Мэтью Перл - The Dante Chamber

William’s practiced sigh came from a life surrounded by artists. “Do not say such unfair things, Christina. The ‘cause,’ is that what it is? Didn’t I probe line by line of that grotesque pamphlet on the Boston murders at your request? But there must be limits. There are natural limits to everything, and we ought to respect them. This is a matter for the police to finish — the police alone.”

“Do you think they can ever be as versed in Dante as we are? It is in our blood. Do you ever wonder what would have happened if Father had not gotten out of Italy when he did, William?”

William groaned. “I heard the story as much as you.”

The professore would stare out the window, recalling it all with a bitter smile. Closer, my bantlings, hear of my time as a hunted fugitive . Ferdinand I had declared the professore a criminal for his poems critical of the ruler. The professore went on the run in Sicily. It was an admirer of his poetry, the Englishwoman Lady Moore, who saved him. She was in Italy with her husband the admiral, who sent a squad of naval men to drill in front of the house where he was hiding. Meanwhile, the professore was given a blue jacket and slipped out into the drill, marching with the Englishmen right onto Moore’s ship. You, my bantlings, are in your own country but I have always been an exile.

“You heard it but you never really listened. Everyone thought he was as good as dead,” Christina continued. “His life, the lives of his future family, all saved because one person, one woman, a heroine to all Rossettis, believed in him.”

Christina stopped and smoothed out her dark dress. Since childhood, she had developed her methods for suppressing any outbursts of temper or anger — for remaining steady no matter the chaos ensuing around her. Making adjustments to her clothing was one of these tricks that carried into adulthood. “We know that Arthur Hughes told the detectives he saw Gabriel at the North Woolwich Gardens. The police already knew that when I called at Scotland Yard with Mr. Browning, and yet indicated nothing of the kind.”

“Maybe you spoke with the wrong person at the Yard,” suggested William.

“Inspector Williamson — the head detective for the case of Mr. Morton — was standing there as we spoke to the constable. He was listening . He wanted it to seem he was not paying us attention, but he was.”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“Think of it. Gabriel is seen at the place of Morton’s death before anyone else knows what happened. At the same time, Gabriel disappears from public view — even from his family. He is a known fanatic of Dante’s poetry and ideas. It is not much of a leap to read the story Inspector Williamson must have in this.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.”

She began walking down the sidewalk again. He followed at her side. The omnibus was coming on at a roaring gallop.

“Please, listen to reason, Christina. When we were children, you stopped playing chess even though it was one of your favorite games.”

She slowed down her steps, curious in spite of herself at the point he wanted to make.

“You stopped playing chess because you said it made you too eager to win. That it was an unworthy emotion for a Christian woman. Perhaps this puzzle with Gabriel is merely making you too eager to win, to be the first to resolve it before anyone else, whether you are equipped to do so, and whatever darkness it will force into your life.”

The conductor on the platform shouted for passengers.

“Mr. Browning is waiting. There has been another death in the style of Dante, and we must decide our next course of action.”

“It is as the professore used to say: you and Gabriel are the storms, Maria and I were the calms. Only while you grew to master your passion, Gabriel gave in to his, and Maria gave hers up in exchange for God. Our brother may have the voice of Jacob but he has the hands of Esau. Do you not imagine I would have liked to live every day without duty or worry, Gabriel-like? I am left as the head of the family, Christina, and as such I forbid you from boarding that omnibus to Mr. Browning’s. I cannot stand by as Gabriel’s irresponsibility leads you to become as lost as he was!”

“ Was!? ” she responded, her heart breaking.

The conductor gave her a hand to the ladder. She willed herself not to look out the window at her brother as the vehicle pulled away.

Nineteen Warwick Crescent, Browning’s residence, was as lonely and quiet as Christina knew her own home would be one day, whenever her mother was gone. Amid all the Florentine bric-a-brac of Browning’s study, the marble bust of Elizabeth Barrett Browning stood out. Browning’s late wife seemed to give a questioning glare at Christina’s presence, and Christina knew that by now the gossips of the London literary world would do the same. Elizabeth’s black haircloth chair supported a stack of books — a way of stopping anyone, Christina thought, from trying to take her sacred place. She put a hand carefully on the back of the chair, then lifted it off as though the furniture was burning.

Just an old maid.

Christina learned from Browning’s butler of the surprise arrival of Dr. Holmes; Browning had stepped out to take Holmes to a nearby telegraph office, where the doctor was to send some wires about his changed plans and to secure certain arrangements for his daughter as she continued her travels.

Meanwhile, William’s exhortations blotted out what might have been elation at the news about Holmes. Standing on Browning’s terrace, the cold air washing over her, she shut her eyes tightly, suppressing her tears and memories until it became painful.

After boarding Admiral Moore’s vessel, the professore eventually fled to London, which he thought sounded ideal for an entirely new life, akin to Dante’s La Vita Nuova . His pockets were picked twice the week he arrived. He would teach Italian and he would labor over his masterpiece, his great commentary on Dante. He had found in the Divine Comedy secrets that, he claimed, were earning him dangerous enemies who wanted to destroy him.

Concealed in Dante’s text, he insisted further, were the mysterious mechanisms to overthrow all the corruption and degeneracy in the world. He also insisted that his work would elucidate the mysterious and previously misunderstood role of Beatrice. Those who thought she was merely the object of Dante’s love were terribly mistaken. She was a spiritual representation of truth, and should be embraced — like the Virgin Mary — as a kind of guide to the moral life for all mankind. The professore was certain a vast fortune could come to him and to his family from completing his text on Dante.

The professore, on a typical day, would come through the door after teaching whatever students he could recruit, and sleep on the rug in front of their fireplace on Charlotte Street. When he had restored his strength, he would go to his desk where his books on Dante were open. Their father was a little man with a broad face and forehead and strong open nostrils. The children, hearing him grumble and shout about Dante, began to stay away from their father’s desk, afraid they might meet Mr. Dante himself in the shadows. Once, Gabriel tried to sneak into that dark corner and capture the hated Mr. Dante for himself. When the professore found out Gabriel had trespassed into his private territory, he glared at his son and told him, in a tone that suggested neither condemnation nor compliment, that Gabriel was a born rapscallion. (“He takes after the Polidori side,” Christina once heard their father say to their mother. “Your pazzo brother John, murdered by a book.”)

She remembered Gabriel strangely unmoved that he had been caught in the transgression. Had it been her, she would have dropped dead of humiliation. Then again, Gabriel always experimented with his effect on people’s emotions. When he was young, he developed an alarming habit along these lines. He would make himself appear to be lame and, when a bystander would try to help, he’d run off in a fit of laughter.