The Storyteller (TV Series)

The Soldier and Death (1988)

Bob Peck: Soldier

Photos 

Quotes 

• Soldier : I've come too late.

  Tzar's Wife : You've saved beggers and thieves and cats and dogs, yet you won't save your master?

  Soldier : If Death needs a new friend, I cannot fight him.

• Innkeeper : That's a nice whistle.

  Soldier : I got it off a poor soul down on his luck.

• Innkeeper : These are devlish devils, and gamblers too.

  Soldier : I think I'll take a closer look.

  [leaves] 

  Innkeeper : But that's folly!

  The Storyteller : [narrating]  Folly or not, the soldier goes, sack on his shoulder, whistle on his lips, into the palace.

  The Storyteller : [the Soldier enters the empty palace, whistling]  And inside it's very quiet. As if the walls were holding their breath... and waiting.

• Soldier : I hear you like a game of cards?

  Devil : [the devils cackle with laughter]  I love a game of cards.

  Soldier : Well, what shall we play for?

  Devil : His soul...

  Devil : His whislte!

  Devil : His teeth. I collect teeth.

• Soldier : Well my friends, I suppose we'd better call it a day.

  Devil : No we will not! We will call it a breakfast, and you the meal!

• Soldier's Wife : Oh what shall we do? My lips are sore with praying and my knees are weary of kneeling.

  Soldier : I have lost my whistle from worrying. It's the very devil, I say, the very devil.

  Soldier : [the devil's foot in the window begins to shake]  Now where the devil's that devil of mine?

  Devil : [the devil appears in a puff of smoke]  I'm here, your excellency.

  Soldier : Where have you sprung from?

  Devil : Not so much sprung as hopped, sir. You have my foot.

  Soldier : Cure my son and you can have it back. This is my good wife, by the way, and this is my devil.

  Devil : Hmm, how do you do?

• Soldier : [pounding on the door to Hell]  Let me in, I beg you.

  Devil : Go away! Go on, and take that horrible sack with you!

• Soldier : I won't go unless you give me a map to Heaven and a way in.

  [a small hatch in the door opens and a rolled-up map is thrown out] 

  Soldier : [raises voice]  And two-hundred souls you have no further use for!

  [grumbling noises from behind the door] 

  Devil : [sticks his head out of hatch]  One-hundred-and-fifty!

  Soldier : [raises the sack above his head]  Do you know what this is?

  Devil : Don't wave that sack around. All right, two-hundred. Yech!