Aleksander Wat was a precocious young fellah. He wrote “JA z jednej strony i JA z drugiej strony mego mopsożelaznego piecyka” (I from one side and I from the other side of my little herring-iron oven) at the age of 14 and a short story “Lucifer Unemployed” in his early 20s. With a title like that, he should have known about the devil being in the details. But he didn’t.

The story has a great idea – Lucifer finds he has nothing to do in the twentieth century because humans have created a hell on earth – but the execution is rather dull and the young Wat was too clever by half. My annotated edition finds it necessary to explain “Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint;” who Pyram, Tysbe, Zalmoksis and Tertulian (Polish spellings) were; what an “inkluz” is; what the word “mimikrycznie” means (from the English “mimic”) and the nature of Orygenes’s heresy. Also, he seems to have difficulty distinguishing between first and third person narrative. One passage starts with a direct quote “‘Czym jest moje serce…’” (What is my heart…) but lapses into the third person half way through: “‘Gośc zaszył się…’” (The guest settled into…)

But to the detail: Lucifer goes to Rome to meet some bishop. A “Miss Cyrce” (geddit? – it’s in the notes at the back if you don’t) drops him off and waits “in the street for his return in a beautiful Hispano-Suiza” (even then (1927) Poles were fond of dropping brand names). Lucifer meets the bishop, who tells him to come back in three days. This he does. And then, cool as a cucumber, this bombshell: “Miss Cyrce, oczekująca Lucyfera w samochodzie…” (Miss Cyrce, waiting for Lucifer in her car…) For three days? Alright, maybe she drove Satan to the bishop on the third day, having spent the intervening days turning Greek sailors into pigs, but we are told that on that fateful day Satan walked to the bishop. (“Wieczorem tego dnia przyszedł szatan.” (On the evening of the third day Satan came [on foot].)