The Dante Club

“But we may have just turned a corner here!” Lowell said.

“Lowell,” said Fields. “If we allow Dr. Ma

That afternoon, the deep smell of steaks and the muffled content sound of midday meals came to Longfellow as he stood in front of the stone Greek facade of the Revere House. A meal with Oscar Houghton would be an hour’s grace at least from talk of murder and insects. Fields, leaning on the driver’s box of his carriage, was instructing his driver to return to Charles Street—A

Longfellow noticed a pensive lady veiled in black crossing Bowdoin Square. She held a book in her hand and ambled along slowly, deliberately, eyes downcast. He thought of the days when he would encounter Fa

But months passed without the young woman replying to the gesture of the man she called Professor or Prof, though surely if she had read it she had seen herself in the character. When he finally did meet Fa

“Where can Houghton be?” Fields asked as his carriage was driven away. “He had better not have forgotten our di

“Perhaps he was held up at Riverside. Madam.” Longfellow raised his hat to a corpulent woman passing them on the sidewalk, who smiled bashfully in return. Whenever Longfellow addressed a woman, however briefly, it was as if he were offering a bouquet of flowers.

“Who was that?” Fields crunched his eyebrows.

“That,” Longfellow answered, “is the lady who waited on us at supper at Copeland’s two winters ago.”

“Oh well, yes. At any rate, if he is held up at Riverside, he had better be at work on your plates for the Inferno that we have to send to Florence.”

“Fields,” Longfellow said with lips tightly pursed.

“I’m sorry, Longfellow,” Fields said. “Next time I see her, I promise I shall lift my hat.”

Longfellow shook his head. “No. Over there.” Fields followed the direction of Longfellow’s stare to an oddly bent man with a shiny oilskin satchel, who was walking a little too briskly along the sidewalk opposite.

“That’s Bachi.”

“He was once a Harvard instructor?” replied the publisher. “He’s as bloodshot as an autumn sunset.” They watched the Italian instructor’s walk crescendo into a trot and end with a sharp skip into a corner storefront with a low-shingled roof and shoddy window card that read WADE AND SON & CO.

“Do you know that store?” Longfellow asked.

Fields did not. “He seems to be in an important rush, doesn’t he.”

“Mr. Houghton shall not mind waiting a few moments.” Longfellow took Fields’s arm. “Come, we might learn something more from him by catching him unprepared.”

As they started toward the corner to cross the street, they both watched George Washington Greene gingerly step out of Metcalf’s Apothecary with an armful of goods; the man of many ills treated himself to new medicines as one would treat himself to ice cream. Longfellow’s friends often lamented that Metcalf’s potions against neuralgia, dysentery, and the like—sold under a sign depicting a wise figure with an exaggerated nose—contributed heavily to Greene’s frequent Rip Van Winkle spells at their translation sessions.

“Good Lord, it’s Greene,” Longfellow said to his publisher. “It is imperative, Fields, that we keep him from speaking with Bachi.”

“Why? “Fields asked.

But Greene’s approach proscribed further discussion. “My dear Fields. And Longfellow! What brings you gentlemen out today?”

“My dear friend,” Longfellow said, anxiously eyeing the canopy-shaded door of Wade and Son across the street for any sign of Bachi. “We have just come for di

Greene nodded and sighed at the same time. “Shelly wishes me under her care until my health takes an upturn. But I shan’t stay in bed all day, though her doctor insists! Pain never killed anyone, but it is a most uncomfortable bedfellow.” He went into great detail about his newest symptoms. Longfellow and Fields fixed their eyes across the street as Greene prattled on. “But I oughtn’t bore everyone with the doldrums of my ailments. All would be worth the frustration for another Dante session—and still I have received no word of one for weeks! I have begun to worry the project has been abandoned. Pray tell me, dear Longfellow, that this is not the case.”

“We have taken but a slight pause,” Longfellow said, craning his neck to look across the street, where Bachi could be seen through the store window. He was gesturing energetically.

“We shall resume shortly, though, no doubt,” Fields added. A carriage pulled up at the corner across the street, blocking their view of the storefront and of Bachi. “I’m afraid we must take our leave now, Mr. Greene,” Fields said urgently, squeezing Longfellow’s elbow and steering him ahead.

“But you are confused, gentlemen! You’ve passed the Revere House in the other direction!” Greene laughed.

“Yes, well…” Fields searched for a passable excuse as they waited for a pair of oncoming coaches to cross the busy intersection.

“Greene,” Longfellow interrupted. “We must make a brief stop first. Pray start for the restaurant and dine with us and Mr. Houghton?”

“I’m afraid my daughter shall be cross as a terrier if I am not back,” Greene worried. “Oh, look who comes now!” Greene stepped back and wobbled off the narrow sidewalk. “Mr. Houghton!”

“My most grave apologies, gentlemen.” An ungainly man in undertaker’s black appeared beside them and lowered his improbably long arm to the first taker, which happened to be George Washington Greene. “I was about to go into Revere House when I saw you three from the corner of my eye. I hope your wait was not long. Mr. Greene, dear sir, are you joining us? How have you been then, my good man?”

“Quite malnourished,” Greene answered, now clothed fully in pathos, “in a life when our Wednesday-evening Dante circles were my first and last sustenance.”

Longfellow and Fields alternated their surveillance in fifteen-second shifts. The entrance of Wade and Son was still blocked by the intrusive carriage, whose driver sat patiently as though his special commission were to frustrate the view of Messrs. Longfellow and Fields.