Мэтью Перл - The Dante Chamber

Christina stumbled back. “My head is spinning, Mr. Hughes.”

“I think she might faint, Mr. Browning!”

“She does not faint,” said Browning.

Browning steadied her anyway, and was glad she allowed him to help. He thought back to how upset Christina was when she believed Browning noticed that she almost cried as she held Gabriel’s vial of choral hydrate — meanwhile, Browning could drop a tear just by finding Pen at his front door for tea! It was at that moment back in that dark bedroom of Gabriel’s Tudor House that Browning knew he would stay at her side until the matter of her brother’s disappearance was resolved.

It was at that moment, too, he knew he was doing this for her as much as for her brother.

He asked Hughes whether he had seen Gabriel since that day, which he swore he had not. Browning rattled off more questions for which Hughes had no helpful answers.

“One last thing, Mr. Hughes,” Browning said before they parted from the painter. “Did you tell the police? That you saw Gabriel there?”

“They buried me in questions. As if I hadn’t anything else with which to occupy myself. One of the ‘shadow police’ — the detectives — a Scottish fellow with shrewd eyes and a beard worthy of Moses, seemed extremely interested in the fact I’d seen Dante there. His name was Williams or — no, that’s not it — Williamson. I believe he introduced himself as Inspector Williamson.”

Dr. Holmes boarded the train to Liverpool, feeling his spirits lift. Having completed his tour of universities and libraries, entertained at dinners given by scientists and physicians and editors, he could move on to planning the next portion of their journey, on to Paris. Originally, father and daughter had expected a week or two in London before sailing. But since receiving the cryptic telegram from Robert Browning, Holmes made excuses to Amelia about the unhealthiness of smoky London, the Fenian threat, and the general degree of the city’s chaos, until she crossed London off the itinerary.

When the train halted for more passengers on the way, Holmes recited a poem to a few delighted admirers while taking tea at the station before he and Amelia noticed the time and rushed back onto the train. As they reached their compartment in the first-class carriage, Holmes was beckoned. “Why, the famous Dr. Holmes!” Turning with a broad smile to greet another admirer, he found two somber men instead.

“The famous Dr. Holmes. Now, you know there are many pickpockets in the trains these days. Take care with that, it’s quite handsome.”

Holmes tucked the gold watch back in his vest pocket. “Do I know you, sir?”

“I’m Inspector Adolphus Williamson, superintendent of the Metropolitan Detective force,” said this man, who was very tall and had a flowing beard. “Would the lovely Miss Holmes mind if we spoke privately?”

Amelia took her leave to return to their seats. Holmes followed the officers to an empty compartment, which, by the newspaper on the floor and the smell of sweat, had just been cleared of other passengers. Across from Holmes, Dolly Williamson and the younger man, Constable Tom Branagan, settled in.

Dolly gestured toward Branagan, who took this as a signal for him to hand Holmes a Morning Post . “Dr. Holmes,” Dolly began, “a man has been killed some two weeks back in my jurisdiction in the style of Dante.”

Holmes was thankful to be sitting. The whole scene came out of the distant corner of a nightmare. Somehow he found his voice to reply to the detective.

“How do you know about Dante?” Holmes asked.

“I’m not a fool, Dr. Holmes,” Dolly replied. He gestured again at the constable, who this time reached into his satchel for a large volume he dropped on the seat next to Holmes. “Thank you, Branagan.” Back to Holmes, Dolly said: “I know the same way everyone does these days.”

Holmes recognized the book’s green covers on sight. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ubiquitous translation of Dante.

“ Inferno ?” Holmes asked.

Dolly spun around the book so the gold-lettered spine faced Holmes. “ Purgatory ,” the detective read aloud. “The man I’m speaking of had been crushed by a heavy stone, just as Dante reports witnessing on the — what is it he calls the different levels of the divine mountain? — the terrace of the Prideful. There was an inscription on the stone, and it even matched some of the language in the scene from Dante.”

“Why tell me? It was a few years ago and I merely served as an occasional assistant, a kind of aide-de-camp, in Mr. Longfellow’s translation. You might say I was heard more in the dining room than in the study.”

“Nevertheless. You know more than most about Dante. So I thought you could help me understand something, Dr. Holmes. Dante tells us he travels through Hell before being transported up the mountain of Purgatory, then is brought to Paradise. As Dante meets the shades trapped in Purgatory, he doesn’t feel the contempt he does for the residents of Hell. Does he?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Holmes said, nodding thoughtfully. “Dante actually tries to embrace the shades he meets early on the mountain, only to find his arms go right through them. Looking down, he notices that he is the only one who casts a shadow in the sunlight. He doesn’t belong there. He is an outcast.”

“Boccaccio offers a convincing explanation of how the terrors of Hell might be hard to look away from. What is it about Purgatory that commands a reader’s attention?”

Holmes could have made any number of points. Purgatory , in some ways, was the most fascinating of Dante’s three-part narrative about crossing through the afterlife. The middle canticle was replete with human drama and humanity. And surprises. Inferno implies that all suicides are assigned to suffer in one of Hell’s circles, but guarding the entrance to Mount Purgatory is none other than Cato, the ancient warrior who stabbed himself with his sword instead of subjecting himself to the tyranny of Julius Caesar. Purgatory at first seems to chronicle Virgil’s authority over Dante, but in fact turns on the need to separate from Virgil, the need to accept the partial wisdom of many temporary leaders in order to complete that portion of the pilgrim’s quest. Even Virgil confesses he can only teach Dante so much, ultimately admitting: It’s for Beatrice only you must wait . Then, another surprise. Dante’s journey seems to be about reuniting with his beloved Beatrice all along, but upon reaching Beatrice, she behaves differently than anyone expects.

All of our guides, all of our leaders, must inevitably disappoint, must fail, must leave us to ourselves. I crown you a lord and bishop over yourself , Virgil declares to Dante with hints of pride and sadness.

There was another way Purgatory consumed its readers. Most people could feel that whatever flaws and mistakes they’d made in life, they in no way qualified to be placed among the ultimate evil of Inferno . Hell was for other people. But with the exceptions of some saintly types, Purgatory, with its excruciating torments, its long-enduring anguish, was for every single one of us.

It was an idea more terrifying than Hell.

“As I said,” Holmes replied after thinking about all this, “I merely lent Longfellow a hand.”

“We brought another book with us, Dr. Holmes,” said Dolly, who again signaled the constable. This time a pamphlet was removed: The Dante Murders . “More booklet than book. I had a friend with a bookstall near Scotland Yard procure this particular copy for us, but from the interpretations I saw scribbled out by Mr. Browning and Miss Rossetti, we gather that one of the poets portrayed as being involved is meant to be you. Speaking of Miss Rossetti, her brother — the painter Dante Gabriel — was seen near the murdered man, and now cannot be found anywhere. Then there’s his preoccupations with Dante. Please.”