“The instant Father Guido died his naked soul leaped from his body and ran up the air as on a stair.” Odile stopped her story. “Hoo-oo,” she sighed reproachfully, crossing her gaunt old hands over her middle and staring at my sleepy head. “Mynheer is not listening!”

Odile always came into my bedroom before I was up in the morning. It was her function to waken me, and then to gossip with me while she opened the green Venetian blinds, tightly closed the windows against the noxious air of morning, laid out linen, and prepared my bath in an adjoining room. Her thin, motherly face was the first thing I saw when I wakened; always smiling, no matter if things had gone well or ill, always ready to tell me a story if that were needed to put me in a good humour. “All well, Odile?” “Ja, mynheer, except that the Germans half killed a policeman in front of the house last night. He screamed horribly, mynheer.” Such was a typical morning’s news.

She petted me outrageously, and, although she never summoned courage to assert it to my face, among the servants below-stairs she gave herself airs and boldly called me her bÉbÉ. I confided to her my love affairs in return for which small flatteries she embroidered my handkerchiefs, criticised my unstarched American shirts, doped me faithfully whenever I fell ill, and protested eloquently against the perils of too frequent bathing. Daily baths might be healthy in America; they were certainly unhealthy in Belgium, said Odile.

The tale of what happened to Father Guido comes back to me in fragments. Perhaps Odile did not tell it to me at all. Perhaps she told it when I was too sleepy to remember. In any event, I cannot now tell how much is hers and how much my own. The words, alas! are mine, in any case.

“Nay, Odile, I am listening. Tell me about Father Guido.”

“He was a holy priest, a canon in his monastery, but he doubted God’s promise of the bliss of heaven!”

“Dreadful!”

“Yes, wasn’t it, mynheer? So he died, and his soul ran up the air as on a stair. And now listen! The soul of Father Guido stopped for breath and wheezed hard. It was not used to running. It stood stark naked in the sunlight just three meters above the bell-tower of the monastery where he had lived and served God twenty-seven years. The garden looked very sheltered and inviting. You must know that Father Guido loved gardening, mynheer. The soul could see his favourite mulberry tree, and acolytes in gray gowns walking beneath, meditating. One of the acolytes lifted a hand and stole a berry. ‘Rogue!’ the soul thought. It was about to walk down into the garden and remonstrate with the thief when suddenly it leaped into the air as if a wasp had stung it. The heavy monastery bell just below it clanged like an explosion. Bang! went the bell; then again, bang! and after a pause, again, bang! ‘Some one is dead,’ thought the soul. It licked its lips thoughtfully. They tasted damp and oily. And suddenly it remembered—that was the oil of extreme unction. ‘I am dead,’ said the soul of Father Guido with resignation, ‘and on my way to bliss—I hope.’

“The soul began to climb up long vistas of air, but abruptly it stopped. ‘My God, I’m stark naked!’ it thought; ‘stark naked, and the eye of all the world is on me.’ Not once since Father Guido donned his habit had he been unclothed in public. But the waste of air about the poor soul offered no shelter, and there was no returning the way it had come. Its chest heaved with sorrow and its eyes peered everywhere, above, below, beside it; but nothing—not even a summer cloud—came near to give it shelter. ‘I’m thin and withered and I’ve a belly like a tun,’ the soul said bitterly, and it slapped its thin shanks as it ran, and breathed hard.

“A hawk circled in space, and the soul turned and climbed in the direction of the swinging bird. It got within two meters of the hawk and hailed him in Flemish—for all the birds understand Flemish, mynheer—but the hawk sailed by unheeding, its eye on the distant earth. Father Guido’s soul was disappointed. ‘But if I can’t be heard or seen, it doesn’t much matter about my clothes,’ it said, and climbed on slowly.

“The high air grew very cold, but the exertions of the soul kept it in a healthy perspiration. It gathered strength and agility as it climbed; it seemed to leap from hilltop to hilltop of the atmosphere, and below it earth fell away like a ball dropped into a well. A shadow came crawling from the east, devouring the earth as Father Guido’s soul watched and climbed; the shadow floated like pitch over all the world, silently, swiftly eating everything. It reached the centre of the world. It devoured the monastery and went on, gathering all things into its mouth. Long afterward the sun dropped out of sight, and darkness leaped upon the soul high in air and cloaked it in freezing night.

“The soul was dreadfully alone now, alone with millions of winking stars, but it climbed on and on and on.

“Mynheer, no man has ever told how lonely the dead are; how they cry out in the darkness and stretch out their arms; where yesterday there was warmth and light and friendly hands and soft laughter there is only cold, emptiness, nothing. Oh, how lonely the dead are! How lonely the dead are!

“Men do not know how many months or years or centuries the soul climbed up through the swarming stars, but at last it came to the foot of battlements shooting up into space—battlements that rose like flames rooted in clouds, and burning so brightly that the strained eyes of the soul pinched with the bliss of gazing. And still the soul of Father Guido climbed and climbed and climbed.

“‘It’s too beautiful for purgatory; this must be heaven,’ said the soul to itself, ‘but there’s no door.’ And indeed, mynheer, there seemed to be no door, for the poor soul climbed up and up those topless cliffs, but found no entrance at all. ‘There’s no door! There’s no door! There’s no door!’ the soul of Father Guido repeated like a prayer as it climbed beside the battlements.

“‘God and Mary help us!’ it sobbed at last in despair; and no sooner had it said these words than it saw a little gate opening into the jewelled heights, and it flew up hopefully.

“Outside the doorway it paused. There was a door, half closed, and the soul was afraid. It felt conscious again of its nakedness, although the paunch was gone from constant exercise and hard muscles showed under its star-burned skin. ‘I’m a thin old codger, though; not presentable to St. Peter at all. I’ll wait behind the door-post until somebody appears.’ So it pressed its ribs close against the door-jamb and waited. An hour went by, or a minute, or an age; still nobody appeared. Father Guido’s soul grew anxious. ‘I’ll look inside—just one peek,’ it whispered. ‘One peek won’t matter.’ So it gently pried open the pearly door and looked in.

“An armchair, mynheer, carved of jewels, like the battlements, stood beside the door, but the chair was empty. The soul looked farther. ‘Hum!’ it said thoughtfully; ‘there’s no pater hospitalis here. I’m disappointed. And St. Peter’s left no substitute.’

“Father Guido, you must understand, mynheer,” said Odile, by way of parenthesis, “had been pater hospitalis in his monastery. He took care of the guests, he selected the wines, he was jovial in welcoming those who came and tearful in bidding adieu to those who went; so he was distressed that no one should meet him at the gate of heaven.”

I nodded sympathetically, and she went on: “A little weed grew in a crack in the golden pavement where the holy saint’s feet had worn the flagstone smoothest, and a green scurf of moss pushed out here and there in the golden gutters. ‘That’s strange; that’s strange indeed,’ said the soul of Father Guido; but it had little time to wonder at small things like these, for the whole of heaven towered before its eyes. Streets and mansions and gardens blazed with lights of a thousand colours; mansions of silver and amethyst and jacinth rose amid bowers of roses; towers and roofs and walls and lattices shone like jewels in changeless sunlight, and avenues of strange trees stretching farther than eye could see glowed green as emerald along streets of gold.

“But there was no sound anywhere, mynheer. Father Guido’s soul held its breath with holy awe and fear. In spite of the warmth of the eternal sunlight sluicing its bare limbs, cold perspiration came out on its neck and face, and goose-flesh pricked its legs. The soul hid itself in a rose hedge and waited breathlessly. Nothing appeared. Still there was no sound. Presently the soul crept out again and pattered cautiously up the golden avenue, picking little rose thorns from its sides and back as it marched.

“Glorious beyond the prophecies of saints and evangels was heaven, rising terrace on terrace, height upon height, glowing with the light of gems, bourgeoning with gardens, and flashing with pools of clear blue water; so that the soul of Father Guido climbed and climbed, speechless and marvelling. And still there was no sound but those of its bare feet slapping the golden pave.

“So the solitary soul came at last to the summit of all Created Things; to the Mountain that is like a Diamond, with the sunlight flashing naked swords above it; to the Palace which is carved like a human heart from a Jewel for which there is No Name; and the soul knew that this was the Home of the King of Kings, of the Verigod of Verigods, and it knelt on the pavement in terrified awe and worshipped.

“But, mynheer, the naked toes of the poor soul of Father Guido nestled into the heart of a little thistle growing in the grass beside the golden stair leading up to the Palace of God, and the prick roused it from its devotions, so that it sprang to its feet abruptly, and bent over and rubbed the hurt digits. ‘God save us!’ it ejaculated piously. ‘Salvation or damnation, that hurts! But I must go on!’ And it pattered up the palace steps.

“Mynheer, there were no guards at the steps. There were no watchmen at the door. There were no angels inside the door. The corridors were empty. But at the far end of the central corridor the soul saw a curtain hanging from ceiling to floor, red as blood, tremendous, veiling mysteries.

“The soul of Father Guido went forward to see what the curtain concealed. It reached the curtain. It stretched out its hand. It touched the curtain. Then it caught the hem and pulled.”

Odile stopped and drew a long breath, watching me narrowly.

“Please go on,” I begged.

“Mynheer, there was nothing inside!”

“What?”

“There was nothing inside!”

“Ugh! Served him right, then,” I grunted.

“But no, listen. You have forgotten the power of God. The soul of Father Guido dropped the curtain and fell flat on the ground. It could not believe what it had seen, and it fell to screaming, the most horrible screams that heaven ever heard. It screamed again and again, like a child in the dark, like a little lost child.

“And then suddenly, mynheer, there was a roar of wings, and loud singing, and a brightness new, like lightning, and the air was thick with angels playing and dancing and whistling. Father Guido had believed, you see, or else his soul would not have been disappointed and would not have screamed. He doubted as you doubt, mynheer!

“And now, when St. Peter is tired, the soul of Father Guido sits in the chair beside the little gate to welcome newcomers, as he used to do in the monastery, and he is kind to those who come, mynheer, for he, too, has known what it is to doubt.”