Matthew Pearl - The Dante Club

Annie Allegra looked all about the study for a lost paper box she needed to properly celebrate the birthday of one of her dolls. She came upon a newly opened letter from Mary Frere, of Auburn, New York. She asked whom it was from.

“Oh, Miss Frere,” Annie said. “That’s lovely! Will she be summering near us in Nahant this year? It is always so lovely to have her near, Father.”

“I don’t believe she will.” Longfellow tried to offer a smile.

Annie was disappointed. “Perhaps the box is in the parlor closet,” she said abruptly, and left to recruit her governess for help.

A knock struck the front door with an urgency that froze Longfellow. Then it came even harder, with demand. “Holmes.” He heard himself exhale.

Annie Allegra, bored Annie Allegra, left her governess and cried out her claim to the door. She ran to the door and pulled it open. The chill from outside was enormous and embracing.

Annie started to say something, but Longfellow could sense from the study that she was frightened. He heard a mumbling voice that did not belong to any friend. He stepped into the hall and turned to face a soldier’s full regalia.

“Send her away, Mr. Longfellow,” Teal requested quietly.

Longfellow pulled Annie into the hall and knelt down. “Panzie, why not finish that part of your piece we talked about for The Secret .”

“Papa, the part? The interview—?”

“Yes, why not finish that part right away, Panzie, while I am engaged with this gentleman.”

He tried to make her understand, his widened expression signaling “Go!” into her eyes, same as her mother’s. She nodded slowly and hurried to the back of the house.

“You are needed, Mr. Longfellow. You are needed now.” Teal chewed furiously, loudly spat out two scraps of paper onto Longfellow’s rug, and then chewed some more. The supply of bits of paper in his mouth seemed inexhaustible.

Longfellow clumsily turned to look at him, and he understood at once the power that came from inhabiting violence.

Teal spoke again: “Mr. Lowell and Mr. Fields—they have betrayed you, they have betrayed Dante. You were there, too. You were there when Manning was to die, and you did nothing to help me. You are to punish them.”

Teal put an army revolver into Longfellow’s hands and the cold steel stung the soft hand of the poet, whose palms still had traces of a wound from years earlier. Longfellow had not held a gun since he was a child and had come home with tears in his eyes after his brother taught him how to shoot a robin.

Fanny had despised guns and war, and Longfellow thanked God that at least she did not see their son Charley run away to battle and return with a bullet having passed through his shoulder blade. For men, all that makes a soldier is the gay dress, she used to say, forgetting the weapons of murder that the dress conceals.

“Yes sir, you’re going finally to learn to sit quiet and act like you’re meant to, contraband.” The detective had a laughing glimmer in his eyes.

“Why are you still here then?” Rey had his back facing the bars now.

The detective was embarrassed by the question. “To make sure you learn my lesson good, or I’ll knock your teeth out, you hear?”

Rey turned slowly. “Remind me of that lesson.”

The detective’s face was red, and he leaned against the bars with a scowl. “To sit quietly for once in your life, moke, and let life to those who know best!”

Rey’s gold-flecked eyes were sadly downcast. Then without allowing the rest of his body to betray his intentions, he shot out his arm and clamped his fingers around the detective’s neck, smashing the man’s forehead into the bars. With his other hand, he pried open the detective’s hand for the ring of keys. Then he released the man, who now grasped at his throat to restore his breath. Rey opened the cell door, then searched the detective’s coat and drew out a gun. Prisoners in surrounding cells cheered.

Rey ran up the stairs into the lobby.

“Rey, you’re here?” Sergeant Stoneweather said. “Now, what’s happening? I was stationed, just as you like and the detectives came around and told me you were ordering everyone off their posts! Where you been?”

“They locked me in the Tombs, Stoneweather! I need to get to Cambridge at once!” Rey said. Then he saw a little girl with her governess on the other side of the lobby. He rushed over and opened the iron gate separating the entrance area from the police offices.

“Please,” Annie Allegra Longfellow was repeating as her governess tried to explain something to a confused policeman. “Please.”

“Miss Longfellow,” Rey said, crouching down next to her. “What is it?”

“Father needs your help, Officer Rey!” she cried.

A herd of detectives tore through the lobby. “There!” one shouted. He took Rey by the arm and threw him against a wall.

“Hold, you son of a bloody bitch!” Sergeant Stoneweather said, and cracked his billy club against the detective’s back.

Stoneweather called out and several other uniformed officers ran in, but three detectives overpowered Nicholas Rey and caught both his arms, pulling him away as he struggled.

“No! Father needs you, Officer Rey!” Annie cried.

“Rey!” Stoneweather called out, but a chair came flying at him and a fist landed in his side.

Chief John Kurtz stormed in, his usual mustard coloring flushed purple. A porter carried three of his valises. “Worst damned train ride…” he began. “What in God’s name!” he screamed to the whole lobby of policemen and detectives after he had assessed the situation. “Stoneweather?”

“They locked Rey up in the Tombs, Chief!” Stoneweather protested, blood streaming from his thick nose.

Rey said, “Chief, I need to get to Cambridge without delay!”

“Patrolman Rey…” Chief Kurtz said. “You’re supposed to be involved in my…”

“Now, Chief! I must go!”

“Let him free!” Kurtz bellowed to the detectives, who withdrew from Rey. “Every damned one of you scoundrels in my office! This moment!”

Oliver Wendell Holmes constantly checked behind him for Teal. The way was clear. He had not been followed from the underground tunnels. “Longfellow… Longfellow,” he repeated to himself as he passed through Cambridge.

Then in front of him he saw Teal leading Longfellow along the sidewalk. The poet was walking cautiously on the thinning snow.

Holmes was so afraid at that moment that there was only one thing he could do to stop himself from falling faint. He had to act with no hesitation. So he yelled at the top of his lungs: “Teal!” It was a shriek that could bring out the whole neighborhood.

Teal turned, completely alert.

Holmes took the musket from his coat and pointed it with trembling hands.

Teal did not seem to take note of the gun at all. His mouth stirred and he released a soaked orphan of the alphabet as he spat into the white blanket at his feet: E “Mr. Longfellow, Dr. Holmes shall be your first,” he said. “He shall be your first to punish for what you’ve done. He’ll be our example to the world.”

Teal lifted Longfellow’s hand, in which he held the army revolver, and directed it at Holmes.

Holmes moved closer, his musket pointed at Teal. “Don’t you move any further, Teal! I’ll do this! I’ll shoot you! Let Longfellow free and you can take me.”

“This is punishment, Dr. Holmes. All of you who have abandoned God’s justice must now meet your final sentence. Mr. Longfellow, on my command. Ready… aim…”

Holmes stepped forward solidly and raised his gun to the level of Teal’s neck. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in the man’s face. He was a permanent soldier; there was no one left beneath. There were no choices left in him—only the incorrigible zeal to do right that had passed like a current through all humanity at one time or another, usually fizzling rapidly. Holmes shivered. He did not know whether he had sufficient reserves of that same zeal to stop Dan Teal from the destiny he had caught himself in.