Alex Bell - The Ninth circle

‘Then why can I?’ I asked, very much fearing the answer. ‘Why can you?’

‘Well… sometimes it’s possible to catch glimpses of angels and demons in places of the In Between. Graveyards — because they’re places that belong to both the living and the dead. Churches — places of both the mortal and the divine. The moments before sunrise and sunset where the Earth belongs to both the night and the day. Mirrors that reflect reality the wrong way round and dreams that allow both the impossible and the possible all at once… There are some people

… who are themselves people of the In Between, neither truly one nor the other. And this allows us to see things that others can’t. As I understand it, the insane and the dying can see the devils around them, just as the newborn can see angels. But the reason is not always quite that extreme.

‘Take me, for example. I used to give lectures on religious philosophy. Guest lectures at various universities and religious functions. Because of the… passionate nature of my teachings, my lectures always seemed to be filled with either the zealously religious or the fiercely atheist. The clash of the two extremes between faith in God’s existence and an equal faith in his non-existence caused a spark somehow, with me at the centre. My teachings themselves are a place of the In Between.’

‘And what about me?’ I asked fearfully.

Stephomi frowned. ‘There are many professors of religion out there like me who aren’t people of the In Between. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. With you, Gabriel, who knows? You never told me and I assumed you didn’t want to talk about it.’

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration, an unreasoning fear building from within me as I paced agitatedly. ‘What is the Ninth Circle?’ I threw at Stephomi, rounding on him suddenly.

‘Ninth Circle?’ he repeated in genuine bemusement. ‘I… well, according to Dante, the ninth circle of Hell was the-’

‘Yes, yes I know the theology of it,’ I snapped. ‘But there’s something more to it, isn’t there? There’s some other reference. Something of this world.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Stephomi said, gazing at me curiously. ‘What makes you say that?’

I hesitated, but then shook my head and said it was nothing. I didn’t want to tell him of the note I had received. ‘Well? Is it true?’

‘Is what true, Gabriel?’

‘Are there really nine circles of fiery, torturous Hell?’

Stephomi gave a slight shrug. ‘I have never been there, my friend, I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps you should ask Keats.’

‘ Keats? The poet?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Keats longed for Hell,’ Stephomi said in a strange, soft voice that sent chills down my spine.

‘John Keats wrote of beauty,’ I snapped. ‘He wrote of joy and life and-’

‘Yes, yes, joy and life, very nice. But he also wrote of Hell,’ Stephomi said, his mouth twisted in a smile. ‘He rather seems to have enjoyed it.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ I virtually shouted in an effort to drown out what he was saying. Why was I so angry? What was it about Stephomi’s suggestion that frightened me so badly?

‘ On a Dream?’ Stephomi prompted. I am sure there was something of maliciousness about the way he looked at me as he spoke. ‘Aren’t you familiar with that particular sonnet, Gabriel? Keats wrote it after he dreamed of visiting the Second Circle. I think I’m accurate in quoting the great poet when he said that, “ The dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had in my life — ”’

‘ No! No, no, you must be wrong! Keats was an artistic genius! He wrote of love and… and beauty and-’

‘Who’s to say that Hell itself is not beautiful, Gabriel? Can you really be so sure it isn’t?’

I could feel my mouth twisting in a grimace of revulsion at the disgusting suggestion and, turning on my heel, I started to stride towards the doorway but paused and turned back when Stephomi called out to me over his shoulder, ‘I don’t think I’ve said thank you.’

‘What? What for?’

‘For saving my life, of course,’ Stephomi replied, twisting slightly in his seat to glance back at me, with that amused expression on his face once again. ‘I think I might have been prematurely parted from my head had it not been for your fortuitous arrival. What where you doing on the island, anyway?’

‘Oh. I couldn’t sleep,’ I said, staring back at him. ‘Would that thing really have killed you?’

‘Of course,’ Stephomi replied with a wry smile. ‘Did you not see the large, impressive sword?’

‘What can we do about all this?’ I asked.

He looked at me incredulously. ‘Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?’ he asked. ‘This is an angelic war, Gabriel. There’s nothing you or I can do about it. Oh, wait…’ he said, and I looked at him hopefully as a thoughtful look came into his eyes. ‘Do you have a spaceship?’ he asked after a moment.

‘What?’ I said blankly.

‘A spaceship. If you’ve got one then perhaps we could pack some Kendal Mint Cake, go to another galaxy and leave the angels to squabble over this one. What do you think?’

I scowled my annoyance at him, irritated that he was mocking me at such a time. ‘What were you doing on Margaret’s Island?’ I asked.

‘I could not sleep either,’ Stephomi said lightly, turning back in his chair.

The metro stations re-opened for the day at 4:30 a.m. so I was able to get one of the underground trains back to my apartment, stopping to pick up the morning paper from an early vendor outside. I’d had less than three hours’ sleep but I didn’t feel tired as I let myself into my dark apartment.

I was not at all happy about what I had learned from Stephomi that night. The burning man that I had thought a product of my imagination was, in fact, real. And tonight he had tried to kill the one friend I had in the world — if I could continue to call Stephomi a friend, for he had been less than truthful with me from the very beginning. But I was not afraid of angels or devils, for I had nothing they’d be able to take from me. Except my memories, I suppose… but that is why I have this journal.

What Stephomi had said about Keats disturbed me greatly. I don’t know why I found the idea so intolerable. Perhaps because I respected Keats for his ability to recognise beauty; an ability that allowed him to see something beautiful, something of value, in misery itself. But to associate any kind of beauty with Hell disgusted me beyond words, and it seemed the most dreadful contradiction that Keats could have seen such a thing. For Stephomi was right. I found the poem the next day in one of the collections on my shelves. Keats did indeed dream of visiting the Second Circle after time spent reading about it in the fifth canto of Dante’s Divina Commedia. The Second Circle: where the lustful are punished for their sins by being blown and driven about by fierce eternal winds of misery.

I was reminded forcibly of Giuseppe Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata and his claim that it was a poor reflection of the beauty the Devil had been able to wring from the violin in his dream, for Keats too maintained that the inspired poem really was no comparison to the delight of the dream itself. Nothing but a pale reflection of the beauty the Devil had brought with him to the sleeping minds of artistic geniuses…

I don’t know why the poem upsets me so much. It’s true that Keats described the dream as one of the most ‘delightful enjoyments’ of his life, and expressed the desire to return there every night… Every night, oh God, the grotesqueness of such a desire! At the end of Canto IV, Dante himself faints (the only occasion he does so during his whole journey through the Circles) out of horror and fear at the things he sees within the Second Circle. That anyone, much less a poet of the most astounding ability, would wish to visit this place… I can’t think about it, for it disturbs me too greatly and I feel that there must have been something, after all, quite flawed and twisted within Keats’ soul.