Chapter 64

The devil said, “Well, let me tell you about hell, then. . . . You stand at the head of a staircase, looking at a man below you on the stairs. He makes a little gesture with his hand, not exactly like a salute, but something like the way men saluted when they wore uniforms and came back from war. The back of this man’s shoulders look straight, like a soldier’s. You think that the man may turn, where the stairs curve, to look back at you again. But he does not turn. He walks straight downstairs out of your sight. Yo…