The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (Illustrated). Mark Twain
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“I reckon he is disappointed, then.”
“No, he isn’t. No man is allowed to be disappointed here. Whatever he wants, when he comes – that is, any reasonable and unsacrilegious thing – he can have. There’s always a few millions or billions of young folks around who don’t want any better entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their torches and have a high time over a barkeeper. It tickles the barkeeper till he can’t rest, it makes a charming lark for the young folks, it don’t do anybody any harm, it don’t cost a rap, and it keeps up the place’s reputation for making all comers happy and content.”
“Very good. I’ll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper.”
“It is manners to go in full dress. You want to wear your wings, you know, and your other things.”
“Which ones?”
“Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all that.”
“Well,” says I, “I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself, but the fact is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the choir. I haven’t got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings.”
“That’s all right. You’ll find they’ve been raked up and saved for you. Send for them.”
“I’ll do it, Sandy. But what was it you was saying about unsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, and will be disappointed about?”
“Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don’t get. For instance, there’s a Brooklyn preacher by the name of Talmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for himself. He says, every now and then in his sermons, that the first thing he does when he gets to heaven, will be to fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and kiss them and weep on them. There’s millions of people down there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing. As many as sixty thousand people arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them. Now mind you, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old people. If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn’t ever have anything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged and wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four. They would be tired out and as wet as muskrats all the time. What would heaven be, to them? It would be a mighty good place to get out of – you know that, yourself. Those are kind and gentle old Jews, but they ain’t any fonder of kissing the emotional highlights of Brooklyn than you be. You mark my words, Mr. T.’s endearments are going to be declined, with thanks. There are limits to the privileges of the elect, even in heaven. Why, if Adam was to show himself to every new comer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike him for his autograph, he would never have time to do anything else but just that. Talmage has said he is going to give Adam some of his attentions, as well as A., I., and J. But he will have to change his mind about that.”
“Do you think Talmage will really come here?”
“Why, certainly, he will; but don’t you be alarmed; he will run with his own kind, and there’s plenty of them. That is the main charm of heaven – there’s all kinds here – which wouldn’t be the case if you let the preachers tell it. Anybody can find the sort he prefers, here, and he just lets the others alone, and they let him alone. When the Deity builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a liberal plan.”
Sandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and about nine in the evening we begun to dress. Sandy says:
“This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy. Like as not some of the patriarchs will turn out.”
“No, but will they?”
“Like as not. Of course they are pretty exclusive. They hardly ever show themselves to the common public. I believe they never turn out except for an eleventh-hour convert. They wouldn’t do it then, only earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on that kind of an occasion.”
“Do they all turn out, Sandy?”
“Who? – all the patriarchs? Oh, no – hardly ever more than a couple. You will be here fifty thousand years – maybe more – before you get a glimpse of all the patriarchs and prophets. Since I have been here, Job has been to the front once, and once Ham and Jeremiah both at the same time. But the finest thing that has happened in my day was a year or so ago; that was Charles Peace’s reception – him they called ‘the Bannercross Murderer’ – an Englishman. There were four patriarchs and two prophets on the Grand Stand that time – there hasn’t been anything like it since Captain Kidd came; Abel was there – the first time in twelve hundred years. A report got around that Adam was coming; well, of course, Abel was enough to bring a crowd, all by himself, but there is nobody that can draw like Adam. It was a false report, but it got around, anyway, as I say, and it will be a long day before I see the like of it again. The reception was in the English department, of course, which is eight hundred and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line. I went, along with a good many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to see, I can tell you. Flocks came from all the departments. I saw Esquimaux there, and Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen – people from everywhere. You see a mixture like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you land here, but you hardly ever see it again. There were billions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the noise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels. Although Adam was not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three archangels on the Grand Stand – it is a seldom thing that even one comes out.”
“What did they look like, Sandy?”
“Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and wonderful rainbow wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and wore swords, and held their heads up in a noble way, and looked like soldiers.”
“Did they have halos?”
“No – anyway, not the hoop kind. The archangels and the upper-class patriarchs wear a finer thing than that. It is a round, solid, splendid glory of gold, that is blinding to look at. You have often seen a patriarch in a picture, on earth, with that thing on – you remember it? – he looks as if he had his head in a brass platter. That don’t give you the right idea of it at all – it is much more shining and beautiful.”
“Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?”
“Who – I? Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy? I ain’t worthy to speak to such as they.”
“Is Talmage?”
“Of course not. You have got the same mixed-up idea about these things that everybody has down there. I had it once, but I got over it. Down there they talk of the heavenly King – and that is right – but then they go right on speaking as if this was a republic and everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and privileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across, and be hail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down. How tangled up and absurd that is! How are you going to have a republic under a king? How are you going to have a republic at all, where