° I imagine it would be enough to putyour finger on the axe for it to be the end of it…if that is, therecould be an axe there.”“And can there be an axe there?” Ivan interrupted, carelesslyand disdainfully. He was exerting himself to the utmost not tobelieve in the delusion and not to sink into complete insanity.“An axe?” the guest interrupted in surprise.“Yes, what would become of an axe there?” Ivan cried suddenly,with a sort of savage and insistent obstinacy.“What would become of an axe in space? What an idea! If itwere to fall to any distance, it would begin, I think, flying roundthe earth without knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomerswould calculate the rising and the setting of the axe, Gatzukwould put it in his calendar, that’s all.”“You are stupid, awfully stupid,” said Ivan peevishly. “Lie morecleverly or I won’t listen. You want to get the better of me byrealism, to convince me that you exist, but I don’t want to believeyou exist! I won’t believe it!”“But I am not lying, it’s all the truth; the truth is unhappilyhardly ever amusing. I see you persist in expecting something big