VISITATION OF THE DEVIL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 90, 14 March 1941, Page 16

VISITATION OF THE DEVIL

in boarding- houses, and this happened in the first of these residences. After the usual preliminary arrangements I presented myself at my new abode and was met at the door by the owner of the establishment, a pleasant-faced woman with a friendly manner. So far so good. Almost as soon as the customary greetings were dispensed with, however, she warned me: "Don’t take any notice of father. He thinks he has fleas, but he Teally hasn’t." I received this information with amused curiosity. The good lady was wasting no time in preparing me for startling disclosures. I do not blame her. After all, if an old gentleman were to confess to you in confidential tones that he was infested with this particular form of animal life, you could scarcely be blamed for an immediate departure. That evening at dinner I met him. He im p-essed me as being extremely intelligent and active for his age-which was somewhere about the middle eighties. several years I have lived

Later he knocked at our door (I shared the room with a young clerk), and at our invitation came in. Soon we were deep in conversation on the engrossing topic of fleas and their habits. He told us that one night his window had been left open and through it came the "invasion." The resulting conflict was still raging. Unceasing Struggle He was a clean living man, intensely religious, and he wondered if perhaps they were sent as punishment for his sins. Most of his time was spent in his room wrestling with them. According to him they got in his hair, ears, eyes, and even penetrated into his lungs through the nasal passage. In his room he kept a pail of water into which he would shake the imaginary insects. Then he would bring it into our toom to show us. "There they are-black fleas!" he would say. " That’s the only way to kill them. See them floating on the water?" Peering close we would assure him that there was nothing to be seen, but it was no use. They were too minute to be seen clearly, he would inform us, but if we looked more closely. . . . We had to pretend to take him seriously, so struggling to keep straight faces and with an expression of intense con-

centration, we agreed that undoubtedly there were some small objects on the surface of the water. "Black fleas!" he shouted satisfied. He was most emphatic on this point. Not the ordinary household flea, but a more rare and deadly specimen. Actually he must have been suffering from some mild form of skin irritation, and the feeling that these pests were in his lungs arose no doubt from some _ bronchial irritation. It must not be thought, however, that he was content to let this state of affairs continue, for he was most industrious jn his efforts to rid himself of his affliction. One day I heard the sound of much spluttering and coughing in his room; then he came out to get some fresh air. He had to, otherwise he would have suffocated. He had been burning sheepdip powder and inhaling the sulphurous fumes. Before we left he told us he had prayed that he might be delivered from this visitation of the devil, and had received the assurance that his unwelcome visitors would leave him on Christmas night of that year. I have since heard that he is still persecuted, and I have no doubt he would tell me that the time of his deliverance was not yet at hand.