Today's Muse: Under The Hat:

PAULINKA:

"You know the scene in the play (Faust) where the black poodle turns into the Devil and offers Faust the world? All that demurring, endless, always seemed so coy to me. Just...

But so one night I was walking home after a performance and a very strange thing happened. I found myself going down a narrow street, an alley, really, one I'd never been down before, and suddenly.

... There was this little black poodle, sitting on a doorstep. Waiting for me. Staring at me with those wet dark dog eyes. And I thought to myself: "It's Him! He's come to talk to me!" He's going to stand up on His little hind legs and say "Paulinka! Fame, films, and unsupassable genius as an actor in exchange for your immortal soul!"

And that's when I knew it, and my dears I wish I didn't know: I'd never resist. I couldn't. I am constitutionally incapable of resisting anything. A good actress, a good liar, but not in truth a very good person. Just give me Berlin, sixty years of sucess, and then haul me off to the Lake of Fire! Do business with the Devil.

[snip]

Probably just somebody's nasty black poodle. But I've always wondered... what if it really was Him, and He decided I wasn't worth it?"

A Bright Room Called Day

Tony Kushner