第58章

It is needless to dwell upon the days I passed at college during this probation.So far as I could see, everything went on as if I were there, or had never been there.I could not even see the place where I had dropped out of the ranks.Occasionally I heard my name, but Imust say that four weeks was quite long enough to stay in a world that had pretty much forgotten me.There is no great satisfaction in being dragged up to light now and then, like an old letter.The case was somewhat different with the people with whom I had boarded.They were relations of mine, and I often saw them weep, and they talked of me a good deal at twilight and Sunday nights, especially the youngest one, Carrie, who was handsomer than any one I knew, and not much older than I.I never used to imagine that she cared particularly for me, nor would she have done so, if I had lived, but death brought with it a sort of sentimental regret, which, with the help of a daguerreotype, she nursed into quite a little passion.I spent most of my time there, for it was more congenial than the college.

But time hastened.The last sand of probation leaked out of the glass.One day, while Carrie played (for me, though she knew it not)one of Mendelssohn's "songs without words," I suddenly, yet gently, without self-effort or volition, moved from the house, floated in the air, rose higher, higher, by an easy, delicious, exultant, yet inconceivably rapid motion.The ecstasy of that triumphant flight!

Groves, trees, houses, the landscape, dimmed, faded, fled away beneath me.Upward mounting, as on angels' wings, with no effort, till the earth hung beneath me a round black ball swinging, remote, in the universal ether.Upward mounting, till the earth, no longer bathed in the sun's rays, went out to my sight, disappeared in the blank.Constellations, before seen from afar, I sailed among.

Stars, too remote for shining on earth, I neared, and found to be round globes flying through space with a velocity only equaled by my own.New worlds continually opened on my sight; newfields of everlasting space opened and closed behind me.

For days and days--it seemed a mortal forever--I mounted up the great heavens, whose everlasting doors swung wide.How the worlds and systems, stars, constellations, neared me, blazed and flashed in splendor, and fled away! At length,--was it not a thousand years?--Isaw before me, yet afar off, a wall, the rocky bourn of that country whence travelers come not back, a battlement wider than I could guess, the height of which I could not see, the depth of which was infinite.As I approached, it shone with a splendor never yet beheld on earth.Its solid substance was built of jewels the rarest, and stones of priceless value.It seemed like one solid stone, and yet all the colors of the rainbow were contained in it.The ruby, the diamond, the emerald, the carbuncle, the topaz, the amethyst, the sapphire; of them the wall was built up in harmonious combination.

So brilliant was it that all the space I floated in was full of the splendor.So mild was it and so translucent, that I could look for miles into its clear depths.

Rapidly nearing this heavenly battlement, an immense niche was disclosed in its solid face.The floor was one large ruby.Its sloping sides were of pearl.Before I was aware I stood within the brilliant recess.I say I stood there, for I was there bodily, in my habit as I lived; how, I cannot explain.Was it the resurrection of the body? Before me rose, a thousand feet in height, a wonderful gate of flashing diamond.Beside it sat a venerable man, with long white beard, a robe of light gray, ancient sandals, and a golden key hanging by a cord from his waist.In the serene beauty of his noble features I saw justice and mercy had met and were reconciled.Icannot describe the majesty of his bearing or the benignity of his appearance.It is needless to say that I stood before St.Peter, who sits at the Celestial Gate.

I humbly approached, and begged admission.St.Peter arose, and regarded me kindly, yet inquiringly.

"What is your name? " asked he, "and from what place do you come?"I answered, and, wishing to give a name well known, said I was from Washington, United States.He looked doubtful, as if he had never heard the name before.

"Give me," said he, "a full account of your whole life."I felt instantaneously that there was no concealment possible; all disguise fell away, and an unknown power forced me to speak absolute and exact truth.I detailed the events of my life as well as Icould, and the good man was not a little affected by the recital of my early trials, poverty, and temptation.It did not seem a very good life when spread out in that presence, and I trembled as Iproceeded; but I plead youth, inexperience, and bad examples.