I am the Shade.
Through the dolent city, I flee.
Through the eternal woe, I take flight.
Along the banks of the river Arno, I scramble, breathless . . . turning left onto Via dei Castellani, making my way northward, huddling in the shadows of the Uffizi.
And still they pursue me.
Their footsteps grow louder now as they hunt with relentless determination.
For years they have pursued me. Their persistence has kept me underground . . . forced me to live in purgatory . . . laboring beneath the earth like a chthonic monster.
I am the Shade.
Here aboveground, I raise my eyes to the north, but I am unable to find a direct path to salvation . . . for the Apennine Mountains are blotting out the first light of dawn.
I pass behind the palazzo with its crenellated tower and one- handed clock . . . snaking through the early- morning vendors in Piazza San Firenze with their hoarse voices smelling of lampredotto and roasted olives. Crossing before the Bargello, I cut west toward the spire of the Badia and come up hard against the iron gate at the base of the stairs.
Here all hesitation must be left behind.
I turn the handle and step into the passage from which I know there will be no return. I urge my leaden legs up the narrow staircase . . . spiraling skyward on soft marble treads, pitted and worn.
The voices echo from below. Beseeching.
They are behind me, unyielding, closing in.
They do not understand what is coming . . . nor what I have done for them!
Ungrateful land!
As I climb, the visions come hard . . . the lustful bodies writhing in fiery rain, the gluttonous souls floating in excrement, the treacherous villains frozen in Satan's icy grasp.
I climb the final stairs and arrive at the top, staggering near dead into the damp morning air. I rush to the head- high wall, peering through the slits. Far below is the blessed city that I have made my sanctuary from those who exiled me.
The voices call out, arriving close behind me. "What you've done is madness!"
Madness breeds madness.
"For the love of God," they shout, "tell us where you've hidden it!"
For precisely the love of God, I will not.
I stand now, cornered, my back to the cold stone. They stare deep into my clear green eyes, and their expressions darken, no longer cajoling, but threatening. "You know we have our methods. We can force you to tell us where it is."
For that reason, I have climbed halfway to heaven.
Without warning, I turn and reach up, curling my fingers onto the high ledge, pulling myself up, scrambling onto my knees, then standing. . . unsteady at the precipice. Guide me, dear Virgil, across the void.
They rush forward in disbelief, wanting to grab at my feet, but fearing they will upset my balance and knock me off. They beg now, in quiet desperation, but I have turned my back. I know what I must do.
Beneath me, dizzyingly far beneath me, the red tile roofs spread out like a sea of fire on the countryside, illuminating the fair land upon which giants once roamed . . . Giotto, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Botticelli.
I inch my toes to the edge.
"Come down!" they shout. "It's not too late!"
O, willful ignorants! Do you not see the future? Do you not grasp the splendor of my creation? The necessity?
I will gladly make this ultimate sacrifice . . . and with it I will extinguish your final hope of finding what you seek.
You will never locate it in time.
Hundreds of feet below, the cobblestone piazza beckons like a tranquil oasis. How I long for more time . . . but time is the one commodity even my vast fortunes cannot afford.
In these final seconds, I gaze down at the piazza, and I behold a sight that startles me.
I see your face.
You are gazing up at me from the shadows. Your eyes are mournful, and yet in them I sense a veneration for what I have accomplished. You understand I have no choice. For the love of Mankind, I must protect my masterpiece.
It grows even now . . . waiting . . . simmering beneath the bloodred waters of the lagoon that reflects no stars.
And so, I lift my eyes from yours and I contemplate the horizon. High above this burdened world, I make my final supplication.
Dearest God, I pray the world remembers my name not as a monstrous sinner, but as the glorious savior you know I truly am. I pray Mankind will understand the gift I leave behind.
My gift is the future.
My gift is salvation.
My gift is Inferno.
With that, I whisper my amen . . . and take my final step, into the abyss.
Chapter 1
The memories materialized slowly . . . like bubbles surfacing from the darkness of a bottomless well.
A veiled woman.
Robert Langdon gazed at her across a river whose churning waters ran red with blood. On the far bank, the woman stood facing him, motionless, solemn, her face hidden by a shroud. In her hand she gripped a blue tainia cloth, which she now raised in honor of the sea of corpses at her feet. The smell of death hung everywhere.
Seek, the woman whispered. And ye shall find.
Langdon heard the words as if she had spoken them inside his head. "Who are you?" he called out, but his voice made no sound.
Time grows short, she whispered. Seek and find.
Langdon took a step toward the river, but he could see the waters were bloodred and too deep to traverse. When Langdon raised his eyes again to the veiled woman, the bodies at her feet had multiplied. There were hundreds of them now, maybe thousands, some still alive, writhing in agony, dying unthinkable deaths . . . consumed by fire, buried in feces, devouring one another. He could hear the mournful cries of human suffering echoing across the water.
The woman moved toward him, holding out her slender hands, as if beckoning for help.
"Who are you?!" Langdon again shouted.
In response, the woman reached up and slowly lifted the veil from her face. She was strikingly beautiful, and yet older than Langdon had imagined-in her sixties perhaps, stately and strong, like a timeless statue.
She had a sternly set jaw, deep soulful eyes, and long, silver- gray hair that cascaded over her shoulders in ringlets. An amulet of lapis lazuli hung around her neck- a single snake coiled around a staff.
Langdon sensed he knew her . . . trusted her. But how? Why?
She pointed now to a writhing pair of legs, which protruded upside down from the earth, apparently belonging to some poor soul who had been buried headfi rst to his waist. The man's pale thigh bore a single letter- written in mud- R.
R? Langdon thought, uncertain. As in . . . Robert? "Is that . . . me?"
The woman's face revealed nothing. Seek and find, she repeated.
Without warning, she began radiating a white light . . . brighter and brighter. Her entire body started vibrating intensely, and then, in a rush of thunder, she exploded into a thousand splintering shards of light.
Langdon bolted awake, shouting.
The room was bright. He was alone. The sharp smell of medicinal alcohol hung in the air, and somewhere a machine pinged in quiet rhythm with his heart. Langdon tried to move his right arm, but a sharp pain restrained him. He looked down and saw an IV tugging at the skin of his forearm.
His pulse quickened, and the machines kept pace, pinging more rapidly.
Where am I? What happened?
The back of Langdon's head throbbed, a gnawing pain. Gingerly, he reached up with his free arm and touched his scalp, trying to locate the source of his headache. Beneath his matted hair, he found the hard nubs of a dozen or so stitches caked with dried blood.
He closed his eyes, trying to remember an accident.
Nothing. A total blank.
Think.
Only darkness.
A man in scrubs hurried in, apparently alerted by Langdon's racing heart monitor. He had a shaggy beard, bushy mustache, and gentle eyes that radiated a thoughtful calm beneath his overgrown eyebrows.
"What . . . happened?" Langdon managed. "Did I have an accident?"
The bearded man put a finger to his lips and then rushed out, calling for someone down the hall.
Langdon turned his head, but the movement sent a spike of pain radiating through his skull. He took deep breaths and let the pain pass. Then, very gently and methodically, he surveyed his sterile surroundings.
The hospital room had a single bed. No flowers. No cards. Langdon saw his clothes on a nearby counter, folded inside a clear plastic bag.
They were covered with blood.
My God. It must have been bad.
Now Langdon rotated his head very slowly toward the window beside his bed. It was dark outside. Night. All Langdon could see in the glass was his own reflection- an ashen stranger, pale and weary, attached to tubes and wires, surrounded by medical equipment.
Voices approached in the hall, and Langdon turned his gaze back toward the room. The doctor returned, now accompanied by a woman.
She appeared to be in her early thirties. She wore blue scrubs and had tied her blond hair back in a thick ponytail that swung behind her as she walked.
"I'm Dr. Sienna Brooks," she said, giving Langdon a smile as she entered. "I'll be working with Dr. Marconi tonight."
Langdon nodded weakly.
Tall and lissome, Dr. Brooks moved with the assertive gait of an athlete.
Even in shapeless scrubs, she had a willowy elegance about her.
Despite the absence of any makeup that Langdon could see, her complexion appeared unusually smooth, the only blemish a tiny beauty mark just above her lips. Her eyes, though a gentle brown, seemed unusually penetrating, as if they had witnessed a profundity of experience rarely encountered by a person her age.
"Dr. Marconi doesn't speak much English," she said, sitting down beside him, "and he asked me to fill out your admittance form." She gave him another smile.
"Thanks," Langdon croaked.
"Okay," she began, her tone businesslike. "What is your name?"
It took him a moment. "Robert . . . Langdon."
She shone a penlight in Langdon's eyes. "Occupation?"
This information surfaced even more slowly. "Professor. Art history. . . and symbology. Harvard University."
Dr. Brooks lowered the light, looking startled. The doctor with the bushy eyebrows looked equally surprised.
"You're . . . an American?"
Langdon gave her a confused look.
"It's just . . ." She hesitated. "You had no identification when you arrived tonight. You were wearing Harris Tweed and Somerset loafers, so we guessed British."
"I'm American," Langdon assured her, too exhausted to explain his preference for well- tailored clothing.
"Any pain?"
"My head," Langdon replied, his throbbing skull only made worse by the bright penlight. Thankfully, she now pocketed it, taking Langdon's wrist and checking his pulse.
......
不知道为什么现在要发500字才可以获得积分奖励,难道我每一本书都要看完之后再来评论吗?对于我这种小说控,遇到活动就买一堆书的人来说,这个实在不太现实。怪不得现在京东图书的评价大家都稀里糊涂乱写一气,篇幅好长,结果啥内容没有,复制一遍又一遍,毫无技术可言。这个要求跟让我写篇读书笔记有啥区别啊?从小写到大,买书评论为了点积分还让我写读书笔记?本来这个要求的出发点倒是挺好的,可是结果如此不伦不类,有本事,你人工给积分啊?系统啥都不识别,有用没用的都乱涂一气。我写个读书笔记交给老师,好歹老师还给个评论吧,不是一句话,起码也是一个“优”字啊!现在倒好,我想买书都要翻不翻评论都是一个效果,写的少的没啥参考性,写得多的一样没啥参考性,结果害我翻评论,鼠标的滚轮真的要“滚”好久!!!没办法,我也要开始长篇累牍了,写了这么多我都不知道我的重点是啥,好吧,我就是来纯吐槽的!当然,现在用积分换券没多大用处了,因为我发现这几个月来jd一直在做图书活动,一波接着一波,300-100,400-150,150-50,现在又是300-100.看来以后买书,我也得先收藏囤着一起买了,单买不划算啊!最后再说几句,我也不知道我会说几句,简而言之就是说到字数够了为止!好吧,就剩一句了:书还没看,谢谢! 不知道为什么现在要发500字才可以获得积分奖励,难道我每一本书都要看完之后再来评论吗?对于我这种小说控,遇到活动就买一堆书的人来说,这个实在不太现实。怪不得现在京东图书的评价大家都稀里糊涂乱写一气,篇幅好长,结果啥内容没有,复制一遍又一遍,毫无技术可言。这个要求跟让我写篇读书笔记有啥区别啊?从小写到大,买书评论为了点积分还让我写读书笔记?本来这个要求的出发点倒是挺好的,可是结果如此不伦不类,有本事,你人工给积分啊?系统啥都不识别,有用没用的都乱涂一气。我写个读书笔记交给老师,好歹老师还给个评论吧,不是一句话,起码也是一个“优”字啊!现在倒好,我想买书都要翻不翻评论都是一个效果,写的少的没啥参考性,写得多的一样没啥参考性,结果害我翻评论,鼠标的滚轮真的要“滚”好久!!!没办法,我也要开始长篇累牍了,写了这么多我都不知道我的重点是啥,好吧,我就是来纯吐槽的!当然,现在用积分换券没多大用处了,因为我发现这几个月来jd一直在做图书活动,一波接着一波,300-100,400-150,150-50,现在又是300-100.看来以后买书,我也得先收藏囤着一起买了,单买不划算啊!最后再说几句,我也不知道我会说几句,简而言之就是说到字数够了为止!好吧,就剩一句了:书还没看,谢谢!
评分不知道是什么原因 为什么书本的上侧面都是脏的,书皮很low。不是你想象的精装版
评分发货快!质量好!花费省!
评分"NCIS")患有严重的“与异性交往障碍症”,有异性在场的时候他就无法说话,只有在喝醉以后才能自在地与女孩交流。
评分《丹·布朗:地狱》中的议题引人关注。其一是关于世界人口增长给地球造成的重负可能引发的种种危机,这个问题中国恐怕比世界其他国家感受更深。其二是人类关于基因工程研究的种种突破究竟是福是祸,会对人类未来的命运产生何种影响。这是有可能引发诸多关注与争论的议题。
评分丹布朗的书都要买的。。。
评分剧情紧张,步调飞快,壮观如火烧谷仓,令我联想起CliveCussler的DirkPitt系列小说前几集。本书从第一页到最末页让读者没有喘息的机会。全书情节找不到弱点,叙事也无可挑剔,足可证明这是一本佳作。——《圣彼得堡时报》
评分丹布朗说新作的创作灵感来源于意大利文艺复兴时期的伟大诗人但丁,“我第一次读到但丁的作品《神曲:地狱篇》时还是个学生,当时并没有完全领悟透彻,直到最近,我到来到但丁的故乡――意大利的佛罗伦萨,才意识到这部创作于的作品对于意大利这个民族以及现代社会的影响有多深远。我希望通过这部新的小说,让读者走进这个神秘的领域,在探轶符号、密码的同时,领略到但丁文学杰作的魅力。”
评分同事介绍的,说是很不错。之前看过《达芬奇密码》,觉得很引人入胜。这次出新作,捧个场。
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