The Dante Club

by Matthew Pearl

  Holmes always relished how Longfellow opened their Dante meetings with a recitation of the first lines of the Commedia in unassumingly perfect Italian.

  “‘Midway through the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark wood, for the right way had been lost.’”

  III

  As the first order of business in a Dante Club meeting, the host reviewed the proof sheets from the previous week’s session.

  “Good work, my dear Longfellow,” Dr. Holmes said. He was satisfied whenever one of his suggested amendments was approved, and two from last Wednesday had found their way into Longfellow’s final proofs. Holmes turned his attention to this evening’s cantos. He had taken extra care to prepare, because today he would have to persuade them he had come to protect Dante.

  “In the seventh circle,” Longfellow said, “Dante tells us how he and Virgil come upon a black forest.” In each region of Hell, Dante followed his adored guide, the Roman poet Virgil. Along the way, he learned the fate of each group of sinners, singling out one or two to address the living world.

  “The lost forest that has occupied the private nightmares of all of Dante’s readers at one time or another,” Lowell said. “Dante writes like Rembrandt, with a brush dipped in darkness and a gleam of hellfire as his light.”

  Lowell, as usual, would have every inch of Dante at his tongue’s end; he lived Dante’s poetry, body and mind. Holmes, for one of the only instances in his life, envied another person’s talent.

  Longfellow read from his translation. His reading voice rang deep and true, without any harshness, like the sound of water running under a fresh cover of snow. George Washington Greene seemed particularly lulled, for the scholar, in the spacious green armchair in the corner, drifted to sleep amid the soft intonations of the poet and the mild heat from the fire. The little terrier Trap, who had rolled onto his plump stomach under Greene’s chair, also dozed off, and their snores arranged themselves in tandem, like the grumbling bass in a Beethoven symphony.

  In the canto at hand, Dante found himself in the Wood of Suicides, where the “shades” of sinners have been turned into trees, dripping blood where sap belonged. Then further punishment arrived: Bestial harpies, faces and necks of women and bodies of birds, feet clawed and bellies bulging, crashed through the brush, feeding and tearing at every tree in their way. But along with great pain, the rips and tears in the trees provided the only outlet for the shades to utter their pain, to tell their stories to Dante.

  “The blood and words must come out together.” So said Longfellow.

  After two cantos of punishments witnessed by Dante, books were marked and stored, papers shuffled, and admiration exchanged. Longfellow said, “School is done, gentlemen. It is only half-past nine and we deserve some refreshment for our labors.”

  “You know,” Holmes said, “I was thinking of our Dante work in a new light just the other day.”

  Longfellow’s servant, Peter, knocked and conveyed a message to Lowell in a hesitant whisper.

  “Someone to see me?” Lowell protested, interrupting Holmes. “Who would find me here?” When Peter stammered a vague response, Lowell thundered loud enough for the whole household to hear. “Who in the name of Heaven would come on the night of our club?”

  Peter leaned closer to Lowell. “Mistah Lowell, he say he’s a policeman, sah.”

  In the front hall, Patrolman Nicholas Rey stomped the fresh snow from his boots, then froze at Longfellow’s army of George Washington sculptures and paintings. The house had headquartered Washington in the earliest days of the American Revolution.

  Peter, the black servant, had cocked his head doubtfully when Rey showed him his badge. Rey was told that Mr. Longfellow’s Wednesday meeting could not be disturbed and, policeman or no policeman, he would have to wait in the parlor. The room into which he was led was enshrined with an intangibly light decor—flowered wallpaper and curtains suspended from Gothic acorns. A creamy marble bust of a woman was guarded under an arch by the chimneypiece, curls of stone hair falling gently over softly carved features.

  Rey stood up when two men entered the room. One had a flowing beard and a dignity that made him appear quite tall, although he was of average height; his companion was a stout, confident man, with walrus tusks swinging as though to introduce themselves first. This was James Russell Lowell, who paused for a long gaping moment, then rushed forward.

  He laughed with the smugness of advance knowledge. “Longfellow, wouldn’t you know I’ve read everything about this chap in the freemen’s newspaper! He was a hero in the Negro regiment, the Fifty-fourth, and Andrew appointed him to the police department the week of President Lincoln’s death. What an honor to meet you, my friend!”

  “Fifty-fifth regiment, Professor Lowell, the sister regiment. Thank you,” Rey said. “Professor Longfellow, I apologize for taking you away from your company.”

  “We have just finished the serious portion, Officer,” Longfellow said, smiling, “and Mister shall do nicely.” His silver hair and loose beard lent him a patriarchal manner befitting someone older than fifty-eight. The eyes were blue and ageless. Longfellow wore an impeccable dark frock coat with gilt buttons and a buff waistcoat fitted to his form. “I wore out my professor’s gown years ago now, and Professor Lowell has taken it up in my stead.”

  “But I still cannot get used to that confounded title,” muttered Lowell.

  Rey turned to him. “A young lady at your house kindly directed me here. She said you would not be caught in a gunshot of anywhere else but here on a Wednesday evening.”

  “Ah, that would be my Mabel!” Lowell laughed. “She did not throw you out, did she?”

  Rey smiled. “She is a most charming young lady, sir. I was sent to you, Professor, from University Hall.”

  Lowell looked stunned. “What?” he whispered. Then he exploded, his cheeks and ears baked a hot burgundy and his voice scorching his own throat: “They sent a police officer! With what possible justification? Are they not men who can speak their own minds without pulling the wires of some City Hall marionette! Explain yourself, sir!”

  Rey remained as still as the marble statue of Longfellow’s wife by the fireplace.

  Longfellow draped a hand on his friend’s sleeve. “You see, Officer, Professor Lowell is kind enough to assist me, along with some of our colleagues, in a literary endeavor of sorts that does not presently meet with the favor of members of the College government. But is that why . . .”

  “My apologies,” the policeman said, allowing his gaze to loiter on the first man who had spoken, whose redness drained from his face as abruptly as it had appeared. “I called on University Hall, not the other way around. You see, I’m in search of an expert in languages and was given your name by some students there.”

  “Then, Officer, my apologies,” said Lowell. “But you are lucky you’ve found me. I can speak six languages like a native—of Cambridge.” The poet laughed and rested the paper that Rey passed to him on Longfellow’s rosewood marquetry desk. He ran his finger across the slanted, scrawled lettering.

  Rey saw Lowell’s high forehead furrow into creases. “A gentleman said some words to me. It was softly spoken, whatever he meant to communicate, and all rather sudden. I can only conclude it was in some strange and foreign tongue.”

  “When?” Lowell asked.

  “A few weeks ago. It was a strange and unexpected encounter.” Rey allowed his eyes to shut. He remembered the whisperer’s grip stretch across his skull. He could hear the words form so distinctly, but was without the power to repeat any of them. “I fear mine is only a rough transcription, Professor.”

  “A choke-pear, indeed!” Lowell said as he passed the paper to Longfellow. “I’m afraid that little can be made from this hieroglyphic. Can you not ask the person what he meant? Or at least find out what language he purports to speak?”

  Rey hesitated to answer.

  Longfellow said, “Officer, we have a cabinet of hungry scholars locked away whose wisdom
might be bribed with oysters and macaroni. Would you be kind enough to leave a copy of this paper with us?”

  “I greatly appreciate it, Mr. Longfellow,” said Rey. He studied the poets before adding, “I must request that you not mention to anyone outside yourselves my visit today. This deals with a delicate police matter.”

  Lowell raised his eyebrows skeptically.

  “Of course,” Longfellow said, and bowed his head in a nod, as though that trust were implicit inside Craigie House.

  “Do keep the good godson of Cerberus away from the table tonight, my dear Longfellow!” Fields was tucking a napkin into his shirt collar. They were settled in their places around the dining room table. Trap protested with a quiet whine.

  “Oh, he is quite a friend to poets, Fields,” Longfellow said.

  “Ah! You should have seen it last week, Mr. Greene,” said Fields. “While you were holed up in your bed, that friendly fellow helped himself to a partridge from the supper table when we were in the study with the eleventh canto!”

  “That was only his view of the Divine Comedy,” Longfellow said, smiling.

  “A strange encounter,” said Holmes, vaguely interested. “That is what the police officer said of it?” He was studying the policeman’s note, holding it under the chandelier’s warm lights and turning it over before passing it on.

  Lowell nodded. “Like Nimrod, whatever our Officer Rey heard is like all the gigantic infancy of the world.”

  “I partly wish to say the writing is a poor attempt at Italian.” George Washington Greene shrugged apologetically and yielded the note to Fields with a windy sigh.

  The historian returned his concentration to his meal. He grew self-conscious when, the Dante Club having shelved its books in exchange for supper-table banter, he had to compete with the bright stars that inhabited Longfellow’s social constellation. Greene’s life had been cobbled together of small promise and great setbacks. His public lectures had never been strong enough to secure him a professorship, and his work as a minister never defined enough to allow him to gain his own parish (his lectures, detractors said, were too sermonizing and his sermons too historical). Longfellow watched his old friend faithfully and sent choice portions across the table that he thought Greene would prefer.

  “Patrolman Rey,” said Lowell admiringly. “The very image of a man, isn’t he, Longfellow? A soldier in our greatest war and now the first colored member of the police. Alas, we professors just stand on the gangway, watching the few who take the voyage on the steamer.”

  “Oh, but we shall live much longer through our intellectual pursuits,” said Holmes, “according to an article in the last number of the Atlantic concerning learning’s salutary effects on longevity. Compliments on another fine issue, my dear Fields.”

  “Yes, I saw that! An excellent piece. Make much of that young author, Fields,” said Lowell.

  “Hmm.” Fields smiled at him. “Apparently, I should consult with you before letting any writer put pen to paper. The Review certainly made short work of our Life of Percival. A stranger might well wonder that you don’t show me slightly more consideration!”

  “Fields, I give no puffs for mere mush,” said Lowell. “You know better than to publish a book which is not only poor in itself but will stand in the way of a better work on the subject.”

  “I ask the table whether it is right for Lowell to publish in The North American Review, one of my periodicals, an attack on one of my house’s books!”

  “Well, I ask in return,” Lowell said, “if anyone here has read the book and disputed my findings.”

  “I would venture a resounding no for the entire table,” Fields submitted, “for I assure you that from the day Lowell’s article appeared, not a single copy of the book has been sold!”

  Holmes tapped his fork against his glass. “I hereby arraign Lowell as a murderer, for he completely killed the Life.”

  They all laughed.

  “Oh, it died a-borning, Judge Holmes,” replied the defendant, “and I but hammered the nails into its coffin!”

  “Say,” Greene tried to sound casual in returning to his preferred topic. “Has anyone noted a Dantesque character to the days and dates of this year?”

  “They correspond exactly with those of the Dantesque 1300,” said Longfellow, nodding. “So in both years, Good Friday fell on the twenty-fifth of March.”

  “Glory!” said Lowell. “Five hundred and sixty-five years ago this year, Dante descended into the città dolente, the dolorous city. Won’t this be the year of Dante! Is it a good omen for a translation,” Lowell asked with a boyish smile, “or an ill one?” His comment reminded him of the persistence of the Harvard Corporation, however, and his large smile wilted.

  Longfellow said, “Tomorrow, with our latest cantos of the Inferno in hand, I shall descend among the printer’s devils—the Malebranche of the Riverside Press—and we shall creep closer to completion. I have promised to send a private edition of Inferno to the Florentine Committee by the end of the year, to be made a part, however humbly, of Dante’s six-hundredth-birthday commemoration.”

  “You know, my dear friends,” Lowell said, frowning. “Those damned fools at Harvard are still in a white heat trying to close down my Dante course.”

  “And after Augustus Manning warned me about the consequences of publishing the translation,” Fields put in, drumming the table in frustration.

  “Why should they go to such lengths?” Greene asked with alarm.

  “One way or another, they seek to gain as much distance from Dante as possible,” explained Longfellow gently. “They fear its influence, that it’s foreign—that it’s Catholic, my dear Greene.”

  Holmes said, projecting offhanded sympathy, “I suppose it could be partially understood when it comes to some of Dante. How many fathers went to Mount Auburn Cemetery to visit their sons last June instead of to the meetinghouse for commencement? For many, I think we need no other Hell than what we have just come out of.”

  Lowell was pouring himself a third or fourth glass of red Falernian. Across the table, Fields tried unsuccessfully to calm him with a placating glance. But Lowell said, “Once they start throwing books in the fire, they shall put us all into an inferno we won’t soon escape, my dear Holmes!”

  “Oh, do not think I like the idea of trying to waterproof the American mind against questions that Heaven rains down upon it, my dear Lowell. But perhaps . . .” Holmes hesitated. Here was his opportunity. He turned to Longfellow. “Perhaps we should consider a less ambitious publication schedule, my dear Longfellow—a private issue of a few dozen books first, so that our friends and fellow scholars can appreciate it, can learn its strengths, before we spread it to the masses.”

  Lowell nearly jumped from his seat. “Did Dr. Manning talk to you? Did Manning send someone to scare you into that, Holmes?”

  “Lowell, please.” Fields smiled diplomatically. “Manning wouldn’t approach Holmes about this.”

  “What?” Dr. Holmes pretended not to register this. Lowell was still waiting for an answer. “Of course not, Lowell. Manning is just one of those fungi that always grow upon older universities. But it seems to me that we do not want to court unnecessary conflict. It would only distract from what we cherish about Dante. It would become about the fight, not about the poetry. Too many doctors use medicine by cramming as much of it as possible down their patients’ throats. We should be judicious in our most well-meaning cures, and cautious in our literary advancements.”

  “The more allies, the better,” Fields said to the table.

  “We cannot tiptoe around tyrants!” Lowell said.

  “Nor do we wish to be an army of five against the world,” Holmes added. He was thrilled that Fields was already warming to his idea of stalling: He would complete his novel before the nation even heard of Dante.

  “I would be burned at the stake,” Lowell cried. “Nay, I would agree to be shut up alone for an hour with the entire Harvard Corporation before I would push ba
ck the translation’s publication.”

  “Of course, we shan’t change publication plans at all,” Fields said. The wind came out of Holmes’s sails. “But Holmes is right about us carrying this out alone,” Fields continued. “We can certainly try to recruit support. I could call on old Professor Ticknor to use whatever influence is left in him. And perhaps Mr. Emerson, who read Dante years ago. No one on earth knows whether a book will sell five thousand copies or not when published. But if five thousand copies are sold, nothing is more certain than that twenty-five thousand copies can be.”

  “Could they try to take away your teaching post, Mr. Lowell?” Greene interrupted, still preoccupied by the Harvard Corporation.

  “Jamey is far too famous a poet for that,” insisted Fields.

  “I don’t care a fig what they do to me, in any respect! I shall not hand Dante to the Philistines.”

  “Nor shall any of us!” Holmes was quick to say. To his own surprise, he was not defeated; rather, all the more determined—not only that he was right, but that he could save his friends from Dante and save Dante from the ardor of his friends. The encouraging volume of his exclamation took in the table. “Hear, hear” and “That’s it! That’s it!” were shouted, Lowell’s voice the loudest.

  Greene, seeing a remnant of tomato farcie lodged on his clinking fork, bent down to share the wealth with Trap. From under the table, Greene noticed Longfellow rise to his feet.

  Though they were just five friends around Longfellow’s dining room in the infinite privacy of Craigie House, the sheer rarity of Longfellow standing to speak for a toast produced a complete stillness.

  “To the health of the table.”