Chapter 20

Soon as I was within, cast round my eye,

And see on every hand an ample plain,

Full of distress and torment terrible.

Dante, Inferno, 9.109-111

Dante turned away from the dying town and examined the fields through which they now passed. In better times they would’ve been surrounded by crops, but now everything around them was dry and barren. It seemed unusually warm for this time of year, especially considering it was overcast. He scanned the open area around them and relaxed a bit. As strange as their surroundings were, it felt good finally to be outside the town, in a place that seemed deserted, without any immediate threats from either the living or the dead.

“What was your life like when you lived in Italy? Why did you journey so far, to come to our insignificant land?” Adam asked him as they rode along slowly.

“He wanted to be a monk.” Bogdana looked over her shoulder as she said this. Dante could not help but notice her dark eyes sparkle just a tiny bit, and the hint of a smile on the one side of her mouth. Radovan snorted a laugh at her playful remark, and she turned back forward. “You did too,” she chided him.

“Yes, I did once want to be a monk,” Dante said. “Instead I joined the apothecaries’ guild. I wanted to change the politics of my city, and guild membership was required to hold public office. But I didn’t change much. Instead I was exiled by those in power, who had help from the leader of my church. I wanted to stay in my city, but I will never see it again. And I wanted to write poems, to create something beautiful, but I never have. I wanted many things that did not happen.”

“You desired much, friend, but you just saw how strong and dangerous desire is,” Adam said. “Perhaps that was your problem.”

Dante looked over at the older, smaller man; everything seemed compact about him. His body, his desires, even his mind – all were compact, focused, efficient, never wasteful or dissipated. And though it was all very admirable, it could never be beautiful, Dante thought. He remembered Beatrice’s refined, fragile beauty, and even glanced at Bogdana, with her rough sensuality and awesome simplicity. Such beauties and complexities were never commensurate with the sharp, compact analysis of Adam. It would be like trying to get life-giving water to one’s mouth using a knife.

Dante had spent plenty of time alone in the past few years – more than most people spent in a lifetime, more than he would’ve liked, more than he would’ve wished upon anyone, even an enemy. He had spent much of that time dissecting his own beliefs, so he knew his perspective was closer to Adam’s than it was to the kind of feminine luxuriousness and ambiguity he had seen in Beatrice, and which now so confused and fascinated him in Bogdana.

“No,” he replied. “In our lives, everything is desire. We must learn to desire good things. Not all of my desires were directed toward bad things. I believe most were not, in all truth.”

“Toward what then? Did you desire wealth?”

“No, not in the least. I have never understood men’s fascination with money or possessions.”

“That is good. I suspected that when I met you. What about honor? Respect? Did you crave these from other men?”

Dante frowned. “When I was active in politics, I know it was mostly because I wanted people’s lives improved. I didn’t want them to live in a cesspool of corruption and violence. But I’ll admit that, sometimes, I did want honor, at least a little, and that made me proud and boastful. So those desires were mixed, I’ll grant you.”

Adam nodded. “All right. What about women?”

Dante turned his gaze from Adam and let it rest on Bogdana’s back. “Yes. I loved a woman, but she died. And I was never worthy of her anyway.”

“Then why was this desire good, my friend, if it only made you feel disappointed, frustrated, and sad?”

“Because she made me want to be worthy of her. She made me long for it more than anything. And not just so I could have her and possess her. Why then would the longing continue after she died, when I could not possibly have her? I wanted to be a better man, just for her.” Dante shook his head and gripped the reins tighter. He hated how he couldn’t put his thoughts and feelings into words. “No, not for her, really. For her goodness. I wanted to be better, so I could be worthy of the goodness I saw in her.” His stare fixed on the nape of Bogdana’s neck, where her long hair had parted slightly to reveal a triangle of skin above the collar of the jacket he’d loaned her. He was glad she could not see him blush at this point. “And I have seen such goodness in a few other women since she died, and it has had the same effect on me.”

Adam followed Dante’s gaze and smiled. “I see. Did you ever marry one of these women who had this wondrous effect on you?”

Dante shot a glance at Adam, then looked down at the ground. “I married a woman. We had been betrothed when we were still quite young. She has been an excellent mother to our children. I am very grateful to her for that.”

Dante had chosen his words with great precision. Adam nodded, apparently at the careful choice of words, and at what had been left unsaid. “Then I am not sure I quite understand your desire for women, my friend, or how it is a desire for something good, if its fulfillment has been postponed for your entire life.”

“Our love of God is never completely fulfilled in this life. We live on in hope, always striving to be worthy of Him. The love of another person’s beauty and goodness is like that. It is like practicing with a weapon or a musical instrument, so one can improve at it for the real performance.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Yes, the love you describe is like the love of God in this respect. I am not sure of the practicing part, however. It seems a bit farfetched, and too optimistic about the things of this world.”

“You said when we first met you thought perhaps I was destined for some special, noble purpose?”

“Yes, I did, and I still think that is so.”

“If you are right, and if I prove worthy and capable of achieving such a goal, it will be because of such love, one that draws me beyond myself and beyond the person who sparks such a love in me. It is a love not for the person, but for the Source of all love.”

“I hope you are right. I cannot judge you, if you tell me this kind of love has such a benefit to you, and you have such a goal in mind when you experience it.”

Dante looked back at Bogdana, then at the desolate lands around them “I think perhaps I know now why I have come to your country: to see all the strange, terrible things created by love and hate, desire and attraction, so I may better understand them, and tell others of them.”

“That would be a great accomplishment indeed, my friend. Many do not know the risks and rewards of their lives. And deaths.”

Ahead of them, on the right side of the road, the rectangular monuments of a graveyard came into view.