Then, too, the Bishop meditated, how charming it would be, once in a way,—or throughout, perhaps, the entire, rather depressing Lenten season,—to make use of the delightfully quaint effects of African or of Polynesian mythology from his pulpit. One had so rarely, from that restrained and over-sedate eminence, the chance to exercise one’s gifts of quiet humor and of that naïveté in which supreme artists alone excel. Yes: it would be wholly pleasant to tell one’s little flock about Gajjimare the Snake God, and about the misadventures of Barin Mutum after this half-being had borrowed a body for nuptial purposes, and about the wonders which Maui-shaped-in-the-topknot-of-Taranga performed with his great-grandmother’s jawbone.
But, after all, the artist must work in that material which is available. After all, Christianity displayed many excellent points and gratifying improvements added since the decease of its founder. And as a theme—whensoever that theme was handled with competence, and touched with true inspiration,—Christianity served handsomely enough to keep one’s little flock contented, by assuring them of oncoming rewards for prudent and respectable conduct. No altruist could ask for more.
The Bishop smiled, and got back to his Christmas sermon.
In brief, there was never a more respected nor a more generally beloved bishop in those parts. And it was a great loss to Naimousin and all Piemontais when one morning the blessed Odo quitted the episcopal palace, he did not remember just when or through what agency.
9. OF THE REWARD APPOINTED FOR HIM
In fact, it was with something of a shock that the blessed Odo awakened to his unclerical circumstances. To be abroad in his nightgown was bad enough: but it seemed out of reason that, in such informal attire, he should be floating thus through a gray void, upborne by what appeared an unusually thick and soft and gaudily colored rug, and sharing its tenancy with this young woman.
“Can you by any chance inform me, madame,” he inquired, with the courtesy for which he was justly famed, “what is the meaning of this exercise in the humorous? and who has had the impudence to put me up here?”
“Do you not fret, poor Odo,” she replied. “It is only that you also, my dear, are dead at last.”
And then the Bishop recognized her. Then he knew that, somehow, some praiseworthy wonder-working had conveyed him back again to Ettarre, the reputed witch-woman. And for that instant nothing else whatever appeared to matter. For this adorable child seemed lovelier and even more desirable than ever: she was near to him: and age and all the sedative impairments of age had very marvelously gone away from the good Bishop of Valneres.
Yet in another instant his handsome countenance was a bit vexed; and he looked not altogether happy as he sat upright upon the smallish gold- and salmon-colored cloud.
“Nevertheless,” the Bishop said, “nevertheless, this is an illogical situation. I do recall now that I was suffering, very slightly, with indigestion last night. A complete atheist never agrees with me. And at my age, of course—Yes, yes, for me to have passed away in my sleep is natural enough. Yet this continued survival of my consciousness—howsoever surprising and pleasant be the result of that consciousness,” he added, with a gallant inclination of his head toward the winsome love of his youth,—“is a very sad blow to science. It upsets all philosophy; and it is a trouble to my common-sense.”
“My dearest,” replied Ettarre, “you have done with such frivolities as common-sense and philosophy and science; and but for my intervention there would have remained for you, as I must tell you frankly, only some heavenly reward or another.”
“Most charming Ettarre! my own heart’s darling!” said the Bishop, “let us not jest about professional matters, not just at present, for everything seems quite topsy turvy here, and I am in no mood for sprightly sallies. So do you instead tell we whither this cloud is conveying us!”
The girl regarded him with a humorous and, yet, a very tender sort of mockery. “Whither, you ask—with that nicety of diction which for so long has characterized your public speaking,—is this cloud conveying us? Well, one must distinguish. I only came for the ride. But you, my dear doomed Odo, are at this moment on your way to the Heaven which you used to promise to your parishioners; and, in fact, you may already see, just yonder, the amethyst ramparts of the Holy City.”
“This is surprising beyond words!” said Odo of Valneres. “Dear me, but this is terrible!”
“You will be finding very few to agree with you yonder,” Ettarre replied, “where you will find, instead, all that quaint Heaven of yours aflutter in honor of your arrival. For in the eloquent excesses of the fine career just ended you have converted many persons. Indeed, you have allured into eternal salvation—as the Archangel Oriphiel has announced officially in this morning’s report,—no less than one thousand and a hundred and seven souls. In consequence, the blessed everywhere are preparing at this instant to welcome home the strong champion of Heaven, with sackbut and with psaltery and with the full resources of the celestial choir.”
“Alas!” said blessed Odo, for the second time, “but this is truly terrible!”
And with that, he thoughtfully re-arranged his nightgown, he pulled up more neatly about his ankles his red flannel footwarmers, and he fell into a moment’s bewildered pondering. Nobody of his well-known modesty would have believed the total to run to four figures, but his eloquence and his lively flow of imagery had, of course, at odd times, converted many persons into accepting the comforting assurances of religion. Nor could the Bishop detect anything blameworthy in his conduct, even now.
He had acted logically. The plight of the lower orders of mankind, in the world which Odo of Valneres had now left behind him, did very certainly appear to demand this faith which was, for a being of a peasant’s or a shopkeeper’s far from admirable nature, at once a narcotic and a beneficial restraint.
“In brief, the situation is perplexing,” the Bishop said, aloud, “and it presents features which no clergyman could have anticipated. Yet I stay convinced that, if only I had been lying, there would have been no flaw in my conduct.”
Now the charming girl, who had cuddled happily beside him, as though once more to be in touch with her dear Odo were all-sufficient to her faithful heart, said nothing, as yet.
But to a well-thought-of bishop, discarnate and adrift in space, clad only in his nightgown and his red flannel footwarmers, it appeared a bit upsetting, thus to find religious notions exceeding their justifiable arena, and pursuing him beyond the grave.
And upon reflection, the unreasonableness of this out come for his long and honorable career was not its only troubling feature. For Odo of Valneres looked now toward the nearing huge white wharf beyond which gleamed the portal of Heaven. That entrance really was an enormous pearl, with a hole in it for you to go through, and above that hole, as he could now perceive, was carved the name “Levi.”
Odo of Valneres recalled his Scriptural studies; and, with augmenting uneasiness, he poked at the plump velvet-soft ribs of his companion upon the little gold and salmon-colored cloud.
“Do you wake up, my darling Ettarre, and tell me if this place is much like the Biblical description!”
The lovely girl sat up obediently.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is as Jehovah created it, and as His Scriptures have revealed it,” said Ettarre; and upon the less luscious lips of any other person her meditative slow smile would have seemed unfeeling.
“Ah, well, but, in any event, I make no doubt that the Holy City has been modernized? and has been kept abreast, so to speak, with progress?”