The first soul made answer and said to Gud: "We need none of these grosser punishments such as increased temperature and breathing SO2, which the ancients, who imagined hell, were able, in the limits of their scientific knowledge, to imagine. The reason that we need no such crude material punishments is because our spiritual suffering is quite enough."
And Gud saw that the soul spake the truth, for the face of both of these trusty souls were lined with seamy sorrow. As Gud looked upon their sufferings he wondered why it was they suffered so, and he asked: "In what did you two sin one by one that you should be punished two by two?"
And the second suffering soul replied, "I sinned because I believed too vehemently that there was no god, and my companion here, because he believed over confidently that there was a god."
"But is it not strange," asked Gud, "that you two, who held such opposite doctrines, should now suffer similar punishment? How do you explain that?"
The first soul now took up the conversation with his mouth and made answer in this wise: "We suffer now with equal suffering, I because, believing that there was no god, found, when I died, that there was one, and he sent me to hell. But my companion here, who believed that there was a god, found when he died that there was none; and so he came to hell also, as there was no place else for him to go."
For a moment Gud looked upon these suffering souls with puzzlement and wonder, and then suddenly he began to laugh.
"Why do you laugh at our sufferings?" demanded the souls angrily.
"I am laughing at you two," said Gud, "because when you died you both came to hell—whereas if neither of you had believed in immortality you would not have needed to have gone anywhere."
As Gud was passing through a dismal swamp, he came to a certain cypress tree and sat down on a knee thereof. And presently she came also and sat down upon the other knee of the cypress tree, and they talked about the meeting of parallel lines.
But they could not agree so Gud proposed that they cut their initials on the bark of the cypress tree.