Beyond Summary

An old man, a judge, dies at home surrounded by black servants but no family because he is a widower whose son died in an accident at the age of 10. At the moment of his death, the two servants at the foot of his bed begin to shout and wail and, irritated with the noise, the judge rises, throws an overcoat around himself and departs the house. He encounters a large crowd of people waiting to go inside. The judge is already "beyond" the physical world and among the departed spirits of the earth. He stops to chat with someone he knows, or knew when alive, and pulls a cigarette from his briefcase. He asks for a light, but the man has no matches. The judge protests that he'd rather encounter people like Voltaire and other philosophers than the present crowd. The judge...