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However, evil weeds must fade as well as flowers; everything dies except Death, and the longer time he takes to sharpen his scythe, the more keenly will it cut. So it came to pass that one day this good man, but very bad parent, came suddenly to his death-bed, while his children stood round with eyes as dry as the Arno in August, which, though it may shine here and there, never runs over. [21b]

Now, by chance there stood by the dying man the great magician Virgilio, who indeed had much love and pity for these young people. And at the same minute, but seen only by him, there came floating in, like a bit of gold-leaf on a light feather, borne on the current of air, a certain folletto, or devil, who had been drifting about in the world for a thousand years, and in all that time had only learned more and more that everything is naught, or nothing of much consequence, and that good or evil stand for one another, according to circumstances. And as the dying man was one who, above all people living, made the meanest trifle a thing of vast importance, so this devil, whose name was Balsàbo, went beyond all his own kind of diavoli pococuranti in being unlike the great Signore di Tribaldo (as the dead man was called), he being a diavolo a dirittura, a devil in a straight line, or directly forward. And this demon being invisible to all save Virgil, the master said to him secretly: