Have you been accustomed," he said, after a time, rather sadly, "to break the Sabbath?"I told him frankly that I had been rather lax in that matter, especially at college.I often went to sleep in the chapel on Sunday, when I was not reading some entertaining book.He then asked who the preacher was, and when I told him, he remarked that I was not so much to blame as he had supposed.
"Have you," he went on, "ever stolen, or told any lie?"I was able to say no, except admitting as to the first, usual college "conveyances," and as to the last, an occasional "blinder" to the professors.He was gracious enough to say that these could be overlooked as incident to the occasion.
"Have you ever been dissipated, living riotously and keeping late hours?""Yes."
This also could be forgiven me as an incident of youth.
"Did you ever," he went on, "commit the crime of using intoxicating drinks as a beverage?"I answered that I had never been a habitual drinker, that I had never been what was called a "moderate drinker," that I had never gone to a bar and drank alone; but that I had been accustomed, in company with other young men, on convivial occasions to taste the pleasures of the flowing bowl, sometimes to excess, but that I had also tasted the pains of it, and for months before my demise had refrained from liquor altogether.The holy man looked grave, but, after reflection, said this might also be overlooked in a young man.
"What," continued he, in tones still more serious, "has been your conduct with regard to the other sex?"I fell upon my knees in a tremor of fear.I pulled from my bosom a little book like the one Leperello exhibits in the opera of "Don Giovanni." There, I said, was a record of my flirtation and inconstancy.I waited long for the decision, but it came in mercy.
"Rise," he cried; "young men will be young men, I suppose.We shall forgive this also to your youth and penitence.""Your examination is satisfactory, he informed me," after a pause;"you can now enter the abodes of the happy."Joy leaped within me.We approached the gate.The key turned in the lock.The gate swung noiselessly on its hinges a little open.Out flashed upon me unknown splendors.What I saw in that momentary gleam I shall never whisper in mortal ears.I stood upon the threshold, just about to enter.
"Stop! one moment," exclaimed St.Peter, laying his hand on my shoulder; "I have one more question to ask you."I turned toward him.
"Young man, did you ever use tobacco?"
"I both smoked and chewed in my lifetime," I faltered, "but...""THEN TO HELL WITH YOU!" he shouted in a voice of thunder.
Instantly the gate closed without noise, and I was flung, hurled, from the battlement, down! down! down! Faster and faster I sank in a dizzy, sickening whirl into an unfathomable space of gloom.The light faded.Dampness and darkness were round about me.As before, for days and days I rose exultant in the light, so now forever I sank into thickening darkness,--and yet not darkness, but a pale, ashy light more fearful.
In the dimness, I at length discovered a wall before me.It ran up and down and on either hand endlessly into the night.It was solid, black, terrible in its frowning massiveness.
Straightway I alighted at the gate,--a dismal crevice hewn into the dripping rock.The gate was wide open, and there sat-I knew him at once; who does not?--the Arch Enemy of mankind.He cocked his eye at me in an impudent, low, familiar manner that disgusted me.I saw that I was not to be treated like a gentleman.
"Well, young man," said he, rising, with a queer grin on his face,"what are you sent here for?
"For using tobacco," I replied.
"Ho!" shouted he in a jolly manner, peculiar to devils, "that's what most of 'em are sent here for now."Without more ado, he called four lesser imps, who ushered me within.
What a dreadful plain lay before me! There was a vast city laid out in regular streets, but there were no houses.Along the streets were places of torment and torture exceedingly ingenious and disagreeable.
For miles and miles, it seemed, I followed my conductors through these horrors, Here was a deep vat of burning tar.Here were rows of fiery ovens.I noticed several immense caldron kettles of boiling oil, upon the rims of which little devils sat, with pitchforks in hand, and poked down the helpless victims who floundered in the liquid.But I forbear to go into unseemly details.The whole scene is as vivid in my mind as any earthly landscape.
After an hour's walk my tormentors halted before the mouth of an oven,--a furnace heated seven times, and now roaring with flames.
They grasped me, one hold of each hand and foot.Standing before the blazing mouth, they, with a swing, and a "one, two, THREE...."I again assure the reader that in this narrative I have set down nothing that was not actually dreamed, and much, very much of this wonderful vision I have been obliged to omit.
Haec fabula docet: It is dangerous for a young man to leave off the use of tobacco.