Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. Марк Твен

says I.

      He thought. Then he says —

      “No, I can’t seem to have forgot anything. What is it?”

      “Look at me,” says I, “look me all over.”

      He done it.

      “Well?” says he.

      “Well,” says I, “you don’t notice anything? If I branched out amongst the elect looking like this, wouldn’t I attract considerable attention? – wouldn’t I be a little conspicuous?”

      “Well,” he says, “I don’t see anything the matter. What do you lack?”

      “Lack! Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my hymn-book, and my palm branch – I lack everything that a body naturally requires up here, my friend.”

      Puzzled? Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever saw. Finally he says —

      “Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes you. I never heard of these things before.”

      I looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I says —

      “Now, I hope you don’t take it as an offence, for I don’t mean any, but really, for a man that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs.”

      “Its customs!” says he. “Heaven is a large place, good friend. Large empires have many and diverse customs. Even small dominions have, as you doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on a small scale in the Wart. How can you imagine I could ever learn the varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven? It makes my head ache to think of it. I know the customs that prevail in those portions inhabited by peoples that are appointed to enter by my own gate – and hark ye, that is quite enough knowledge for one individual to try to pack into his head in the thirty-seven millions of years I have devoted night and day to that study. But the idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling expanse of heaven – O man, how insanely you talk! Now I don’t doubt that this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of heaven you belong to, but you won’t be conspicuous in this section without it.”

      I felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day and left. All day I walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of the office, hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a mistake. That hall was built on the general heavenly plan – it naturally couldn’t be small. At last I got so tired I couldn’t go any farther; so I sat down to rest, and begun to tackle the queerest sort of strangers and ask for information, but I didn’t get any; they couldn’t understand my language, and I could not understand theirs. I got dreadfully lonesome. I was so down-hearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died. I turned back, of course. About noon next day, I got back at last and was on hand at the booking-office once more. Says I to the head clerk —

      “I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own Heaven to be happy.”

      “Perfectly correct,” says he. “Did you imagine the same heaven would suit all sorts of men?”

      “Well, I had that idea – but I see the foolishness of it. Which way am I to go to get to my district?”

      He called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he gave me general directions. I thanked him and started; but he says —

      “Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here. Go outside and stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your breath, and wish yourself there.”

      “I’m much obliged,” says I; “why didn’t you dart me through when I first arrived?”

      “We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of it and ask for it. Good-by; we probably sha’n’t see you in this region for a thousand centuries or so.”

      1

      The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it was in a foreign tongue.