Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/148

142 against our brothers, and we go:"—and their tears were unquenchable! The Shade stopped and said: "Who are you, and what is your name?" But the souls of all those bodies answered nothing. "Where is your country?" And the souls of all those bodies straightened themselves, full of astonishment! "Where is your home?" And among so many eyes, a few let fall a tear as at some vague remembrance! But the arms ceased not to move more and more vigorously, ever rubbing the barrels of their guns and sharpening the points of their bayonets, and lo! above those mute bodies all the souls groaned out together: "Since infancy, they have driven us about the world without our own volition; they have forced us to forget ourselves and to murder others; whoever resisted us, we were commanded to shoot as a traitor; and now we know not whence we came nor whither we are going!"

Then the pale figure spake: "When men of old sought the combat, they knew what cause they were serving, and why they must die; they were like gods of war, but you perish like poor brutes!" And breaking with a sign the ranks of the armed people, the Figure advanced to the stairs which wound down into the depths.

Following the steps of the Seer, the young man plunged into the subterranean darkness.

Suddenly a deluge of light poured around him; he saw the black walls, the prison grates, the rings with chains clamped into the rocks: luxurious flames blazed in lamps of alabaster, soft carpets of silk were underfoot, and a numberless crowd was gathered round a man who occupied a high seat, and who, delicate and slight as a woman, turned over the pages of a black book. Before him stood a gigantic cross, rising almost to the vault, and a figure of Christ was stretched upon it. The shade of Dante trembled from head to foot as he spake: "I never met that sacred sign with the Condemned of old! At least they did not know how to blaspheme God in the name of God! Look and listen!"

The Official of the multitude, the slight and delicate man, bent forward, and drew many heavy bags of gold from under the base of the cross. All who were present