The Dante Club Page 0,30

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 citta 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