Dante’s job is to observe sin. But as they journey on, his heart fissures and cracks open. Virgil is pleased when Dante wrenches a whimpering soul up by the hair in the ninth layer. Virgil tells Dante, a devil inhabits their waking body. Their death is perpetual. And perhaps, somewhere, Dante is thinking about the body as a vessel. How betrayal, hot and sticky with its illicitness, might arrest the heart. How a devil will glean and lick the body clean, before settling in its dark recess. Dante tests the way the soul howls when he yanks harder. A bead of ice parts the ghost of its neck. Pain, Dante has learnt, is without language. Down below, Judas writhes and bucks in Lucifer’s teeth. Beyond this, Dante thinks, is paradise.