this was an imponderablemystery, cruel, bitter, insupportable. That we must all be empty bodies, Lucy thought, envisioning the mortal mess inside the coffin, and never see the beautiful world again—no, anything was preferable to that.
Anything but hell.
Perhaps just down this road, Dante had stumbled upon his guided tour of the infernal regions, where the shades of the eternally damned raised their agonized howls to make vain inquiry after the living. There was a gate to hell, she recalled, somewhere in Tuscany.
Paolo Braggio concluded his remarks with the fervent hope that DV’s countrymen would make the pilgrimage to this peaceful valley, this simple village, this humble grave, which had called DV, unbeknownst to him, from across the ocean.
He made it sound as if DV had been lucky to fall down the well, Lucy thought. The group was quiet. She stared coldly at Signor Braggio, but he was looking down, keeping a respectful silence, which was clearly difficult for him, until Stanton Cutler should feel moved to speak.
Stanton was gazing up beyond the grave at a cypress tree swaying slightly at its top in the pleasant breeze. He looked relaxed but alert, his habitual manner. He worked in a world full of hysterics and blowhards, but they never seemed to astonish or offend him. How does he manage it? Lucy wondered. Does his height liberate him from earthly concerns? He looked down upon Paolo Braggio, who was chafing visibly under the silence as he knotted his hands and cleared his throat, craning his neck up over his collar as if to escape an impending fist. Stanton began to speak. His voice was softer than the Italian’s, but it carried beautifully and he spoke slowly, allowing pauses for Massimo’s translation. DV had been his friend, he explained; they had worked together formany years, and he would feel the loss. He spoke of DV’s generosity and his energy. Lucy noticed he said nothing about his writing. He said DV had loved Italy and admired the Italian people for these same qualities. Lucy thought this was stretching the truth, but not much. DV did love wherever he was and always thought the best of people, the best being his conviction that they admired and trusted him. Perhaps his way was not so bad, though it was almost criminally naïve. This insight was the closest thing to an explanation for the popularity of his novels that Lucy had ever come across. She looked around the grave at the faces of the mourners. Wasn’t it just as well to assume their impenetrable expressions masked only good intentions, agreeable sentiments? The Panatella family kept their eyes on Massimo, who directed his translation to them. The parents were a stolid pair, dressed in faded black, their faces lined by work in all weather. Their hands, rough and reddened from service, hung limply at their sides. Their son, Lucio, looked respectable, a serious bourgeois who had doubtless exceeded his parents’ wildest hopes and directed their lives now with the same passionate interest they had once lavished on him. Facing them, across the grave, the Cini family occupied a different kind of air; they seemed to exhale it and breathe it in again: the air of the landed aristocrat. Lucy’s effort to imagine a docile interior landscape behind these countenances, so studied in arrogance, so vestigially haughty, met with more resistance. No, she concluded. They had not been charmed by DV. They had not been charmed by anything for several centuries. The old man had the bearing and regard of a raptor. The son studied Stanton Cutler with a tired smile; he looked decadent and as full of guile as a snake. Stanton concluded his remarks, thanking the assembled strangers who had gathered to bury another stranger in their midst. The Italiansturned to one another, speaking softly. The grave digger and a dark, foul-smelling young man who must have been his son began to push and pull at the planks holding the casket over the grave. The assembly dispersed, ambling
Anything but hell.
Perhaps just down this road, Dante had stumbled upon his guided tour of the infernal regions, where the shades of the eternally damned raised their agonized howls to make vain inquiry after the living. There was a gate to hell, she recalled, somewhere in Tuscany.
Paolo Braggio concluded his remarks with the fervent hope that DV’s countrymen would make the pilgrimage to this peaceful valley, this simple village, this humble grave, which had called DV, unbeknownst to him, from across the ocean.
He made it sound as if DV had been lucky to fall down the well, Lucy thought. The group was quiet. She stared coldly at Signor Braggio, but he was looking down, keeping a respectful silence, which was clearly difficult for him, until Stanton Cutler should feel moved to speak.
Stanton was gazing up beyond the grave at a cypress tree swaying slightly at its top in the pleasant breeze. He looked relaxed but alert, his habitual manner. He worked in a world full of hysterics and blowhards, but they never seemed to astonish or offend him. How does he manage it? Lucy wondered. Does his height liberate him from earthly concerns? He looked down upon Paolo Braggio, who was chafing visibly under the silence as he knotted his hands and cleared his throat, craning his neck up over his collar as if to escape an impending fist. Stanton began to speak. His voice was softer than the Italian’s, but it carried beautifully and he spoke slowly, allowing pauses for Massimo’s translation. DV had been his friend, he explained; they had worked together formany years, and he would feel the loss. He spoke of DV’s generosity and his energy. Lucy noticed he said nothing about his writing. He said DV had loved Italy and admired the Italian people for these same qualities. Lucy thought this was stretching the truth, but not much. DV did love wherever he was and always thought the best of people, the best being his conviction that they admired and trusted him. Perhaps his way was not so bad, though it was almost criminally naïve. This insight was the closest thing to an explanation for the popularity of his novels that Lucy had ever come across. She looked around the grave at the faces of the mourners. Wasn’t it just as well to assume their impenetrable expressions masked only good intentions, agreeable sentiments? The Panatella family kept their eyes on Massimo, who directed his translation to them. The parents were a stolid pair, dressed in faded black, their faces lined by work in all weather. Their hands, rough and reddened from service, hung limply at their sides. Their son, Lucio, looked respectable, a serious bourgeois who had doubtless exceeded his parents’ wildest hopes and directed their lives now with the same passionate interest they had once lavished on him. Facing them, across the grave, the Cini family occupied a different kind of air; they seemed to exhale it and breathe it in again: the air of the landed aristocrat. Lucy’s effort to imagine a docile interior landscape behind these countenances, so studied in arrogance, so vestigially haughty, met with more resistance. No, she concluded. They had not been charmed by DV. They had not been charmed by anything for several centuries. The old man had the bearing and regard of a raptor. The son studied Stanton Cutler with a tired smile; he looked decadent and as full of guile as a snake. Stanton concluded his remarks, thanking the assembled strangers who had gathered to bury another stranger in their midst. The Italiansturned to one another, speaking softly. The grave digger and a dark, foul-smelling young man who must have been his son began to push and pull at the planks holding the casket over the grave. The assembly dispersed, ambling
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