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.
......
有些轻,感觉纸质一般,但是这个价格还是可以的啦
评分 评分陈丹青,1953年生于上海。中国当代最具影响力艺术家、作家、文艺评论家,学者。毕业于中央美术学院。1970年—1978年辗转赣南、苏北农村插队落户,其间自习绘画,是当时颇有名气的“知青画家”。1980年以《西藏组画》轰动中外艺术界,成为颠覆教化模式,并向欧洲溯源的发轫,被公认为具有划时代意义的经典之作。绘画之余,出版文学著作十余部。陈丹青无论画风与文风,都具有一种优雅而朴素;睿智而率真的气质,洋溢着独特的人格魅力。
评分精装,大开本,适合家里看。
评分Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.
评分 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》
评分这么多年,京东是我的购物习惯了。无论什么,我都会优先选择京东了。实体商店基本不去了。零食都会选择京东。的书,每次出来,都会关注、大夏书系·大夏语文·高中作文要义思维、材料和技巧严格遵循两项原则第一,不要害人第二,要有实效。不要害人的意思是我既要满足你对考场高分的渴望,又要培养你真正的写作素质,因为单有高分是不够的,写作能力将使你终生受益。要有实效的意思是练习必须简明有效,能让你以最少的时间取得最大的收益所有练习都给出答案,这些答案作为参考借鉴的对象,
评分“布朗善于讲故事” Knopf Doubleday出版集团的主席兼主编Sonny Mehta说到,“他有将密码学与精心研究过的历史融为一体的能力,这使他的作品几乎在任何时候都非常受欢迎。丹将他的《炼狱》做成了文学经典,并以只有他才有的方式让人物活灵活现。”
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