Canto XXXIII of Hell

The holocaust of Jeanne the virgin Maid.
The Human Comedy.

 
La bocca sollevò dal fiero pasto
quel peccator, forbendola a'capelli
del capo ch'elli avea di retro guasto.

  Poi cominciò: «Tu vuo' ch'io rinovelli
disperato dolor che 'l cor mi preme
già pur pensando, pria ch'io ne favelli.

  Ma se le mie parole esser dien seme
che frutti infamia al traditor ch'i' rodo,
parlar e lagrimar vedrai insieme.

  Io non so chi tu se' né per che modo
venuto se' qua giù; ma fiorentino
mi sembri veramente quand'io t'odo.

Her mouth, she raised it from her hideous meal, this pecheress, by wiping it at the hair 
from the flesh which she ate. Then she talked as follows: 

"You want me to renew the unsoundable pleasure which feeds my heart only in doing that, 
before I tell it to you? But if my words must be a seed from where grows love
for the son and the girl I consume, you will see me speaking and rejoice at the same time. 
You must know that I love  my sons and my daughters so much, that I protect them 
as far as devouring them by love, so that they do not sin, so that they respect my laws,
 so that they do not leave the house which saw them being born!" 
 
"I devour their members so that they go only on my step.
 I devour their eyes so that they see only what I see .
 I devour their mouth so that they eat only my flesh.
 I devour their testicles so that they planted themselves only in me. 
I devour their heart so that they like only me. 
I devour their brain so that they think only like me.
 I devour their dreams so that they do not dream any more." 


Then of fear I asked her: 
"But what are you, you who turn your sons and your daughters impotents like that, 
and who claims at the same time to love them as a mother must love her sons and her daughters?" 


And she answered to me without any repentance: 
"I am the State and their Mother at the same time 
and I thus protect them from the world around them and of themselves as much." 


And I left while saying to my guide: 
 "Does she have the right to make her sons and her daughters impotents like this?"

And I received no satisfactory answer and I always live in doubt.

 We advanced more and more in the Tolomea, we circumvented the Dominion Square* 
still asleep in the morning fog; I saw a shadow who gave me a sign and who was laying on its back 
in a comfortable posture, I approached to ask  who it was: 


"Ho! handsome man who comes there from the country where people run after the cold, 
if you requests it to me, know that my name is Sheila and that I am, in another place, 
the Muse of the Patrimony and that if you want to stretch on my couch
I promise you as good enjoyments as if you were the son of the Providence!" 


And, driven by so inviting words, I lay myself on her. In  place of the warm and wet flesh 
I felt the coldness of an hymen that separates me from her, 
I then raise up with astonishment and repentance also. 


"What have you to move away thus as if I were one of the Gorgones
 who reigns in your National Assembly or that you feared the Influence 
of my Parliament on you and on the Christians who make the laws?"


 And, shy, I say to her: 
 "I am afraid, I am greatly afraid, inviting Muse, I fear that by kissing you,
 I violate the Unifoliate who cover your livid flesh." 


We advanced very slowly and, at the center of the Phillip Square*, I saw there,
 over-excited people who encircled a burning stake that demons fed constantly. 
I advanced more closely and I saw that books  where burned there; 
and the more I approached the more it seemed to me that, there was only one title to the book: 
The cover of all these books was identical, and entitled as follows:

  "The Human Comedy". .
 
This cover was illustrated by the body of a very beautiful lady wrapped into a veil 
of translucid muslin and  whose eyes so soft seemed to cry. 

The crowd shouted and broke out in rage, it seemed conditioned to appreciate 
the spectacle of this holocaust. Then I saw very well, on the burning stake, the metamorphosis of the books
in a very beautiful woman attached to the burning stake, whose beautiful body was thus, delivered to the flames. 
I approached even more closer and I recognized the features of Jeanne the Virgin Maid.
She was delivered to the flames as also to me, who had slipped myself on the burning stake; 
I metamorphosed myself into flames and I slowly consumed the muslin vail of Jeanne, 
then her beautiful naked body that the flames licked, 
as if it was me who licked the beautiful body of burning flesh of Jeanne. 
And I pressed myself on her divine body in fusion, which was consuming gently 
and which melted slowly, then I melted myself in Jeanne, like if Jeanne and Me,
 we formed only a single body which was consumed that way. 

At the cries of the crowd, I opened my eyes and I understood that I had  a dream, 
but the crowd was there, always, showing me their fingers and that shouted at me as follows: 


"Durty Pig, Burn."