The Dante Club

Nicholas Rey said, “What would be the punishment we’d be looking for?”

They all waited for Longfellow to answer. “The Traitors are placed wholly in ice, from the neck down, in ‘a lake, that from the frost the semblance had of glass, and not of water.’ “

Holmes groaned. “Every puddle in New England has frozen over in the last two weeks. Ma

Rey shook his head. “You gentlemen remain here in Cambridge and look for Teal and Ma

“What shall we do if we see Teal?” Holmes asked.

“Use this.” Rey handed them his police rattle.

The four scholars began their patrol of the deserted banks of the Charles River, of Beaver Creek, near Elmwood, and of Fresh Pond. Looking out by the weak halos of gas lanterns, they were at such high mental alert that they barely noticed how indifferently the night passed without granting them the slightest advance. They wrapped themselves in multiple coats, not marking the frost collecting on their beards (or in Dr. Holmes’s case, on his dense eyebrows and sideburns). How strange and silent the world seemed without the occasional clap of a horse’s trot. It was a silence that seemed to stretch all the way across the North, interrupted only by the rude belches of bulging locomotives in the distance constantly transporting wares from one stop to the next.

Each Dantean imagined in great detail how at that very moment in time Patrolman Rey pursued Dan Teal through Boston, apprehending and shackling him in the name of the Commonwealth, how Teal would explain himself, rage, justify, but yield peaceably to justice, lago-like never to speak of his acts again. They passed each other several times, Longfellow and Holmes and Lowell and Fields, offering encouragement as they circled the frozen waterways.

They began to talk—Dr. Holmes first, of course. But the others also comforted themselves with the exchange of hushed tones. They spoke about writing memorial verses, about new books, about political doings they had not been attuned to as of late; Holmes retold the story of the early years of his medical practice, when he had hung out a sign—THE SMALLEST FEVERS GRATEFULLY RECEIVED—before his window was smashed by drunkards.

“I’ve talked too much, haven’t I?” Holmes shook his head in self-admonishment. “Longfellow, I wish I could make you talk more about yourself.”

“No,” Longfellow replied thoughtfully. “I believe I never do.”

“I know you never do! But you confessed to me once.” Holmes thought twice. “When you first met Fa

“No, I don’t think I ever did.”

They traded partners several times as though they were dancing; they traded conversations, too. Sometimes all four walked together and it seemed that their weight would crack the frozen earth below. Always they walked arm in arm, bracing each other.

It was a clear night, at least. The stars sat fixed in perfect order. They heard the hoof taps of the horse conveying Nicholas Rey, who was shrouded by the steam of the animal’s breath. Each silently envisioned the sight of unrestrained achievement in the young man’s striking countenance as he approached, but his face was steeled. No sightings of Teal or Augustus Ma

Which of them suggested, at half-past three, to rest for a spell at Lowell’s house? They spread out, two in the music room and two in the adjoining study, the rooms mirroring each other in their layout and with back-to-back hearths. Fa

At the hour of a motionless world, the warmth fell squarely on the side of Holmes’s face. His entire body was so deeply fatigued that he hardly noticed when he found himself pulled to his feet again to tread softly along a narrow fence outside. The ice on the ground had begun to thaw rapidly with a sudden rise in temperature, and slush clotted the streams of water. The ground under his boots was set at a steep incline, and he felt himself crouch forward as though going uphill. He looked out on the Cambridge Common, where he could make out the Revolutionary War ca

Two strawberry-specked horses with albino hooves were storming toward him. both hauling rickety wagons. Holmes cringed, falling to his knees; he gripped his ankles and looked up in time to see Fa

Holmes pushed off from the armchair and stood up, his knees inches from the grate of the crackling wood fire. He looked up. The chandelier drops were rattling overhead. “What hour is it?” he asked when he realized he had been dreaming. Lowell’s clock answered: fifteen minutes till six. Lowell, eyes peering open like a groggy child’s, stirred in his easy chair. He asked if something was the matter. The bitterness inside his mouth made it difficult to pry open.

“Lowell, Lowell,” Holmes said, pulling back all the curtains. “A pair of horses.”

“What?”

“I think I heard a pair of horses outside. No, I’m fairly sure of it. They raced by your window only seconds ago, near as you please and speeding along. It was definitely two horses. Patrolman Rey has only one horse at present. Longfellow said that Teal stole two from Ma

“We fell asleep,” Lowell responded with alarm, blinking himself to life, seeing through the windows the light that had begun to break.

Lowell roused Longfellow and Fields, and then snatched his spyglass and flung his rifle over his shoulder. As they reached the door, Lowell saw Mabel, wrapped in her dressing gown, come into the front hall. He paused, expecting a reprimand, but she merely stood with a remote stare. Lowell reversed his course and embraced her hard. When he heard himself whisper “Thank you,” she had already called out the same words.

“Now, you must be careful, Father. For Mother and for me.”

Moving from the warmth into the frigid air outside brought on Holmes’s asthma full force. Lowell ran ahead, following fresh hoof marks, as the other three maneuvered circumspectly through the stripped elms that reached naked branches for the heavens.

“Longfellow, my dear Longfellow…” Holmes was saying.

“Holmes?” the poet answered kindly.

Holmes could still see vividly dreamt fragments before his eyes, and he trembled to look at his friend. He was frightened that he might blurt out: I just saw Fa