章节正文
"Come, come, what world?"
Says I, "Why, THE world, of course."
"THE world!" he says. "H'm! there's billions of them! . . . Next!"
That meant for me to stand aside. I done so, and a sky-blue man
with seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place. I took a
walk. It just occurred to me, then, that all the myriads I had
seen swarming to that gate, up to this time, were just like that
creature. I tried to run across somebody I was acquainted with,
but they were out of acquaintances of mine just then. So I thought
the thing all over and finally sidled back there pretty meek and
feeling rather stumped, as you may say.
"Well?" said the head clerk.
"Well, sir," I says, pretty humble, "I don't seem to make out which
world it is I'm from. But you may know it from this - it's the one
the Saviour saved."
He bent his head at the Name. Then he says, gently -
"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number
- none can count them. What astronomical system is your world in?
- perhaps that may assist."
"It's the one that has the sun in it - and the moon - and Mars" -
he shook his head at each name - hadn't ever heard of them, you see
- "and Neptune - and Uranus - and Jupiter - "
"Hold on!" says he - "hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . .
. Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years
ago - but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate."
All of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I
thought he was going to bore through me. Then he says, very
deliberate, "Did you come STRAIGHT HERE from your system?"
"Yes, sir," I says - but I blushed the least little bit in the
world when I said it.
He looked at me very stern, and says -
"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication.
You wandered from your course. How did that happen?"
Says I, blushing again -
"I'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess. I raced a
little with a comet one day - only just the least little bit - only
the tiniest lit - "
"So - so," says he - and without any sugar in his voice to speak
of.
I went on, and says -
"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back on my
course again the minute the race was over."
"No matter - that divergence has made all this trouble. It has
brought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right
one. If you had gone to your own gate they would have known all
about your world at once and there would have been no delay. But
we will try to accommodate you." He turned to an under clerk and
says -
"What system is Jupiter in?"
"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one
of the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded
corners of the universe. I will see."
He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map
that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of
sight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went
up again. To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a
day or two, and finally he came down and said he thought he had
found that solar system, but it might be fly-specks. So he got a
microscope and went back. It turned out better than he feared. He
had rousted out our system, sure enough. He got me to describe our
planet and its distance from the sun, and then he says to his chief
-
"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on the map. It is
called the Wart."
Says I to myself, "Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome for you to
go down THERE and call it the Wart."
Well, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and
wouldn't have any more trouble.
Then they turned from me and went on with their work, the same as
if they considered my case all complete and shipshape. I was a
good deal surprised at this, but I was diffident about speaking up
and reminding them. I did so hate to do it, you know; it seemed a
pity to bother them, they had so much on their hands. Twice I
thought I would give up and let the thing go; so twice I started to
leave, but immediately I thought what a figure I should cut
stepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig, and that made me
hang back and come to anchor again. People got to eying me -
clerks, you know - wondering why I didn't get under way. I
couldn't stand this long - it was too uncomfortable. So at last I
plucked up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal. He says -
"What! you here yet? What's wanting?"
Says I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with
my hands at his ear -
"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming
to meddle, but hain't you forgot something?"
He studied a second, and says -
"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of."
"Think," 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 appallingexpanse 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 dreadfullylonesome. 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."
"In that case, O REVOOR," says I.
I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and
wished I was in the booking-office of my own section. The very
next instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way -
"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for
Cap'n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco! - make him out a clean bill
of health, and let him in."
I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to
know in Tulare County; mighty good fellow - I remembered being at
his funeral, which consisted of him being burnt and the other
Injuns gauming their faces with his ashes and howling like
wildcats. He was powerful glad to see me, and you may make up your
mind I was just as glad to see him, and feel that I was in the
right kind of a heaven at last.
Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks,
running and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and
Mexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their
new outfits; and when they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and
took a look in the glass, I could have jumped over a house for joy,
I was so happy. "Now THIS is something like!" says I. "Now," says
I, "I'm all right - show me a cloud."
Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-
banks and about a million people along with me. Most of us tried
to fly, but some got crippled and nobody made a success of it. So
we concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing
practice.
We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back. Some had
harps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some
had nothing at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one
young fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying
that in his hand; all of a sudden he offered it to me and says -
"Will you hold it for me a minute?"
Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A woman asked me to
hold her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared. A girl got me to
hold her harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on
and so on, till I was about loaded down to the guards. Then comes
a smiling old gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things. I swabbed
off the perspiration and says, pretty tart -
"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend, - I ain't no hat-
rack."
About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying
in the road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them.
I looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following
me were loaded down the same as I'd been. The return crowd had got
them to hold their things a minute, you see. They all dumped their
loads, too, and we went on.
When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other
Says I, "Why, THE world, of course."
"THE world!" he says. "H'm! there's billions of them! . . . Next!"
That meant for me to stand aside. I done so, and a sky-blue man
with seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place. I took a
walk. It just occurred to me, then, that all the myriads I had
seen swarming to that gate, up to this time, were just like that
creature. I tried to run across somebody I was acquainted with,
but they were out of acquaintances of mine just then. So I thought
the thing all over and finally sidled back there pretty meek and
feeling rather stumped, as you may say.
"Well?" said the head clerk.
"Well, sir," I says, pretty humble, "I don't seem to make out which
world it is I'm from. But you may know it from this - it's the one
the Saviour saved."
He bent his head at the Name. Then he says, gently -
"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number
- none can count them. What astronomical system is your world in?
- perhaps that may assist."
"It's the one that has the sun in it - and the moon - and Mars" -
he shook his head at each name - hadn't ever heard of them, you see
- "and Neptune - and Uranus - and Jupiter - "
"Hold on!" says he - "hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . .
. Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years
ago - but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate."
All of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I
thought he was going to bore through me. Then he says, very
deliberate, "Did you come STRAIGHT HERE from your system?"
"Yes, sir," I says - but I blushed the least little bit in the
world when I said it.
He looked at me very stern, and says -
"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication.
You wandered from your course. How did that happen?"
Says I, blushing again -
"I'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess. I raced a
little with a comet one day - only just the least little bit - only
the tiniest lit - "
"So - so," says he - and without any sugar in his voice to speak
of.
I went on, and says -
"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back on my
course again the minute the race was over."
"No matter - that divergence has made all this trouble. It has
brought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right
one. If you had gone to your own gate they would have known all
about your world at once and there would have been no delay. But
we will try to accommodate you." He turned to an under clerk and
says -
"What system is Jupiter in?"
"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one
of the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded
corners of the universe. I will see."
He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map
that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of
sight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went
up again. To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a
day or two, and finally he came down and said he thought he had
found that solar system, but it might be fly-specks. So he got a
microscope and went back. It turned out better than he feared. He
had rousted out our system, sure enough. He got me to describe our
planet and its distance from the sun, and then he says to his chief
-
"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on the map. It is
called the Wart."
Says I to myself, "Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome for you to
go down THERE and call it the Wart."
Well, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and
wouldn't have any more trouble.
Then they turned from me and went on with their work, the same as
if they considered my case all complete and shipshape. I was a
good deal surprised at this, but I was diffident about speaking up
and reminding them. I did so hate to do it, you know; it seemed a
pity to bother them, they had so much on their hands. Twice I
thought I would give up and let the thing go; so twice I started to
leave, but immediately I thought what a figure I should cut
stepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig, and that made me
hang back and come to anchor again. People got to eying me -
clerks, you know - wondering why I didn't get under way. I
couldn't stand this long - it was too uncomfortable. So at last I
plucked up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal. He says -
"What! you here yet? What's wanting?"
Says I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with
my hands at his ear -
"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming
to meddle, but hain't you forgot something?"
He studied a second, and says -
"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of."
"Think," 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 appallingexpanse 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 dreadfullylonesome. 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."
"In that case, O REVOOR," says I.
I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and
wished I was in the booking-office of my own section. The very
next instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way -
"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for
Cap'n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco! - make him out a clean bill
of health, and let him in."
I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to
know in Tulare County; mighty good fellow - I remembered being at
his funeral, which consisted of him being burnt and the other
Injuns gauming their faces with his ashes and howling like
wildcats. He was powerful glad to see me, and you may make up your
mind I was just as glad to see him, and feel that I was in the
right kind of a heaven at last.
Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks,
running and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and
Mexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their
new outfits; and when they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and
took a look in the glass, I could have jumped over a house for joy,
I was so happy. "Now THIS is something like!" says I. "Now," says
I, "I'm all right - show me a cloud."
Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-
banks and about a million people along with me. Most of us tried
to fly, but some got crippled and nobody made a success of it. So
we concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing
practice.
We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back. Some had
harps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some
had nothing at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one
young fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying
that in his hand; all of a sudden he offered it to me and says -
"Will you hold it for me a minute?"
Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A woman asked me to
hold her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared. A girl got me to
hold her harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on
and so on, till I was about loaded down to the guards. Then comes
a smiling old gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things. I swabbed
off the perspiration and says, pretty tart -
"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend, - I ain't no hat-
rack."
About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying
in the road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them.
I looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following
me were loaded down the same as I'd been. The return crowd had got
them to hold their things a minute, you see. They all dumped their
loads, too, and we went on.
When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other
- humble [´hʌmbəl]
a.谦卑的 vt.贬抑 (初中英语单词) - gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- system [´sistəm] n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词)
- jupiter [´dʒu:pitə] n.朱庇特；木星 (初中英语单词)
- confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
- planet [´plænit] n.行星 (初中英语单词)
- bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
- anchor [´æŋkə] n.锚 v.抛锚 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- wreath [ri:θ] n.花圈；花环；圈状物 (初中英语单词)
- curiosity [,kjuəri´ɔsiti] n.好奇；奇事；珍品 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- astonishment [ə´stɔniʃmənt] n.吃惊；惊异 (初中英语单词)
- doubtless [´dautlis] ad.无疑地；大概，多半 (初中英语单词)
- prevail [pri´veil] vi.胜(过)；流行；普遍 (初中英语单词)
- learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
- costume [´kɔstju:m] n.服装(试样)；女装 (初中英语单词)
- dreadfully [dredfuli] ad.可怕地；糟透地 (初中英语单词)
- carpet [´kɑ:pit] n.地毯 vt.铺地毯 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
- accommodate [ə´kɔmədeit] vt.供应；容纳；调节 (高中英语单词)
- universe [´ju:nivə:s] n.天地；全人类；银河系 (高中英语单词)
- balloon [bə´lu:n] n.气球 (高中英语单词)
- wholesome [´həulsəm] a.有益于健康的 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- uncomfortable [ʌn´kʌmftəbəl] a.不舒服的，不自在的 (高中英语单词)
- trumpet [´trʌmpit] n.喇叭；小号 (高中英语单词)
- meddle [´medl] vi.干涉(预)；乱弄 (高中英语单词)
- studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
- countless [´kauntlis] a.无数的 (高中英语单词)
- conspicuous [kən´spikjuəs] a.显著的；出众的 (高中英语单词)
- heavenly [´hevənli] a.天的，天空的 (高中英语单词)
- tackle [´tækəl] n.用具；装置 vt.处理 (高中英语单词)
- theirs [ðeəz] pron.他们的 (高中英语单词)
- lonesome [´ləunsəm] a.孤独的；冷清清的 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- saviour [´seiviə] n.救星；救助者 (英语四级单词)
- neptune [´neptju:n, ´neptu:n] n.尼普顿(海神) (英语四级单词)
- confidential [,kɔnfi´denʃəl] a.极受信任的；心腹的 (英语四级单词)
- varied [´veərid] a.各种各样的 (英语四级单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- appalling [ə´pɔ:liŋ] a.令人震惊的 (英语四级单词)
- prodigious [prə´didʒəs] a.惊人的；巨大的 (英语四级单词)
- thinly [θiŋli] ad.薄地；稀疏地 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- diverse [dai´və:s] a.完全不同的 (英语六级单词)
- expanse [ik´spæns] n.广阔；宽阔的区域 (英语六级单词)
- homesick [´həum,sik] n.思乡的 (英语六级单词)
- foolishness [´fu:liʃnis] n.愚蠢 (英语六级单词)
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