But the ghosts answered: "Our government has no form because we have no government." "Then," said Gud, "I would meet your doctors or lawyers or great and famous ghosts." And they made answer that they had none. "Then," said Gud, "I would be told of your religion and learn of your faith." Said the ghosts: "We have no religion and no faith, for we are too immaterial to sin; and are therefore without fear of death, and thus need no religion and no faith." "Then," said Gud, "this is a dull place. What do you call it?" Replied the ghosts, who had a very long time to live: "We have no name for the place, but we are very happy here." When Gud learned that this place was nameless, he whistled for his Underdog and they went on and passed through an impalpable fog of etheric vibrations, and over a great gulf of sublimated emptiness, and through a dark forest of neglected memories, and across a sandless desert swept by a breathless wind. Chapter LV The graveyard of the gods is silent under a heavy sky, Where all the gods who never lived are buried when they die. Pale angels kneel beside the graves, stretching row on row, And madmen carrying mouldy flowers quickly come and go. A withered lily in her hand Saint Any-One-At-All, With pale, thin fingers opens the gate in an ivied wall. Her face an open wound of wonder, bleeding with defeat, And as she walks, the shining snow crunches under her feet. The ghosts of trees reach icy arms up to a starless sky, Mourning the gods who never were that rest here when they die. Pale angels kneel beside the graves stretching row on row, And madmen carrying mouldy flowers quickly come and go. Chapter LVI Having passed through the graveyard of the gods, Gud came to a vast beyond where there really was nothing, when the gods are dead there can be nothing. And so Gud journeyed on, for he would not stop at nothing, and he came to a church, because it was Saturday night. Crouched by the steps of the church was a poor old skeptic begging alms of faith. "Why do you beg?" asked Gud. "Because I have need of faith," said the skeptic. "If I should give you a great amount of faith, would you use it to destroy your doubts, or would you go out and proclaim it to others, and thus give it all away?" "Try me," said the skeptic. "Then believe that I am Gud." "I will, if you can prove it to me!" "What proof shall I offer you?" asked Gud. For while he knew that proof was not necessary to faith, yet he was willing to humor the poor old skeptic because he was so weighted down with his burden of doubts. "If you be Gud," said the skeptic, "then you should know all things." "And that I do." "Very well," said the skeptic, "how mad is a wet hen?" Whereupon Gud called down fire from the heaven of that place and smote the blasphemer so that he died.