"No more there is," said the Devil. "That's only the Furnace of First Edition. Will you go on? No other human being has set foot here in the flesh. Let me bring the door to your notice. Pretty design, isn't it? A joke of the Master's."
I shuddered, for the door was nothing more than a coffin, the backboard knocked out, set on end in the thickness of the wall. As I hesitated, the silence of space was cut by a sharp, shrill whistle, like that of a live shell, which rapidly grew louder and louder. "Get away from the door," said the Devil of Discontent quickly. "Here's a soul coming to its place." I took refuge under the broad vans of the Devil's wings. The whistle rose to an ear-splitting shriek and a naked soul flashed past me.
"Always the same," said the Devil quietly. "These little writers are so anxious to reach their reward. H'm, I don't think he likes his'n, though." A yell of despair reached my ears and I shuddered afresh. "Who was he?" I asked. "Hack-writer for a pornographic firm in Belgium, exporting to London, you'll understand presently—and now we'll go in," said the Devil. "I must apologise for that creature's rudeness. He should have stopped at the distance-signal for line-clear. You can hear the souls whistling there now."
"Are they the souls of men?" I whispered.
"Yes—writer-men. That's why they are so shrill and querulous. Welcome to the Limbo of Lost Endeavour!"
They passed into a domed hall, more vast than visions could embrace, crowded to its limit by men, women and children. Round the eye of the dome ran, a flickering fire, that terrible quotation from Job: "Oh, that mine enemy had written a book!"
"Neat, isn't it?" said the Devil, following my glance. "Another joke of the Master's. Man of Us, y' know. In the old days we used to put the Characters into a disused circle of Dante's Inferno, but they grew overcrowded. So Balzac and Théophile Gautier were commissioned to write up this building. It took them three years to complete, and is one of the finest under earth. Don't attempt to describe it unless you are quite sure you are equal to Balzac and Gautier in collaboration. Look at the crowds and tell me what you think of them."
I looked long and earnestly, and saw that many of the multitude were cripples. They walked on their heels or their toes, or with a list to the right or left. A few of them possessed odd eyes and parti-coloured hair; more threw themselves into absurd and impossible attitudes; and every fourth woman seemed to be weeping.
"Who are these?" I said.
"Mainly the population of three-volume novels that never reach the six-shilling stage. See that beautiful girl with one grey eye and one brown, and the black and yellow hair? Let her be an awful warning to you how you correct your proofs. She was created by a careless writer a month ago, and he changed all colours in the second volume. So she came here as you see her. There will be trouble when she meets her author. He can't alter her now, and she says she'll accept no apology."