What I've written from my heart and what I continue to write from my heart
must not and cannot be tailored, even a stitch,
to reflect either the heart of another
or the fake, plastic, artificial heart of this marketplace,
which-- which was once a world.
Mm.
My books can't be edited any more than a leopard can be manicured.
It's like Faulkner said, "I get drunk, I get mad, I get thrown from horses."
"I get all sorts of things, but I don't get edited."
"I'd rather see the stable boy fuck my wife than get edited."
It's true. Best editors, they don't edit.
They conspire with the artist to bring freedom and gain.
"Oh, now, Mr. Faulkner,
what were you thinking of when you wrote that?"
"Money."
Isn't that great? He said "money."
Oh, money.
That's right.
Only an artist truly works for his loved ones
and, more importantly, for his descendants,
because they're the only ones that get to see the fuckin' paycheck.
We don't get paid hourly or weekly or monthly or annually.
We get paid posthumously when we're fucking dead.
What's all the… What is all this?
That?
I never get to do what I want, and this is something that I want to do.
It's a translation of The Divine Comedy.
I fu-- I know this poem so well I feel like I wrote it myself.
I-- It's-- I've been working on it for ten years.
-You had the lining replaced, didn't you? -Yeah.
You're still looking sharp after all these years.
Thank you very much.
Don't worry, kid.
When the wind hits, we'll put a coat on you.
So, uh…
Who's Dante?
"Who's Dante?"
Uh…
A writer from the past.
He-- He wrote a very famous poem, the Comedy,
later called The Divine Comedy.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But you see, Dante, he-- he got trapped.
He locked himself into this cage of rhyme and meter,
and where's the fucking hope in that?
So I realized-- I sort of realized that he's flawed.
It's flawed because he's flawed.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Hey. Old-timer.
Hey, Unc.
You look like you've seen a ghost. What happened?
I killed some kid.
-When? -Just now.
-Where? -Down by the glass factory.
-How? -I cut his throat.
Was he from the neighborhood?
I'd never seen him before.
Well, where's the shiv?
The knife. Where's the knife you killed him with?
I threw it down the sewer.
Why'd you do it?
He had this big knife and asked me if I wanted to die.
So you didn't start nothing. He did.
-Yeah. -Right.
How you feel?
Come on, sit here.
You're gonna make, uh…
You're gonna make a career out of this, or what?
What, you feel like a little tough guy now?
-No. -Mm.
Good 'cause you ain't.
Remember what I always told you.
The golden rule.
Love thy neighbor.
-Right. -Mm.
And you don't be like this kid you ran into. Huh?
-Right. -You don't give no malarkey to nobody.
What's…
What's the rest of that? Like I told you.
Don't give no malarkey, and don't take no malarkey from nobody.
See, so you didn't take no malarkey.
Right.
And you're sure he ain't from the neighborhood?
I never seen him before.
Come here.
Unc?
What?
Do I have to tell what I told you when I make my confession?
What are you talking about, confession?
For my First Holy Communion.
Oh, that. Oh, yeah.
God's everywhere.
-Right? -Right.
Right.
And he hears everything, right?
Right. He sees everything, he hears everything.
Yes. So who's more important,
God or the priest?
God.
So God just heard your confession, see?
You said it out loud.
I heard it. God heard it.
-Hmm? -So is that the way you do it?
That's the way I do it, yeah. Yeah.
Well, that's it? My sin is gone?
What sin?
You didn't sin.
The little chadrool
who pulled a knife on you for no good reason,
he's the one who sinned.
And God punished him.
Through you.
Thanks, Unc.
We're buddies, right?
Yeah, buddies.
Just remember.
What goes on between us and God, things like this, are special.
You can't tell nobody about these things.
That's a sin.
That's a bad sin.
Yeah?
Okay.
There's the sink. Out back.
Go wash your hands now. They're dirty.
I understood.
And above all, I was absolved.
And I never did tell anyone.
Did I just admit that?
The creamy white gardenia blossoms,
and the violet blossoms, and the red blossoms,
and the pink blossoms, and the yellow blossoms
of countless other flowers, and countless other scents came forth
in the sun and shadow from the lush, deep green.
There stood the open monuments to a darker magic of the sun,
the faded petroglyphs,
the raised and smoothed, worn coral altars,
where the marae of human sacrifice practiced late into the 19th century,
and the scent of blood offering and cannibalism
mingled with the scents of the white blossoms,
and the violet blossoms, and the red blossoms,
and the pink blossoms,
and the yellow blossoms.
There were nine skies, not heavens, but skies.
All of what truth Dante knew had begun with this revelation.
The first of the skies that he had come to know
had through those years become the rarest of all skies.
This was the great sky of illimitableness,
which encompassed its coming, its being, its passing, and its night.
Dante was the child of the magical hilltop.
But so was I.
And one of the nine skies is the same sky that a man will see only once,
on the day that he dies.
It was the dead of August, that time in New York
when the daylight sky was an oppressive, low-lying glare of white,
and the dark of night was a haze of starless ash and pallor.
Louie felt at one with it.
He lighted a cigarette and drew smoke.
It was late, but not for him.
Making the rounds, my friend?
Don't call me that.
Give me a drink and an ashtray.
Hey, we got this new grappa. It's great.
Fuck you.
Save that shit for the suckers. Give me a Dewar's and water on the rocks.
Fuck the ashtray. I'll use the floor.
So how's it going, Lou?
Yeah, you know…
Back in the old days, when I was a kid,
the old-timers used to say, "The bigger the mustache, the bigger the man."
Now, these days, I see a guy with a mustache,
I figure he's either a cop or a faggot.
Or both.
I guess I better shave it off then, huh, Lou?
Nah, just leave it. Your father's a cop, right?
Yeah, maybe you got that half a fag, cop streak in you.
It suits you.
The mustache.
You know…
…your uncle is a real fuckup.
I mean, don't get me wrong, you're a fuckup too,
but you're small change.
But your uncle, he's a real fuckup.
Oh, he had this joint, he did good with it for a while.
Pissed everything away gambling.
So he comes to my friends, they help him out, he keeps fucking up.
Comes crying to the bank over here to cover his checks to Con Ed
every third time he gets a shut-off notice.
No, my friends, they don't like that.
Hey, Lou.
Don't you think you ought to put that away?
What if some cop walks by and looks in?
When was the last time you saw a cop walk?
They don't walk no more.
Nah. They go to the gym like the rest of these fruits,
but they don't walk.
Last cop I saw walking the beat,
it was a broad.
Five foot two, New York's finest.
Like your old man,
a worthless, ugly, little cunt.
Anyway…
My friends, they figure if I throw a scare into this piece-of-shit uncle of yours,
maybe he'll get the message.
Hey, take it easy, huh? Take it easy.
It's like the great Buddha said, moderation in all things.
The Eightfold Path.
You ever take it up the ass?
Huh?
Well, you ought to try it sometime.
Might make a man out of you.
So like I say, you and your uncle,
you're two of a kind.
Two little, lying, degenerate cocksuckers.
I know you've been robbing them.
Selling the stock to other joints.
Oh, a few bottles here, a few bottles there. Chickenshit stuff.
But then again,
you're a little chickenshit cocksucker.
And your mother, God rest her soul,
was a cocksucker too.
And… not a very good one at that.
You're funny looking, you know that?
How'd you get a broad to marry you?
She must be a worse fucking loser than you are.
I mean, I never seen her.
Your kids neither.
You got a picture?
Is this her?
Yeah, she's funny-looking too.
You look like one of them… What do you call them?
One of them ferrets.
And she looks like a pig.
You cross a donkey and a horse, you get a mule.
Guess this is what you get when you cross a ferret and a pig, huh?
How old's the little girl?
She'll be ten next month.
Well, like I said, I never met them.
Maybe I should take a trip out to Jersey one of these days.
Pay my respects.
How old's the little girl? You said ten?
It's funny, you know.
The older you get,
the younger you like your meat.
What is it you want me to do?
First, and like the arresting officer says,
think about this carefully before you answer,
because it may be the most important answer you ever give in your life,
how much money is in this dump right now?
Just the take from the night, about 1,200.
That's pathetic.
It's all credit cards these days.
How much of this 1,200 you already dip into?
You took it already, Lou.
Empty your pockets.
And where's the rest of the 1,200?
It's in the kitchen.
Let's go.
All right.
Now you remember, we were talking about making a man out of you.
Get on your fucking knees.
-Please. I'll do anything you want me to. -Just fucking do it.
Now hold your ankles nice and tight.
Like a good little girl.
Perfect.
Nice.
I now speak to you as an AOL Time Warner product.
I never envisioned that I'd live long enough to say these words,
which both repulse and strangely amuse me.
Imagining ends and fortune bears two faces,
neither of which is unveiled until the end.
The veil has not yet been lifted,
but I can and will tell you what brought me here.
Yeah, she's mine.
At first, she called me "Nick."
And then she started to call me "Daddy."
She asked if it was all right to call me that,
and I told her it was the best thing I'd ever heard.
When I kissed her goodbye,
I realized that her smile no longer had that secret melancholy
that I had sensed when I first saw her image.
And I wondered how long it had been gone.
Hers was the smile of beatitude,
and I felt blessed that a part of me was of her,
and that through her this part of me
would be something better than I would ever be.
And through her, it would savor a purity of breath I would never know.
I don't know what my own smile looked like, but it felt good.
And then it was over.
And they never caught the motherfucker who did it.
I feel nothing of these open rocks.
Or of your kindness!
Fuck you,
God.
Fuck you.
I just ordered a pizza.
Nice to see you, Lou.
Is that real?
Rembrandt, self-portrait.
If I had a snout like that when I was doing a self-portrait,
I think I would have done a little cosmetic surgery
with the paint there.
What's something like that worth?
How do you put a price on beauty, Lou?
Do you like that painting?
To be perfectly honest, no.
I think it's an ugly piece of shit.
And I know you do too.
Otherwise, you'd have put it on the wall over there where you could see it.
You got it hanging over your head here like a crown for other people to see.
Ten million bucks worth of ugly.
Can you believe that shit?
Strange fucking world, Lou.
Strange fucking world.
Well, at least I know you didn't pay no ten million bucks for it, huh?
For that kind of money, you could get something good.
Oh no, you're right.
What I'm saying is, it's crazy what people will pay for.
And it's strange what people pay a lot for.
When I say a lot, I mean a lot.
This is why I've fucked up your pizza tonight, Lou.
I fucked up your pizza to tell you you're gonna be a very wealthy man.
This may be the hardest work you've ever done,
but when it's done, if we bring this one home,
you'll never have to pull another trigger again in your life
except to go out in a tweed jacket and clip a pheasant.
This is big, Lou.
How big?
Bigger than anyone ever dreamt anything could be.
What kind of money we talking?
Your end?
My end.
Between one and two million, maybe more.
Tax-free, nice, clean bills.
What do I got to do, kill an army?
Well, we're gonna have to hush a few mouths,
a few lullabies along the way.
When's payday?
A few months after we start.
-When do we start? -Soon.
I just got the word I was waiting for, then I called you.
Lefty is bringing in this guy he knows.
Some writer friend of his, half legit,
the key guy we need to move this thing along.
Friend of his?
What, we got friends now?
Who is this guy?
I don't know. Some guy named Nick.
"Nick, Nick…" This is a world of fucking Nicks.
What-- What? What is this?
What the fuck do you care what his name is?
Oh, it ain't got nothing to do with nobody's name.
It's the word "friend."
Look.
Like I said, for now, take it easy. There's 10 grand.
Consider it a friend.
No, better yet, just think of it as money.
Joe,
my friend.
He caught the last of the seventh.
The pizza was good.
Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quatro
Hey, Wooly Bully
Watch it now, watch it
Here it come, here it come…
Hello?
Hello, this is Nick Tosches' office.
Yeah, no shit. Who's this?
You must be Mr. Tosches. Excuse me.
Where--?
Where's Anna?
I'm Giulietta. Anna is in the hospital. She has preeclampsia.
-What? -She's pregnant, preeclampsia.
Her baby was in danger.
She's not here. I'm taking over for her.
Taking over?
Well, yes, Mr. Tosches. I'm her cousin from Italy.
You call me Mr. Tosches one more time, I'm gonna have a hemorrhoid.
You're her-- her cousin, you can call me Nick.
Where--? Is she all right?
She is in good hands.
And so are you.
Okay.
Any money come in?
Just a few small checks,
and an offer in from Germany for about 3,000 marks.
Okay, anything else?
Yes, you've missed a couple of deadlines,
and your editor would like to schedule an appointment with you.
That was a month ago.
Did you receive the emails? You were cc'd.
Yes, yeah, I did.
Uh, you know how to type, don't you?
Every word I say, verbatim. You ready?
Okay. Uh, I'm ready.
Okay.
Um…
"Dear Tom."
"I… got to pondering your request
for a subtitle on the cover of the book
until I saw the light,
and the most holy and terrible of all things came forth,
honesty."
"Your idiotic suggestion of a subtitle on the book's cover
denoting that it's non-fiction is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
Are you sure, Mr.-- I mean, Nick?
You don't want to think this over for a while?
Maybe you're tired.
Please, just write, okay?
"God forbid someone should browse a book and actually buy it."
"And who gives a fuck, anyway? It's just a fucking book."
"Yours sincerely, Nick."
Are you sure about this?
Yes.
Thank you, Giulietta. Bye.
Ciao.
People make up stories when they don't have the right answers.
Still to come…
Joe, this is Nick, the guy I was telling you about.
Hello.
Gentlemen.
-Is that real? -Rembrandt, self-portrait.
Do you like that painting, Nick?
I gotta tell you, to me, it's a piece of shit.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to own it long enough to sell it,
but-- but no, no, to be perfectly honest,
no, I don't like it.
I think we're gonna get along.
You two obviously know nothing about painting.
What about The Divine Comedy? You like that, Nick?
Yeah, yeah, I like it.
I used to love it. Now I like it.
What changed?
You look at anything long enough, no matter how beautiful it is,
you see what's wrong with it.
A broad, poem, your life,
look at anything long enough, you see what's wrong with it.
How would you like to look at the real thing?
What do you mean, the real thing?
The real thing.
The original manuscript.
Doesn't exist.
Probably got thrown into a fireplace to keep somebody warm about 620 years ago.
Yeah, there isn't even anything that Dante ever wrote in his own hand, nothing.
If it did exist,
how much do you think it would be worth?
It'd be priceless.
A thousand of those fucking things, maybe.
It'd be the greatest literary treasure of all time.
It'd be like the Vatican trying to put a price on Michelangelo's Pietà.
Not possible. It's unthinkable. Nobody could even afford it.
We'll make it affordable.
I'll lay it out for you.
There was a guy called Don Lecco.
Under his own family roof,
he shot and killed his own father, who had disgraced his beloved mother.
Father!
Shh!
Shut up! Shut up!
Help!
Shut up!
No!
Help!
Afterwards, he dragged the body out and laid it on the street,
close to the front door, which he left open.
Thanks.
In the days that followed,
he killed all those who had come from near and far
to claim the body and deliver a respectful burial.
They all laid bloated and rotting
until the street was filled with the stink and garbage of their bodies.
Finally, there came three gentlemen from Palermo,
not dressed in the suits of mourning black,
but in the suits of white linen.
Only the one who was the leader raised an open hand
to the armed man in the doorway.
These men did not remove their hats in respect
as they stood at a distance
from the now putrid body of this man they had served.
This is how Don Lecco became the father of that town,
controlling it for many years with loving hands.
That was a long time ago.
Few could recall the bloodshed.
Most remembered his kindness.
So anyways, he takes in this young kid who he thought had potential for the life.
But being the bookish type,
the kid only wanted to serve God.
So Don Lecco ends up setting him up working for the Vatican with a good job.
Of course,
Don Lecco eventually figures out
that the kid is probably not going to be a big earner.
But then he hits pay dirt.
"In the middle of the journey of our life…"
The original manuscript of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
So…
I want you to go there, get it, and bring it back.
Hey, you ever take that flying sardine can to Palermo?
Yeah, I hate that flight.
Oh, can't handle it.
-That's why I got us this Gulfstream. -Wait until we're off the ground.
Shut up.
Keep your eyes on the road.
Thousand-year-old house.
Thousand-year-old trees.
Priest looks about a thousand years old too.
-Good morning, Father. -Good morning. Come in!
Don Lecco.
The Americans have arrived.
Good morning, Don Lecco.
Uh, can, uh, I-- Can we have a cup of tea?
Thanks.
Take it.
Show it to them.
Thanks.
I feel that all is right.
Thanks.
Put the box in the bag.
Come on, come on.
Let's go.
Passport.
Hey, come here.
Good.
Come on.
Help me with this.
Come on, come on.
Hey, guys, come on! Let's get him out of here!
Hey, Fabrizio.
Leave the bags in the back.
Grab the bags.
This is living, kid.
Almost over the Atlantic.
Thanks.
Why'd you kill the dog?
Why'd I kill the dog?
Because… dogs bark.
You know, this Don Lecco thing
probably going to start a war over there in Palermo.
You asked me about the mutt.
We don't need some mutt barking at us
while we're sneaking our way out of a massacre.
Simple as that.
You like dogs?
-Of course I like dogs. -Yeah, me too.
I don't like those little fucking mutant things,
you know, you see in New York.
I don't think real dogs want to be cooped up in apartments.
I think people that, uh--
people that keep big dogs locked up in the city are stupid creeps
that are killing their own dogs, but they're doing it slow.
Now, if I lived in the country, I would have a dog,
but I would have a real dog like the-- like the one we just shot.
What do you mean the one "we" shot? I didn't shoot that dog. You did.
You're an accessory.
You're an accessory to murder in the first degree.
Mm.
You know what's disgusting, though?
You know those broads that hold their newspapers under the dogs' asses?
You know, when the dog takes a shit?
Or you see some really good-looking piece of head walking by,
and you see she's got a little plastic bag of dog shit in her hand.
I think anybody who knowingly has any physical contact with a dog-shit broad
is definitely fucking sick.
A guy who fucks a stiff ain't nothing compared to a guy
who holds hands with a dog-shit broad.
You ever do that?
Do what?
Fuck a stiff?
Nah.
But I thought about it.
And a few times, I took their underwear.
-Their underwear? -Yeah.
I used it to jerk off. You know, if they were real dolls.
Ain't like I get sent out to do a lot of good-looking broads anyway.
Shall I soon be a lady of the court?
In all resplendence, dear Gemma.
Who is he?
He is the young master of the highborn line of Alighieri.
By Christian name Durante.
Tata, why is my hair not like ruby spun?
Or my eyes green?
Or my skin fair as a noonday cloud?
At the sight of Beatrice, young Dante wrote,
"Behold, a deity stronger than I, who coming, shall rule over me."
What?
At first sight, he… was crazy about her.
What happened to Beatrice?
What happened?
Well, Dante's first book, the whole poem's a song for her.
Though they never spoke.
She died young before they ever had a chance.
But she lived in his book.
She was his guide through paradise.
The other one?
Gemma.
He married her and never wrote a word about her.
Guido.
My friend.
You have revealed yourself to be no one's friend,
but your own.
For I've been damned
by the very lips my sonnets took to sigh.
There are six priors. I am but one.
Would you have me stand in defiance of the others?
The people of Florence chose this, not I.
Is this… Is this the Florence that longs for self-rule?
I fear she is still a child.
I fear a civil war will come.
My dear Dante,
a sighing messenger of the heart no more.
I was once a father more dear to you than your own.
When those you suffer to serve drive you out,
find a nameless man who calls himself Isaiah.
That's my last gift to you.
The delegation has arrived, Your Holiness.
Ah, bird of Florence.
My legates return to me,
unheeded,
bearing intelligence that thy "republic" wishes more autonomy
to conduct its own affairs.
And yet the absence of one master has made masters of all.
What say you of this?
A tree is known by its fruit.
And our republic's boughs bend with sweets your holiness craves.
Perhaps I should give my scepter over to the race of poets.
Will your rhymes finish St. Peter's dome?
Or pay my soldiers in the Holy Land?
Perhaps when reclining on the slopes of Parnassus,
thou mayest set thy utopian fancies in verse.
As for Florence,
no gentle inducement will make lion lay with lamb.
The city burns.
And I weary of its smoke.
Ash makes little smoke and poor fuel.
If this be so,
I absolve you from sight of such calamity.
How so, Your Holiness?
I grant a boon in exchange for thy insolence.
As such native talent renders you ill-suited for the bane of public service,
Florence deserves thee not.
Forget her.
For it is she that has betrayed you, though I pass her sentence.
Forgive me, Your Holiness, if I have spoken rashly.
Turn from her as Lot did,
and gaze not in remembrance,
lest your soul become a pillar of salty tears
that hinder the sweetness of thy verse.
For death awaits thy homecoming.
I place the mark of Cain upon thee.
Depart from my sight.
You're ordered to vacate the premises immediately.
By whose authority?
Mine.
The Pope.
You have 20 minutes to get all you and your children can carry.
A carriage awaits you
to take you to the estate of Cangrande della Scala of Verona.
Upon the ground thou starest.
Is it hell that welcomes thine eye?
Or wilt thou gaze heavenward?
Beware, lest thy wandering eye fall upon your wife's despair.
Your friend Cavalcanti is dead.
Dead?
Was not the blood of friendship of greater value
than the honeyed wine of verse?
My dear dead Cavalcanti, forgive me.
Had I not made such a fool of myself, maybe you would still be alive.
I will find the man with no name who calls himself Isaiah.
Sofia is their true mother.
Yet the children of my kind turn from her,
never to know her.
Pharaoh, yes, as the book of Exodus tells us,
killed every firstborn among the Jews.
But the false god of this new world,
which is gross commerce…
shall claim them all…
every-born…
and no Moses,
set adrift in swaddling amid the bulrushes,
shall escape…
lead, and rejoin them to God.
The Arab is the new Jew.
For a Christian to be in communion with a Jew,
with the seeking of what the church may see as magic most heretical,
unholy and black,
it could mean anathema and death.
First they will kill me, and then you.
By this oath, we both might be saved from death,
so we might then live to die.
No word or gesture had ever stricken me so deeply.
In this seeming dismissal, I felt more shame than anger.
My soul roiled with fear and unsureness and damnations of myself.
This lesson in the form of a silent blow of nothingness.
"Thus begins a new life."
Thus begins a new life.
Authenticated?
What do you mean, authenticated?
Looks pretty old to me.
Yeah, it looks old to me too.
It looks real to me, but that ain't enough.
We need paperwork, high-class paperwork, as much as we can get.
Ah, shit.
Here I am committing nine kinds of mortal fucking sins,
taking all kinds of non-smoking plane rides,
and this thing might not even be real?
I gotta tell you, I am truly getting sick of this no-smoking shit.
Don't worry, Louie, I can take care of this part myself.
I think if-- if we're gonna do this,
we should do it right.
Nick knows how to do it right, that's why he's here.
We at least gotta prove this thing was written at the same time Dante wrote it.
And how do we do that?
Carbon-14 dating, watermarks.
We take it to the University of Arizona and then to this place in Illinois
that's the most respected technical analysis joint in the world.
But first, I gotta go back to Italy, and I gotta get dated documents
written when and where Dante would have written this.
That way the ink and the parchment could be compared.
Then I'll have the watermarks on the paper dated.
There's no handwriting of Dante's with which to compare this handwriting,
so we need as much circumstantial evidence,
as much authentication as possible.
And how are you gonna get these dated documents?
Steal them.
Look, I don't care where you're from. I know where I like to stay.
I've been going there for 20 years.
You're supposed to know this stuff.
I'm on my way to the airport.
You should've called Anna like I asked you to.
Well, I don't know. We'll have time for that later.
No. No, I didn't.
All right, okay, all right.
Hey, look, it's okay.
It's okay, calm down.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I know you're new.
Did-- Did you send out that letter?
Good, thank you.
I'll call you when I get to the, uh, other side, all right?
Just don't forget to bring my prescription.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
-Good morning. -Good morning. Mr. Tosches?
-Yes, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you too.
As I mentioned, I'm looking to, uh, examine
official documents from the court of Cangrande della Scala,
uh, between the years of 1313-1315.
We're ready.
-Right this way. -Thank you.
I bet you've seen the cloud we make
That covers up LA
I wonder if you'll hide behind
A shroud like that some day
-Oh well -It might be tomorrow
-Oh well -I just don't know
-Oh well -It might take years
I wonder when They're going to destroy your face
1310 to1330.
-1310 to 1315. -Mm.
1315.
Good work and good luck with your research.
Thanks a lot.
-Everything okay? -Oh, this is…
It's exactly what I was looking for.
-See you later. -Thank you.
Same blue suit,
same story.
This time, I lifted documents from 1316, 1318, and 1321.
Documents executed by Guido Novello da Polenta, correct?
-Correct. Thank you very much. -My pleasure, sir.
Hello, Giulietta?
Yeah, what the hell's going on? Where are you? Is everything okay?
The concierge told me you canceled our rooms.
Do you have my prescription?
I wish you'd stop worrying so much. I'm taking care of everything.
I'm staying somewhere else outside of Ravenna.
Okay.
Should I go there?
Yes, it's not far. I'll be waiting for you.
What's the address? Do you have a piece of paper?
What is it?
Nick.
Are you all right?
Yeah, forgive me. Sorry.
It's just, um…
There's something familiar about this place. It's just, uh…
I don't know, it reminds me of something I can't quite get a grip on.
Familiar?
How?
I don't know.
It just happens to me sometimes.
Kind of… wisp of a memory that can't be caught before it fades away.
Mm.
Well…
familiar is good, like home.
Mm.
It's why I brought you here.
Why?
Because I live here.
I always lived here.
The seasons change, but nothing else.
I came to New York to help Anna.
Yeah, look, uh, I'm sorry I was such a…
Don't apologize.
…asshole.
Anna's like family, so…
If you trusted her, you'll trust me.
Come.
Yeah, I guess it's nice to have a home to come back to.
I never had that.
Maybe you do, and you just don't know it.
-Hmm? -Wow.
-Good, hmm? -That's pretty good.
I was never the domestic type, but…
I look at you that way, and I think,
"I don't know, maybe I could've done that. Maybe I was a fool."
Maybe you were.
Maybe you still can be.
But you're definitely a fool.
Wow.
You know,
no matter how far away from home you go,
you look up, and the moon's always got the same face.
Look at that.
Mm.
-Maybe the cloud is jealous. -A-ha.
Mm-hmm.
The moon itself waxes with envy,
as you've stolen her radiance.
And unlike the fountain's frail image…
…you shine… unbroken when I touch the water.
Feel how though my lips are silent…
my heart answers.
One needn't speak.
Only breathe.
If I could write paradise, she is what I would write.
But my sins meant there was no time to waste.
When I looked upon her beauty, I realized I was the only stain.
And so I left her then, vowing to save her
from the knife-wielding child that lay within me.
I didn't deserve her,
and she didn't deserve the trouble I was bringing.
There in the middle.
In the late 14th century, the finest paper was produced here in Fabriano.
See.
Many courts and noble families began to order fine paper,
bearing elements of their own crests or seals,
to distinguish their paper from all others.
Huh.
Um…
Have a look at this.
What do you see there?
Oh, this paper is of especially excellent quality.
This filigrana here, look.
Right here.
Represents the eagle that
Guido Novello da Polenta bore for his coat of arms.
You see? Look.
-Mm-hmm. -The same eagle.
And it was received at Fabriano on the 1st of May, 1321,
and it was delivered on the third day of the following month in Ravenna.
And…
how about these?
Uh…
Actually, this is the same order as, uh…
It was a small order that was placed only once.
Very good. Very good.
Well, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
-Fascinating stuff. -Yeah.
-Good day. -Uh…
Lefty's looking better, don't you think?
Yeah.
Yeah, I've seen guys go through this, I've seen the guys that beat it,
and I can tell you right now, Lefty, you got it beat.
That ditsoon hair of yours will be back in no time.
You're turning into a real pain in the ass to clean up after
with all this authentication shit.
-What are you talking about? -What am I talking about?
I'm talking about the fucking guy in Verona,
the Brioni suit and the Berluti shoes.
Talking about the guy in Ravenna
and that assistant of his who brought you that heap of shit.
I had to put the two of them in a sack together at gunpoint.
Know what a pain in the ass that is?
Both of them jumping around, on their knees, begging,
pissing, crying, all over the fucking place.
-Broad had a wedding ring on. -Are you--
Her husband's taking a little heat now.
Are you fucking crazy or just plain stupid?
These people got nothing to do with nothing, just innocent nobodies.
Innocent?
What the fuck does innocent got to do with any of this shit?
How come some lackey librarian gets $5,000 suits
and-- and-- and shoes that cost three grand?
Who knows what these people are or who they're talking to, okay?
You're the one leaving tracks here, Nicky.
I'm just covering them up.
Tracks? What tracks?
You're leaving a trail of blood where there's nothing but dust.
Geez, stop, will you? "Trail of blood…" Give me a fucking break.
This shit don't even make the papers.
This shit is just forms that don't get filled out.
It's nothing.
Whoever can possibly even remotely connect us with that manuscript…
Tabbutu.
Why? Why?
We managed to get this thing out of Italy where the state would've claimed it.
No one knows it exists. No one knows it ever existed.
One cannot steal what's never been missing.
One cannot steal what has never existed.
As it stands now,
this thing is ours, and it is claimed, and it has never been stolen,
and it is beyond the reach of any national claim to it,
and there is no criminal taint on it whatsoever,
either on it or our possession of it.
The manuscript is clean, and we're clean, and we can bring this off clean.
Well, there is one thing.
Before we start saying grace and singing hymns,
there are people who know of its existence.
Our friends in Palermo who connected us with it
and who are in for half of whatever we clear.
Then why don't you start killing them instead of a bunch of fucking librarians?
-What about that guy in Fabriano? -Yeah, he got away.
He went straight from you to the airport in Ancona.
Gone before I knew it.
Well, at least that's one thing that didn't get fucked up.
You see, this is the kind of authentication we need.
Two more analyses, and we're all set.
But the sources of this authentication cannot all turn up dead.
What?
Come on, don't you think
that the almost simultaneous murders of two library directors
might be seen as somehow related?
No, I don't.
It's senseless, and it's gotta stop.
We can't sell this thing with documents of authentication
from internationally known experts
that happened to have just been murdered right after examining this manuscript.
It's insane.
Look, we're-- we're-- we're getting into a whole new different world now.
There's gotta be no more blood and no more gunfire.
Well, I'm good with that.
It's not like I enjoy doing this shit.
Forget about this guy in Fabriano. Uh, what about this broad in Ravenna?
That's… She's got nothing to do with nothing.
That's my own personal life.
Not on my tab, it isn't.
I'll tell you something else.
Guys who work for me, they got no personal lives.
It's like they say, Nicky,
loose lips sink ships.
So finish up this authentication business.
Then we'll find our buyer,
and then we'll all whistle a merry tune.
DIRECTOR OF THE STATE ARCHIVES DIES UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES
You seem to come to me as one in mourning.
I threw my work away.
Did I ask you to do that?
And you were right too.
It was the vainglory of myself.
I thought it was about the woman I love.
But I barely knew her.
We must not mistake the revelation that our being is bereft
for the delusion that we have lost that of which we've always been bereft.
Such a revelation is a blessing. It's not to be mourned.
Countless words of love have I writ
that flowed from my pen like drool from the mouth of one asleep.
And yet, not one for her…
who had borne me daughter
and sons,
and hath borne my fate of exile and hers as well.
What do I know of love?
My heart is but counterfeit.
I have put half of humankind in hell,
and, with like strokes of quill, looked down upon them,
aloof and unreachable like God.
Oh, God is not aloof.
Everything that breathes is God.
God is man.
This is heresy.
Think not of it as… as trespass.
Think of it as entry.
Because yes, every man's true and only savior dwells within himself.
Whether he discovers him and be saved
or discovers him not and be damned.
And God is?
Aura.
Anima.
Breath and soul.
It's a breeze.
Sophia.
Wisdom.
Under every name, wisdom is feminine.
She is a woman.
And she was betrayed by the very verses with which you wrought her chains.
You dared to give form to the formless.
Chains to the breeze.
Well, this breath is the only gift to see the one life we have.
And there's no promise of the next.
Life is but a breeze.
A child brought to the grave after but a few summers,
may, having drawn but a single breath under the sky of illimitableness,
be said to have lived a longer and fuller life than he,
even if he be king, who is reckoned to have a hundred years.
You know what our main folly is?
Tell me.
Tempus fugit.
"Time flies," is what they say.
But it is breath that is the winged thing.
It is breath that flies.
Time is the folly of our own vain making and delusion.
This anxiety that has come to rule the pulse and rob the breath.
End your search.
Come forth from the tomb of your seeking into the light.
And be filled with the scent of the every blade of grass of your soul
and the every moment of life.
Come forth and embrace Her.
I told you, you won't get into this joint if you're carrying.
You might as well just stay behind.
I'm not supposed to let that thing out of my sight.
Well, I guess nobody trusts my sight, huh, Lou?
It ain't that.
Look, you do what you want to do.
I can't tell when you're shadowing me anyway.
I'm just telling you,
you come near this place with that fucking piece,
they're gonna do a lot more than ask you to check it at the door.
What if you don't come back?
Who's going to look after me?
If I go, who remains?
If I remain, who goes?
Oh, enough of your fucking riddles.
Just get it done.
So this is it.
Our tandem accelerator mass spectrometer
is the most powerful and accurate means of radiocarbon dating
that has yet to be developed.
It's here we've dated the Dead Sea Scrolls.
This is the place that conclusively exposed
the Shroud of Turin as a fabrication of the Middle Ages.
This is the place.
So how-- how does it work?
Carbon-14 dating measures a radioactive isotope of carbon
that was formed in trace amounts
by the effect of cosmic rays on atmospheric nitrogen.
It works only on things that were once alive
or that contained material that was once alive
by detecting and measuring the proportion of the isotope
which decreased at a known rate following the death of the living thing.
The death of the living thing in the thing to the known abundance…
This is where he lost me.
But I did like that shit about the cosmic rays.
So what would that be?
Peter, the result.
1315 to 1318 AD.
-Thank you very much. -My pleasure.
Trace elements, chemical analysis of ink pigment,
plant dyes, scanning electron microscopy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
It was a beautiful thing.
Anyways, on to Chicago, where it would be assumed a forgery
until every possible test could prove otherwise.
Everything they threw at it came back a yes.
All right. Thank you very much.
-Have a good day. Thank you. -You too.
Tabbutu.
Scary word meaning "death."
It was a long time since I heard that word.
It was the most ominous and unsettling word
in the Sicilian tongue.
Not only the threat but the promise of deliverance.
This is no tale that began on a remembered sweet afternoon.
This is a tale that began six days ago.
Tabbutu.
One, two!
I was born in a crossfire hurricane…
Bruce, it's me again.
I know. I know. I don't care. Sell it.
Sell it and wire the money into Giulietta's account, all of it.
I know. I'll call her now and give her the transfer number.
I can't explain that to you right now. You'll hear from me.
But it's all right
I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash It's a gas, gas, gas
I was raised By a toothless, bearded hag
I was schooled
With a strap right 'cross my back
Well, it's all right now
In fact it's a gas
Well, it's all right
I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash It's a gas, gas, gas!
Ooh
So you left it in Chicago?
Ah, shit.
You know, all that fancy authentication shit.
Who's talking to you?
It had to be left?
I had to leave it, yeah.
I thought you said this guy had a head on his shoulders.
Hey, we…
Hey, he…
They…
They don't make house calls with… What's the thing you said?
The stuff the size of a room.
You know? They don't make house calls with stuff the size of a room.
Electron scanning microscopy chamber.
This… Nick knows what he's talking about.
And he's right. Well, what do you want to do?
You want to take this thing down to Canal Street?
Sell it on the sidewalk next to some guy peddling knockoff Rolexes?
Look, if you guys want me out of this, just give me my money now.
Whoa.
I was on your side, Nicky.
I was on your side the whole way. You know the score.
It was Joe Black's ballgame, but I was your fucking rabbi the whole way.
And then after I did my thing?
Goodbye, Nicky, right?
Not if I had my way, buddy. Not if I had my way.
Well, those words come quick and easy. Would you jump in my grave so fast?
-Look at me. -I am.
Let's bring this home together.
You and me.
You gotta be fucking kidding. You're the first they'd come looking for.
You're full of shit anyway, 'cause you'd be with them looking for me.
Nicky.
I put a hole where his soul used to be.
Okay, all right. You can't take a joke.
Right? I don't talk that…
In Paris, I went to hide in the Rue Denoyez.
Okay, okay, all right.
The street of the drowned.
Here I go. Hey, easy, easy. Hey, it's okay, yeah.
All right, I don't need anything. I don't need anything from you.
There are species of animals known to kill their own kind
for food or for territory.
But it is the pathology of religion that has made man the most unnatural
and ungodly and self-slaughtering of species.
Boom.
The sounds of monotheism.
The root of all evil.
Fuck.
Shut the fuck up!
Fucking shut the fuck up!
My love for Giulietta was like a sickness of which she was cause
and also the remedy.
So I refused the medicine.
I didn't know what would kill me first, fear or my longing
for the woman I love too much to love.
The FBI has confirmed that American Airlines Flight 11
from Boston and headed for Los Angeles
crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center
in the September 11th incident,
creating a gaping hole between the 93rd and 99th floors…
…of the Twin Towers' North Tower…
…one of New York's symbols.
Images show flames and smoke.
Survivors were immediately evacuated
through the intervention…
…of police and ambulances,
which evacuated the World Trade Center…
-Hello? -Giulietta?
Oh my God.
Nick?
Hi.
Hey.
I've been worried sick.
I… I thought it was me. I thought…
-Listen, Nick. -Babe. Baby.
I miss you.
-Yeah. I… -I can't stop thinking about you. I…
I feel-- I feel the same way. I've-- I've just…
I've been so sick without you.
But…
Listen, there's no time for that. I…
There's something I need to tell you. It's very important.
I need you to do something for me. I need you to lie for me.
I need you to call Russ and tell him
you think I had an early appointment at the World Trade Center yesterday
and you're worried, okay?
Uh, I'm not… I'm no good at lying.
-I barely know him. You should call Russ. -Giulietta. Baby.
No, I-- It wouldn't work with Russ.
You're the only one that can do it. You have to do it. I need you. I need you.
Will you do it for me, please?
If you want, just say you think you heard me setting up a meeting
with somebody downtown,
and-- and you haven't heard from me since.
I'm going to wire some money into your account.
Next time you see me, I need you to bring me 20,000 in cash.
Will you-- Will you please, please, do it?
Yes. But why?
Because I need to be dead.
I woke to the sky of summoning.
It was then that I was ready to lift my pen,
not as a sore-shouldered and world-weary field man his scythe,
but as a reaper of marvels,
rising to behold before him as far as he could.
The rarest of uterine vellum.
Even our Giotto has never worked upon the page as such,
but his colors will take as glorious to this as paint to liquescent plaster.
As vision to cloud.
Your poem shall lie in a casket of carved chestnut tree, hinged with gold.
Only the fair, translucent skin of Beatrice in her virginity
could have yielded more fitting vellum.
For whatever of need or desire may come your way.
The world shall have your poem.
You've given everything and more.
I simply do not understand.
A single year to write the Purgatorio,
and it has been six years since.
Paradiso is still unfinished.
I simply do not understand.
-Good morning. -Good afternoon.
-Susanna Pulice, pleased to meet you. -Pleased to meet you.
Thank you for seeing me.
A pleasure.
You have intrigued me.
The disappearance of all his autographs
has fascinated me since my university days.
-Mm. -Hmm.
What about the discovery of such a manuscript?
That would be a discovery of unimaginable importance.
It would also be, um, a most, uh, controversial one,
challenging even the best among us.
Because, of course, there is no way to verify the handwriting of Dante
as there is no specimen to which to compare it.
No, I believe there's, if I'm not mistaken,
just one reference to his handwriting, Niccolò Niccoli,
about 80 years after his death.
Mm.
"I recently read some letters of his,
which he seemed to have written so carefully,
for they were in his own hand and signed with his seal."
"But by Hercules, no one in this world is so uncultivated
that it would not shame him to have written so awkwardly."
His seal.
That would be a wonder unto itself.
His seal.
Per pale or and sable, fess argent. That is, I believe, his seal.
How might you know that?
Because it appears on the final manuscript of the Inferno,
above the poet's signature.
It partly obscures the words "dondo" and "stelle."
Have a look here.
It will take days of… careful examination,
but I can assure you
our collection here in Venice is vast and ancient,
collected since the days of Petrarca, its founder.
If you… If you would be so kind as to leave these copies…
Of course. Of course.
…I may be of help.
Good, and as I said before, I appreciate your discretion
as I represent a client that wishes to remain anonymous.
-Of course, of course. -Good.
Well, thank you.
-Good luck. -Thank you.
Thank you, Mr…?
Sandberg. Elliot Sandberg.
Thank you, Elliot.
Thank you, Dr. Pulice.
Oh my God!
I can't believe it.
My God!
Oh my God!
What are you doing here?
My love.
I came to warn you.
What that man has shown you will put your career in the grave,
or worse.
Years ago, I wrote a book called Power on Earth,
a book about the shadowland realms of Michele Sindona,
the infamous Sicilian financier,
who was believed to occupy the throne at the heart of the world's evil.
The secret crossroads where the three beasts
of international finance, the Mafia, and the Vatican come together.
Much of what Sindona told me seemed outlandish, incredible,
ravings and rantings of an imprisoned man
who knew that he would never draw a free breath again.
Over the course of our prison meetings,
Sindona asked me to deliver brief, cryptic messages to this man.
And I delivered those messages.
Mephistopheles, that is what I call him.
He's young, around your age.
He can do anything.
What he didn't know, I taught him.
And he's like me.
He plays alone.
If you lose me…
take the manuscript to this address outside of Rome.
This man will help you.
He's the only one you can trust.
If I lose you?
You won't lose me.
What would it be worth?
Do you have such a thing?
No.
Uh, then why ask?
If I had it, I don't think it would slip my memory.
This is all theoretical.
There exists not a scrap of anything Dante ever wrote in his own hand.
You know that, I know that.
Well, I can call someone in Italy and get back to you.
-All right. David? -Yes?
Whatever you do, please tell no one you've spoken to me.
David Hanker organized an anonymous liaison with a man from Christie's,
the chief consultant for rare manuscripts.
He flew in on a private jet from London within hours of hearing the news.
I knew the thing was priceless,
but I also knew that only Christie's could put a price on it.
I represent a very, very private collector.
Y-- Yes, of course, sir.
-Property of a gentleman. -Indeed.
Uh, how on earth did you come by these?
Very carefully.
Then what would you desire?
That I might see what you did see.
Then close thine eyes and see.
O, Light Eternal,
that alone abidest in Thyself,
alone knowest Thyself,
and, known to Thyself and knowing, lovest and smilest on Thyself!
That circling which, thus begotten,
appeared in Thee as reflected light,
when my eyes dwelt on it for a time,
within it
and in its own colour, painted with our likeness,
for which my sight was wholly given to it.
Here power failed the high fantasy,
but now my desire and will,
like a wheel that spins with even motion…
were revolved by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.
God has breathed into you and from you.
He's allowed you this gentle lifting…
of the veil of the inexpressible.
You have entered the sigh.
You have become the poem.
I shall return your gift with a gift.
I thank you.
This… This book from him will serve as entrance to him.
And the gold is… for the journey ahead.
There are a few clues I could… I could offer,
for I myself have never pursued the journey.
Why haven't you?
I was not one of the very few.
Why should I labor thus?
Because he can see.
If I find him--
You will find him.
Is there any message I should convey?
No.
My name is Jacob.
Forgive me.
It's no use.
I fear I shall die
with no confessor.
I'm scared.
Find your solace in the sky.
God is outside and inside of you.
He is you.
Nothing good comes from fear.
Oh, brothers…
who, through the west, through perils without number,
now have reached… to this!
The short remaining watch that yet our senses have to wake
refuse not proof of the unpeopled world that lies beyond the sun.
Consider from whence ye sprang.
Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes,
but virtue to pursue a knowledge high.
Dear reader, ask yourself,
was I not discouraged by those cursed words?
I thought I'd never make it back to Earth again.
Welcome, Mr. Tosches.
It's so good to see you.
It's been a long time.
It's not me.
But of course, I made a mistake.
A gentleman such as yourself doesn't need a membership card.
Okay, thank you.
Giulietta could have made off with all my money.
It would have been the smart thing to do.
But there she is in all her resplendence
with lush nylon on her legs and 10,000 in cash in each hand.
God, I love this woman.
Hi. Mm.
Three.
Thirty-three.
Zero!
Darling, you have to go right now.
Forget your things. Take the money and go. It's over.
Remember the address in Rome. Mephistopheles, that's his name.
-Go. If I live, I'll meet you-- -What do you mean?
Baby, you've been a widow since the moment you fell in love with me.
I've been a widow for 700 years until I met you again.
You gotta go.
Mephistopheles. Go.
My friend drank too much!
It happens every day!
Let's go!
So…
Where's the manuscript?
I don't have it.
Then your woman has it?
No.
So…
It will please me to see your face when I hold it aloft.
Don Lecco.
He would have wanted that.
Relax.
The old man lived in a world where family still counted for something.
He was a fool to trust Joe, that barbarian.
Perhaps it's better he never lived to see the day.
Delicately.
Quiet.
Oh, fuck, man.
Fuck.
I don't know. I don't know, man.
I don't have it.
I know as much as you do. Somebody could have already stolen it.
Just shoot me. Just shoot me.
I don't believe that supports the thesis.
You're not the only one acquainted with the art of parsing verse.
It seems the woman is torn between your life and the text.
She doesn't… She doesn't even know it exists.
She doesn't know it exists.
You are amazing.
I am amused by this game,
and, like the pussycat, quite curious
if she values your life above the money.
So…
You will tell her that your life will remain yours
if she returns what is ours.
Otherwise…
I, uh…
I make a puzzle of you.
Uh, like a collage.
Yeah.
I'm already dead.
What do I have to lose?
When I finish with you, you will write of hell
with grander eloquence than our poet ever did.
Though I must say, his, uh, punishment for thieves was most elegant.
My love!
Is that necessary?
Yes.
Yes, it's definitely necessary.
As the thief takes what is dear to others,
so shall his own face, his own identity, be torn from him
by the venom of vicious snakes.
You shall learn of their sting and repent.
I think I'll call her myself.
Giulietta.
Over there.
Giulietta! I said "unarmed."
Put the gun down and wheel him over.
Then you'll get what you want.
No fucking way!
All I want is the manuscript.
I'm sure you kept a few pages to yourself.
I overlook this if you behave.
You mean like this one?
Your little gesture just cost us a million dollars.
What is a number to me if Nick is harmed?
One more scratch,
and the rest will flutter like butterflies.
No scratch.
I'll make you shit blood!
You expect me to believe you value his life over the manuscript?
Fuck!
I never met a woman like that.
I swear I'll throw it all away.
Put the gun down.
-Put the manuscript down. -Put the gun down.
Put the gun down.
He is safe. No scratch.
I put the gun down. Yes.
I'll throw it away if you don't put it down now.
Put the manuscript down. I am going.
My love!
I've taken care of it.
Taken care of what?
You've already counted the money,
and yet what of the library,
my thesis, the people of Italy?
What about what I wanted?
Are you mad?
We have succeeded.
The best option and best hope we have is-- is to sell it.
I cannot help but regard this poem as my property
as its sublime cadences were sung in my praise,
the intended bride of his immortal soul.
Beatrice!
Please, Beatrice!
Beatrice, my beloved!
Dread limits imposed, a winding wend enclosed,
a lengthening cord whose taut thou mayest see,
upon a dying star's tug,
time's trammels cease to be.
In what school were these phrases learnt?
The same that sweetened the tongues of Guido and Lapo.
Undo these cords,
though no mortal knife can cut those that bind us fast!
I am Beatrice!
Yes.
I am Beatrice that let you go!
I come from the place where I desire to return.
Love moved me and made me speak.
O, Light Eternal,
that alone abidest in Thyself,
alone knowest Thyself,
and, known to Thyself and knowing, lovest and smilest on Thyself!
The Love… that moves the sun and the other stars.
By cunning, thou knowest, is a woodman far better than by might.
By cunning too doth a helmsman on a wind-dark deep
guide aright a swift ship that is buffeted by winds.
And by cunning doth charioteer proves better.
Charioteer.
Cunning.
I've been waiting for you.
Mephistopheles?
You can call me whatever you like.
So…
You're dead now.
You're the second victim of that unfortunate incident
that has come to me in as many days.
Another two came to me seeking death and reincarnation.
In those days preceding that, uh… unpleasantness.
But I made sure that I placed them properly
on the morning of your vanishing.
Who do you work for?
Only the very foolish and the very arrogant
say that they work for themselves.
I will say, though…
that I work for the lord of the world.
Or let's just say, uh,
lords.
Maybe…
I simply work for you.
Is that an ashtray?
It's whatever you want it to be.
Where was I?
Hello.
Thank you.
I cannot now go forth into the silence of this wisdom
as I very soon shall go forth.
I must here and now cease to be a writer in the wretched sense of that profession.
I must here and now leave all of artful whoredom behind me.
I myself could be banished,
but my dignity could be banished only by me.
The money comes in waves.
One hundred and thirteen pages have been sold.
There are some pages that I will never sell.
The first page of the Inferno,
the final page of the Paradiso,
and the last page of parchment before the first page of paper.
Yes.
Hi.
I have something to show you.
Okay.
Something I was afraid to reveal until the time was right.
I almost buried it with my hopes.
Tempus fugit.
Time flies.
But it is breath that is the winged thing.
It's our breath that flees.
My breath flees upon your words.
End your search.
Come forth from the tomb of your seeking.
Come forth into the light
and be filled with the scent of the every blade of grass of your soul.
And the every blade of grass of the every moment of this life.
Come forth and embrace me.
And what brought you forth from the tomb?
A breeze.
Gemma.
Yes, my sweet Dante.
Is it really you?
Yes, but this time, I will be of joy immeasurable.
With that, my soul woke up from its eclipse,
the while my lady's name rose to my lips,
a god that is hidden from man,
I have found her.
I don't believe in An interventionist god
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Oh, not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are
If He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
And I don't believe in The existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that's true
But if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you
Well, to each burn a candle for you
To make bright and clear your path
And to walk like Christ In grace and love
And guide you into my arms
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
But I believe in love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you
So keep your candles burning
Make her journey bright and pure
That she'll keep returning
Always and evermore
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
O Lord
Into my arms
How many moments can you seize?
How many people can you please?
How many places can you be?
Ain't you
Tired?
How many shoes were received?
How many of them can you keep?
Whatever happened to your feet?
Ain't you
Tired?
Round and round and round and round
We go
Down and down and down and down
We float
Round and round and round and round
We go
Down and down and down and down
We float
How many pictures can you frame?
How many words do they contain?
How many of them bear your pain?
Ain't you
Tired?
How many doors can you open?
How many keys are they holding?
How many more
Were you hoping for?
Ain't you tired?
Round and round and round and round
We go
Down and down and down and down
We float
Round and round and round and round
We go
Down and down and down and down
We float
Out of the blue, sometimes love flew
There ain't no dues without excuse
Ride on the fly
Sometimes love dies
But we keep keepin' on
'Cause lovin' renews
Circlin' to you
Loving renews
Circlin' to you