The Razor's Edge

by W. Somerset Maugham

“A great honor, my dear fellow,” he said. “I shall enter the kingdom of heaven with a letter of introduction from a prince of the Church. I fancy that all doors will be open to me.” “I’m afraid you’ll find the company very mixed,” I smiled. “Don’t you believe it, my dear fellow. We know from Holy Writ that there are class distinctions in heaven just as there are on earth. There are seraphim and cherubim, archangels and angels. I have always moved in the best society in Europe and I have no doubt that I shall move in the best society in heaven. Our Lord has said: The House of my Father hath many mansions. It would be highly unsuitable to lodge the hoi polloi in a way to which they’re entirely unaccustomed.” I suspected that Elliott saw the celestial habitations in the guise of the châteaux of a Baron de Rothschild with eighteenth-century paneling on the walls, Buhl tables, marquetry cabinets, and Louis Quinze suites covered with their original petit-point. “Believe me, my dear fellow,” he went on after a pause, “there’ll be none of this damned equality in heaven.”