章节正文
"Well, do you think of settling in the California department of
bliss?"
"I don't know. I wasn't calculating on doing anything really
definite in that direction till the family come. I thought I would
just look around, meantime, in a quiet way, and make up my mind.
Besides, I know a good many dead people, and I was calculating to
hunt them up and swap a little gossip with them about friends, and
old times, and one thing or another, and ask them how they like it
here, as far as they have got. I reckon my wife will want to camp
in the California range, though, because most all her departed will
be there, and she likes to be with folks she knows."
"Don't you let her. You see what the Jersey district of heaven is,
for whites; well, the Californian district is a thousand times
worse. It swarms with a mean kind of leather-headed mud-colored
angels - and your nearest white neighbor is likely to be a million
miles away. WHAT A MAN MOSTLY MISSES, IN HEAVEN, IS COMPANY -
company of his own sort and color and language. I have come near
settling in the European part of heaven once or twice on that
account."
"Well, why didn't you, Sandy?"
"Oh, various reasons. For one thing, although you SEE plenty of
whites there, you can't understand any of them, hardly, and so you
go about as hungry for talk as you do here. I like to look at a
Russian or a German or an Italian - I even like to look at a
Frenchman if I ever have the luck to catch him engaged in anything
that ain't indelicate - but LOOKING don't cure the hunger - what
you want is talk."
"Well, there's England, Sandy - the English district of heaven."
"Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of the
heavenly domain. As long as you run across Englishmen born this
side of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but the minute
you get back of Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up, and
the further back you go the foggier it gets. I had some talk with
one Langland and a man by the name of Chaucer - old-time poets -
but it was no use, I couldn't quite understand them, and they
couldn't quite understand me. I have had letters from them since,
but it is such broken English I can't make it out. Back of those
men's time the English are just simply foreigners, nothing more,
nothing less; they talk Danish, German, Norman French, and
sometimes a mixture of all three; back of THEM, they talk Latin,
and ancient British, Irish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come
billions and billions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that
Satan himself couldn't understand. The fact is, where you strike
one man in the English settlements that you can understand, you
wade through awful swarms that talk something you can't make head
nor tail of. You see, every country on earth has been overlaid so
often, in the course of a billion years, with different kinds of
people and different sorts of languages, that this sort of mongrel
business was bound to be the result in heaven."
"Sandy," says I, "did you see a good many of the great people
history tells about?"
"Yes - plenty. I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people."
"Do the kings rank just as they did below?"
"No; a body can't bring his rank up here with him. Divine right is
a good-enough earthlyromance, but it don't go, here. Kings drop
down to the general level as soon as they reach the realms of
grace. I knew Charles the Second very well - one of the most
popular comedians in the English section - draws first rate. There
are better, of course - people that were never heard of on earth -
but Charles is making a very good reputation indeed, and is
considered a rising man. Richard the Lion-hearted is in the prize-
ring, and coming into considerable favor. Henry the Eighth is a
tragedian, and the scenes where he kills people are done to the
very life. Henry the Sixth keeps a religious-book stand."
"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?"
"Often - sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French.
He always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around
with his arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as
grand, gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very
much bothered because he don't stand as high, here, for a soldier,
as he expected to."
"Why, who stands higher?"
"Oh, a LOT of people WE never heard of before - the shoemaker and
horse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know - clodhoppers from
goodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in
their lives - but the soldiership was in them, though they never
had a chance to show it. But here they take their right place, and
Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat. The
greatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer
from somewhere back of Boston - died during the Revolution - by the
name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him.
You see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have
shown the world some generalship that would have made all
generalship before look like child's play and 'prentice work. But
he never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a
private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth,
and the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him. However, as I say,
everybody knows, now, what he WOULD have been, - and so they flock
by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is
going to be anywhere. Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and
Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great
generals; but the public hardly care to look at THEM when HE is
around. Boom! There goes another salute. The barkeeper's off
quarantine now."
Sandy and I put on our things. Then we made a wish, and in a
second we were at the reception-place. We stood on the edge of the
ocean of space, and looked out over the dimness, but couldn't make
out anything. Close by us was the Grand Stand - tier on tier of
dim thrones rising up toward the zenith. From each side of it
spread away the tiers of seats for the general public. They spread
away for leagues and leagues - you couldn't see the ends. They
were empty and still, and hadn't a cheerful look, but looked
dreary, like a theatre before anybody comes - gas turned down.
Sandy says, -
"We'll sit down here and wait. We'll see the head of the
procession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now."
Says I, -
"It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch somewheres.
Nobody but just you and me - it ain't much of a display for the
barkeeper."
"Don't you fret, it's all right. There'll be one more gun-fire -
then you'll see.
In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off
on the horizon.
"Head of the torchlight procession," says Sandy.
It spread, and got lighter and brighter: soon it had a strong
glare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter and
brighter till it was like the sun peeping above the horizon-line at
sea - the big red rays shot high up into the sky.
"Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats - sharp!"
says Sandy, "and listen for the gun-fire."
Just then it burst out, "Boom-boom-boom!" like a million
thunderstorms in one, and made the whole heavens rock. Then there
was a sudden and awful glare of light all about us, and in that
very instant every one of the millions of seats was occupied, and
as far as you could see, in both directions, was just a solid pack
of people, and the place was all splendidly lit up! It was enough
to take a body's breath away. Sandy says, -
"That is the way we do it here. No time fooled away; nobody
straggling in after the curtain's up. Wishing is quicker work than
travelling. A quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of
miles from here. When they heard the last signal, all they had to
do was to wish, and here they are."
The prodigious choir struck up, -
We long to hear thy voice,
To see thee face to face.
It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it,
just as the congregations used to do on earth.
The head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a
wonderful sight. It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred
thousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and
singing - the whirring thunder of the wings made a body's head
ache. You could follow the line of the procession back, and
slanting upward into the sky, far away in a glittering snaky rope,
till it was only a faint streak in the distance. The rush went on
and on, for a long time, and at last, sure enough, along comes the
barkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that made
the heavens shake, I tell you! He was all smiles, and had his halo
tilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-
looking saint I ever saw. While he marched up the steps of the
Grand Stand, the choir struck up, -
The whole wide heaven groans,
And waits to hear that voice."
There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place
of honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand
Stand, with a shining guard of honor round about them. The tents
had been shut up all this time. As the barkeeper climbed along up,
bowing and smiling to everybody, and at last got to the platform,
these tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four
noble thrones of gold, all caked with jewels, and in the two middle
ones sat old white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of
the most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter halos and
beautiful armor. All the millions went down on their knees, and
stared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of
murmurs. They said, -
"Two archangels! - that is splendid. Who can the others be?"
The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the
two old men rose; one of them said, "Moses and Esau welcome thee!"
and then all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.
The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating
to hug those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and
proudest multitude you ever saw - because they had seen Moses and
Esau. Everybody was saying, "Did you see them? - I did - Esau's
side face was to me, but I saw Moses full in the face, just as
plain as I see you this minute!"
The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again,
and the crowd broke up and scattered. As we went along home, Sandy
said it was a great success, and the barkeeper would have a right
to be proud of it forever. And he said we were in luck, too; said
we might attend receptions for forty thousand years to come, and
not have a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and
Esau. We found afterwards that we had come near seeing another
patriarch, and likewise a genuineprophet besides, but at the last
moment they sent regrets. Sandy said there would be a monument put
up there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with the date and
circumstances, and all about the whole business, and travellers
would come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over
it, and scribble their names on it.
Footnotes:
(1) The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it
was in a foreign tongue.
End
bliss?"
"I don't know. I wasn't calculating on doing anything really
definite in that direction till the family come. I thought I would
just look around, meantime, in a quiet way, and make up my mind.
Besides, I know a good many dead people, and I was calculating to
hunt them up and swap a little gossip with them about friends, and
old times, and one thing or another, and ask them how they like it
here, as far as they have got. I reckon my wife will want to camp
in the California range, though, because most all her departed will
be there, and she likes to be with folks she knows."
"Don't you let her. You see what the Jersey district of heaven is,
for whites; well, the Californian district is a thousand times
worse. It swarms with a mean kind of leather-headed mud-colored
angels - and your nearest white neighbor is likely to be a million
miles away. WHAT A MAN MOSTLY MISSES, IN HEAVEN, IS COMPANY -
company of his own sort and color and language. I have come near
settling in the European part of heaven once or twice on that
account."
"Well, why didn't you, Sandy?"
"Oh, various reasons. For one thing, although you SEE plenty of
whites there, you can't understand any of them, hardly, and so you
go about as hungry for talk as you do here. I like to look at a
Russian or a German or an Italian - I even like to look at a
Frenchman if I ever have the luck to catch him engaged in anything
that ain't indelicate - but LOOKING don't cure the hunger - what
you want is talk."
"Well, there's England, Sandy - the English district of heaven."
"Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of the
heavenly domain. As long as you run across Englishmen born this
side of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but the minute
you get back of Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up, and
the further back you go the foggier it gets. I had some talk with
one Langland and a man by the name of Chaucer - old-time poets -
but it was no use, I couldn't quite understand them, and they
couldn't quite understand me. I have had letters from them since,
but it is such broken English I can't make it out. Back of those
men's time the English are just simply foreigners, nothing more,
nothing less; they talk Danish, German, Norman French, and
sometimes a mixture of all three; back of THEM, they talk Latin,
and ancient British, Irish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come
billions and billions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that
Satan himself couldn't understand. The fact is, where you strike
one man in the English settlements that you can understand, you
wade through awful swarms that talk something you can't make head
nor tail of. You see, every country on earth has been overlaid so
often, in the course of a billion years, with different kinds of
people and different sorts of languages, that this sort of mongrel
business was bound to be the result in heaven."
"Sandy," says I, "did you see a good many of the great people
history tells about?"
"Yes - plenty. I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people."
"Do the kings rank just as they did below?"
"No; a body can't bring his rank up here with him. Divine right is
a good-enough earthlyromance, but it don't go, here. Kings drop
down to the general level as soon as they reach the realms of
grace. I knew Charles the Second very well - one of the most
popular comedians in the English section - draws first rate. There
are better, of course - people that were never heard of on earth -
but Charles is making a very good reputation indeed, and is
considered a rising man. Richard the Lion-hearted is in the prize-
ring, and coming into considerable favor. Henry the Eighth is a
tragedian, and the scenes where he kills people are done to the
very life. Henry the Sixth keeps a religious-book stand."
"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?"
"Often - sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French.
He always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around
with his arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as
grand, gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very
much bothered because he don't stand as high, here, for a soldier,
as he expected to."
"Why, who stands higher?"
"Oh, a LOT of people WE never heard of before - the shoemaker and
horse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know - clodhoppers from
goodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in
their lives - but the soldiership was in them, though they never
had a chance to show it. But here they take their right place, and
Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat. The
greatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer
from somewhere back of Boston - died during the Revolution - by the
name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him.
You see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have
shown the world some generalship that would have made all
generalship before look like child's play and 'prentice work. But
he never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a
private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth,
and the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him. However, as I say,
everybody knows, now, what he WOULD have been, - and so they flock
by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is
going to be anywhere. Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and
Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great
generals; but the public hardly care to look at THEM when HE is
around. Boom! There goes another salute. The barkeeper's off
quarantine now."
Sandy and I put on our things. Then we made a wish, and in a
second we were at the reception-place. We stood on the edge of the
ocean of space, and looked out over the dimness, but couldn't make
out anything. Close by us was the Grand Stand - tier on tier of
dim thrones rising up toward the zenith. From each side of it
spread away the tiers of seats for the general public. They spread
away for leagues and leagues - you couldn't see the ends. They
were empty and still, and hadn't a cheerful look, but looked
dreary, like a theatre before anybody comes - gas turned down.
Sandy says, -
"We'll sit down here and wait. We'll see the head of the
procession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now."
Says I, -
"It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch somewheres.
Nobody but just you and me - it ain't much of a display for the
barkeeper."
"Don't you fret, it's all right. There'll be one more gun-fire -
then you'll see.
In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off
on the horizon.
"Head of the torchlight procession," says Sandy.
It spread, and got lighter and brighter: soon it had a strong
glare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter and
brighter till it was like the sun peeping above the horizon-line at
sea - the big red rays shot high up into the sky.
"Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats - sharp!"
says Sandy, "and listen for the gun-fire."
Just then it burst out, "Boom-boom-boom!" like a million
thunderstorms in one, and made the whole heavens rock. Then there
was a sudden and awful glare of light all about us, and in that
very instant every one of the millions of seats was occupied, and
as far as you could see, in both directions, was just a solid pack
of people, and the place was all splendidly lit up! It was enough
to take a body's breath away. Sandy says, -
"That is the way we do it here. No time fooled away; nobody
straggling in after the curtain's up. Wishing is quicker work than
travelling. A quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of
miles from here. When they heard the last signal, all they had to
do was to wish, and here they are."
The prodigious choir struck up, -
We long to hear thy voice,
To see thee face to face.
It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it,
just as the congregations used to do on earth.
The head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a
wonderful sight. It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred
thousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and
singing - the whirring thunder of the wings made a body's head
ache. You could follow the line of the procession back, and
slanting upward into the sky, far away in a glittering snaky rope,
till it was only a faint streak in the distance. The rush went on
and on, for a long time, and at last, sure enough, along comes the
barkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that made
the heavens shake, I tell you! He was all smiles, and had his halo
tilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-
looking saint I ever saw. While he marched up the steps of the
Grand Stand, the choir struck up, -
The whole wide heaven groans,
And waits to hear that voice."
There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place
of honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand
Stand, with a shining guard of honor round about them. The tents
had been shut up all this time. As the barkeeper climbed along up,
bowing and smiling to everybody, and at last got to the platform,
these tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four
noble thrones of gold, all caked with jewels, and in the two middle
ones sat old white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of
the most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter halos and
beautiful armor. All the millions went down on their knees, and
stared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of
murmurs. They said, -
"Two archangels! - that is splendid. Who can the others be?"
The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the
two old men rose; one of them said, "Moses and Esau welcome thee!"
and then all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.
The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating
to hug those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and
proudest multitude you ever saw - because they had seen Moses and
Esau. Everybody was saying, "Did you see them? - I did - Esau's
side face was to me, but I saw Moses full in the face, just as
plain as I see you this minute!"
The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again,
and the crowd broke up and scattered. As we went along home, Sandy
said it was a great success, and the barkeeper would have a right
to be proud of it forever. And he said we were in luck, too; said
we might attend receptions for forty thousand years to come, and
not have a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and
Esau. We found afterwards that we had come near seeing another
patriarch, and likewise a genuineprophet besides, but at the last
moment they sent regrets. Sandy said there would be a monument put
up there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with the date and
circumstances, and all about the whole business, and travellers
would come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over
it, and scribble their names on it.
Footnotes:
(1) The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it
was in a foreign tongue.
End
- california [,kæli´fɔ:njə]
n.加利福尼亚 (初中英语单词) - meantime [´mi:ntaim] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- jersey [´dʒə:zi] n.毛织运动衫；毛线衫 (初中英语单词)
- mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
- european [juərə´pi:ən] a.欧洲的 n.欧洲人 (初中英语单词)
- italian [i´tæliən] a.意大利 n.意大利人 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- mixture [´mikstʃə] n.混合；混合比；混合物 (初中英语单词)
- divine [di´vain] a.神圣的 v.预言 (初中英语单词)
- romance [rəu´mæns] n.中世纪骑士小说 (初中英语单词)
- considerable [kən´sidərəbəl] a.重要的；值得重视 (初中英语单词)
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə] a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- genius [´dʒi:niəs] n.天才(人物)；天赋 (初中英语单词)
- wherever [weər´evə] conj.无论在哪里 (初中英语单词)
- glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- anywhere [´eniweə] ad.无论何处；任何地方 (初中英语单词)
- salute [sə´lu:t] n.&v.招呼；行礼；敬礼 (初中英语单词)
- cheerful [´tʃiəful] a.快乐的；高兴的 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- procession [prə´seʃən] n.队伍 v.列队行进 (初中英语单词)
- thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
- upward [´ʌpwəd] a.&ad.向上(的)；以上 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- platform [´plætfɔ:m] n.(平)台；讲台；站台 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- multitude [´mʌltitju:d] n.大群(批)；众多 (初中英语单词)
- likewise [´laikwaiz] ad.同样地；也，又 (初中英语单词)
- prophet [´prɔfit] n.预言家；先知；提倡者 (初中英语单词)
- monument [´mɔnjumənt] n.纪念碑；古迹 (初中英语单词)
- gossip [´gɔsip] n.&vi.说闲话；聊天 (高中英语单词)
- billion [´biljən] num.万亿 (高中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
- napoleon [nə´pəuljən] n.拿破仑 (高中英语单词)
- conspicuous [kən´spikjuəs] a.显著的；出众的 (高中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- shoemaker [´ʃu:,meikə] n.鞋匠 (高中英语单词)
- enlist [in´list] vt.征募；赞助 (高中英语单词)
- sergeant [´sɑ:dʒənt] n.警官；军士 (高中英语单词)
- caesar [´si:zə] n.凯撒；暴君；独裁者 (高中英语单词)
- lonesome [´ləunsəm] a.孤独的；冷清清的 (高中英语单词)
- locomotive [,ləukə´məutiv] n.机头 a.移动的 (高中英语单词)
- abreast [ə´brest] ad.并排，并肩 (高中英语单词)
- streak [stri:k] n.纹理 v.用线条(条纹) (高中英语单词)
- gorgeous [´gɔ:dʒəs] a.华丽的；宜人的 (高中英语单词)
- joyful [´dʒɔifəl] a.高兴的，充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- genuine [´dʒenjuin] a.真正的；真诚的 (高中英语单词)
- californian [,kæli´fɔ:njən] a.加利福尼亚州的 (英语四级单词)
- domain [də´mein,dəu-] n.领土；版图；范围 (英语四级单词)
- old-time [´əuld-´taim] a.老资格的；古时的 (英语四级单词)
- danish [´deiniʃ] a.&n.丹麦人(语)(的) (英语四级单词)
- reputation [repju´teiʃən] n.名誉；名声；信誉 (英语四级单词)
- prodigious [prə´didʒəs] a.惊人的；巨大的 (英语四级单词)
- platter [´plætə] n.(椭圆形的)大浅盘 (英语四级单词)
- departed [di´pɑ:tid] a.已往的；已故的 (英语六级单词)
- zenith [´ziniθ] n.天顶，顶点；全盛 (英语六级单词)
- splendidly [´splendidli] ad.光彩夺目地；辉煌地 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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