Luckily, my family still speaks to me.

Extract from a conversation that took place last Sunday afternoon, during my weekly phone call with my mom and sister.

Me: Let's see, what's going on here . . . oh! Last Tuesday, I went to a used bookstore here and saw a copy of Dante's Inferno, translated by Dorothy Sayers. Have you read anything by her?

Annie: No . . .

Me: She was a British mystery writer at during the first half of the twentieth century - she wrote the Lord Peter Whimsey novels. I read them in high school. Anyway, I'd had no idea that she'd done this translation, but I bought the Inferno. And it was really good. I went back yesterday and got the Purgatory and the Paradise. I'm really enjoying them.

(Pause).

Annie: Okay, Kate, that was really boring.

And I guess finding out that one of your favorite authors has done a translation of Dante isn't all that exciting by normal standards (my first thought when I saw her name on the cover of the book was, "I didn't know she knew Italian!" My next was, "Oh, for Pete's sake, why wouldn't she know Italian?"). But anyway, I'm almost done with the Purgatory now, and enjoying it in a way I haven't enjoyed a book in a while. Italian has always been on my list of languages to learn, but I think it just got bumped up a few notches.

Oh, here, I'll quote you a few lines - from a description of the meeting of souls in Purgatory:

I see each shade, on swiftness all intent,
Kiss one from out the other troop, and go,
Not pausing, with this brief salute content.

(Thus, as their black bands scurry to and fro,
Ant nuzzles ant, belike to verify
The route, or swap the news - I do not know.)