Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/154

148 and at the dawn of the next day we must go to work again! We have no time to pray to God, but only to work to get something to eat that we may not die of hunger; and scarcely have we eaten, when we must again work for food. Have pity upon us!"

And the Shade grew as pallid as the boy, who was wiping his feet with his fair hair, and raising his eyes, he sighed: "My child, Pray for the  to our Father who dwells in Heaven!" And the boy went away murmuring: "In Heaven perhaps, but not upon earth."

During this time many, crawling in the dust, ground their teeth; while the Shade of Dante hurried through them like an avalanche, sweeping on elsewhere.

In the midst of this world of granite, other throngs were leaning over an immense gulf. The faces of those who looked down into it swam in a crimson light; the earth around it trembled, as if convulsed by hidden earthquakes. When the Young Man drew near, it seemed to him he saw the vast crater of a volcano, or the sunken bed of a dry lake surrounded by high and precipitous walls. The bottom was black with human heads; black as the waves in a tempest; a bloody light glowed as if from burning coals and smoking cinders like volcanic scoriæ,—and threats and curses rose continually therefrom!

As a mother folds her infant to her breast, so the Shade wound the Young Man in his arms, and glided with him into the dismal depths of this great gulf. Forms of the most savage character were there unchained, raging and seething in the abyss. Their cheeks were black with bristling beard, their sleeves tucked up to their shoulders, and their arms were blue with swollen veins like cords. Sometimes they coiled themselves into living knots; sometimes they scattered far asunder; sometimes they crawled like vipers; then stood erect in the lurid light of the flames, as men prepared for combat.

Close to the nearest fire, twelve men of gigantic size were on their knees. Their bodies were stripped to the waist, and a thirteenth advanced before them, with a dagger in the right hand and a cup in the left, and he said: "I will consecrate you!" The giants bowed their