Canto XX of the Purgatory

The start up of the Tremblimg mountain.
The Opium of the People.

  Contra miglior voler voler mal pugna;
onde contra 'l piacer mio, per piacerli,
trassi de l'acqua non sazia la spugna.

  Mossimi; e 'l duca mio si mosse per li
luoghi spediti pur lungo la roccia,
come si va per muro stretto a' merli;

  ché la gente che fonde a goccia a goccia
per li occhi il mal che tutto 'l mondo occupa,
da l'altra parte in fuor troppo s'approccia.

  Maladetta sie tu, antica lupa,
che più che tutte l'altre bestie hai preda
per la tua fame sanza fine cupa!

I would have liked to speak much longer with Marco Polo, 
but, his will was stronger than mine; also, to please him
 and against  my will, I moved away with regret from this glorious spirit. 

I started moving and my guide also, along the cliff, by the places which were free,
 as one goes along a wall by keeping close to the crenels; and my thoughts travelled in disorder: 

"Damn be you, vicious she-wolf who harass me unceasingly and who wants to absorb me, 
like as many preys in the bottomless pit of your hunger! 
Oh heaven! When thus, will you come to drive her out of  my mind?" 


We went with  slow and measured steps, I was filled with pity and attentive to these shadows
 whom I heard crying and complaining; and, by hasard, I heard calling as follows: 
 
"Oh Proletary! don't you still have Faith?" 

In front of us, among the sobs, like does a woman in the pains when giving birth; 
he seemed to speak to me and he continued as follows: 
 
"Religion is the last breath of the creature overpowered by misfortune, 
the soul of a world without heart, just as it is the spirit of an epoca without spirit. 
It is the opium of the people. 
Wouldn't you be one of these rabbles, you, who believe you go to heaven, as a reward 
for your passive servitude? The social principles of Christianity move into heaven 
the end of all the infamies. So that, it justifies the perpetuation on earth, of these infamies. 
The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, the contempt of oneself, abatement, 
servility, humility, in short all the characters of the rabble.
 The proletarian who refuses to be treated like a rabble requires much more of his courage,
 of his self-respect, of his pride and of his independence then of its daily bread." 


And, surprised, I answered to the shadow that I could not see:  
"Who are you, you, who hides behind these rocks and who believes he is the only one 
 knowing to manage my own sovereignty?" 


And he continues:
 "Freedom is not to do all that you want to do, but the right
 to do all that does not harm anybody, and only the State can be 
the mediator between you and your own freedom. 
The State removes the distinctions between man, it treats the elements 
of the real life of the people from the only point of view of the State and each member of the people 
takes part equally, in the popular sovereignty.
 In the State,  man is an imaginary being and he detains a fictitious sovereignty, 
he is stripped from his real individual life and he is filled with an unreal universality.
 The goals of the State becomes those of the Bureaucracy, 
and those of the bureaucracy, becomes those of the State. 
Bureaucracy is then, a circle from which you will never be able to escape, 
do not forget it, you who go along, with such a decided step, to Paradise." 


And I answered to him:  
"I understand your point of view and if you do not know it, my journey to hell
has made me discover there, the horrifying image of Bureaucracy, but it is for an all other reason
that I go to Paradise, and it is for the love of a Lady that I am in such a hurry."


To that he added: 
"I understand, because it is well known that the relation, most direct, most natural
and most necessary of the human being to the human being, is the relation of man with women. 
But be informed of that, love is a passion, and nothing is more dangerous for 
serene knowledge than passion. The worship of love, it is suffering, and the crowning 
of this worship, is the immolation of oneself, it is the suicide, the worship of Moloch."


 I renewed my request to this being full of conviction, Baudelaire, 
perceiving that I would not have reason of this learned spirit, continued as follows: 
 
 "Who are you, you who monoloques thus?
 Your matter, I  can understand it very well; didn't you see dying 
the great union of the Soviet people from a virus 
which took root in the writings of thinkers such as you, this virus, 
the same one, which slowly corrodes the heart of the social democracies?" 


As he remained quiet, I added:  
"Oh! soul who speaks so well but with so many syllogisms, tell me
whom you where and why you are alone to encenser yourself of your own dogmas. 
Your answer will not remain without reward, if I return to complete the short way 
of this life which flies to its term, I will tell them that you are in the Purgatory 
only by felony, and that the fragile beings who still believe in your Gospel, 
will well cease, very soon, to pray for your salvation." 


He answered to me with an irritated voice:  
"Not that I await for some help from you on earth, because, 
if I still had the capacity of doing it, I would turn you back to the Gulag of the terrestrial life, 
but because a so bright grace seems to shine in you, I will tell it to you
 before you  die of another way than through my will.
 I was the root of the mischievous plant whose shadow still  harm  the Occident, 
because they adulterated my name and denatured my dogmas so that one does recollect from it
nothing but bad fruits. And I request from Whom who judges everything, do that revenge assails me. 

I was on earth a spirit as brilliant as Hegel, 
I am called Karl Marx from whom is born the marxist faith."(1)

"Then it is from you that was born the Political Manifesto, on which Lenine 
based himself to overthrow, believing he was doing good, careless Ksars; 
and these others, Stalin: Mao-Tse-Tung, Pol-Pot, Fidel who maintained 
the faith of the Party by force, by lies, by tyranny and by armed exaction, 
these butchers which you were, unconscious, the mind-Master and who enchained
 people while wanting to invent a Freedom for the proletarians. 

You then generated the monsters of the International Socialism; 
you had such a power by your remarks and so many were your disciples 
that there remain still some traces, although your reign is extinguished, 
in some ministries of the Party which controls France. 
Before them, those who governed this douce France
 did not make the Good, but at least, they did not make the Evil. 
What nastiness have you propagated in the mind of these left-wing intellectuals
for them to assist, carefree, at the propagation of the Stalinist cancer 
in their National Assembly whereas they are indignent to see 
the propagation of the hitlerian virus at the Austrian Parliament, 
as if the form of the cancer could make some forget about its substance.


 These people distinguish the Evil only on their right hand, while at the same time 
the Power is the bed of the Evil which they carry with their left hand. 
One after the other they set one's wits, on both sides,  to demolish what the other did. 
Why don't  they look towards the wise and proud Albion who did knew what to do 
without demolishing, and do well while avoiding doing too badly,
 that, being neither left-wing nor right-wing, but ambidextrous!

 I see the time, and which will come soon, where another Charles will rise from France 
following the flags of a Virgin maid, to better boot out of the hexagon 
the Opium of the intellectuals, 
these dogmas which confused, since so much time, the disturbed spirit 
of the spoiled children of the Sorbonne." 


"Veggion in Orleanos entrar lo fiordaliso
E nel regina suo  Pucela esser catto.
Veggiolo un' altra volta esser deriso;
Veggio rinnovellar l'aceto e il fele, 
E tra vivi ladroni essere anciso,"

 "Oh! my very holy sister and lover, when will I have the joy of seeing the revenge which,
 hidden in the secrecies of your councils, will soften my true contempt of the dogmas? 
What I say of the Pucelle of Orleans, and which makes me talk to you  to give you 
some explanation, is the subject of all my prayers as long as the day lasts, but, 
when night comes, I pray  in a very other manner. Sometimes, I speak loudly, and other times,
in low voices, according to the inclination of my soul which spurred me to do sometimes, 
larger steps, other times, smaller. Also, to praise the Good  I feverish here during the day, 
a few moments ago I was not alone, but, close to me, nobody raised his voice." 


We had already left Karl Marx who was hiding, uneasy of having escaped from Hell 
and we where in a hurry to resume our journey as much as our forces allowed it,
when I felt trembling the mountain, as something which collapses; I felt like a shiver 
similar to that of a man whom one carries out to the torment. 

Admittedly the Hell did not start up so extremely, before Mephistos did make its nest there, 
to give birth to the Devil's falls. Then a clamour rose over the whole park of the Trembling Mountain, 
such as my Master approached me saying to me: 
 
"Did not fear, as long as I am your guide."

"Gloria in excelsis Deo"

 Said those who shouted thus, so near. We remained motionless and with uncertainty, 
until that ceases, the start up of the Trembling Mountain and that the anthem was finally over. 
Then we left again for our holy journey, looking at the shadows  laying on the banks 
of  lake Caché, already returned to their usual tears. 

If my memory is not mistaken on this point, never I did have as much the desire to know
 what I could not understand by myself, of these events of which I was ignorant, but, in our haste,
 I did not dare to question Baudelaire; thus I went away, pensive, and my desires, unsatiated.