Bronte's Inferno XXIX ("I Blame Cellini")

It was like using a VR headset on ghost mode. Where you lurk about not touching anything, just watching all the other avatars in the game. It became quite the thing, among the dogging community during lockdown, so I'm told. Talk about ghosts in the machine. I bet Bob Sugarmountain hadn't foreseen that. I wondered why Charon had insisted we stay. Woland and Helle had moved on to bickering over the future of the verse novel.

'I dislike them intensely, Daaah-ling,' Hella's teeth seemed more prominent. 'Remember that Chaucer fellow? I found it wilfully obscure. And the spelling! When he read it to you, it sounded fine, but on the page? It was as though he couldn't decide on runes or letters.'

Woland gave a snort, some of the vodka came out of his nose, and then some blood. Hella's canines seemed to grow and I saw a flush creep up her cleavage. Charon cleared her throat, then Woland spoke, still spluttering a little.

'And that's why I paid a visit to Gutenberg. What a dump Mainz was then!'

Begemot hissed, 'Still isss.'

Woland gave him a withering look, Begemot didn't look withered at all.

'People don't like versse, becausse it iss hard.' The giant cat pulled his tail towards his mouth with a paw and then commenced to lick his rear appendage.

'Oh do stop that, it's disgusting.' Hella said. She must have found it so, as she forgot to add "Daaah-ling".

I rolled my eyes at Charon, thinking it was a good job I wasn't wearing one of those VR headsets. Why had no-one ever mentioned they made everyone look like Cyclops from the X-Men?

Charon pointed at Woland, then tapped her temple in the sign language for the well-used Yorkshire phrase "Thin kon't".

Begemot left off his grooming, 'You need him, Woland. If he won't do it who will? All the real authorss have given up. You sshould neffer have signed up the first Sportsman. Aristotle did a good enough job writing about the Olympics.'

'I blame the television, Daah-ling.' Hella said as she stroked Woland's cheek with her palm. 'Nobody cared about anyone's private lives before then.'

'What about Augustine? Some people still read his now. Only students of Christianity, but still.' Woland rubbed a finger along the side of his nose. 'I blame Cellini, though. Dull stuff, who cares about Benvenuto falling out with a Pope? What are Popes for, except to fall out with? Shame someone bumped Caravaggio off, now that would have been a block-buster.'

'Yess, but Cellini was the finesst ssculptor of the Renaissance', Begemot licked the back of his paw, 'You, Woland, saw fit to let Barnum have his head. At least they were his own lies I suppose.'

Woland took a slug from the bottle, having run out of glasses. Begemot went on,

'We at Charnel Housse have fed the bonfire with mediocraties' vanity. Who wants to read a memoir "by" a diss-graced TV presenter? Not even Nabakov could make that palatable.'

'But people buy them! We are adding to the sum of knowledge.' Woland was looking as red-faced as a bishop on a bicycle.

Begemot gave a stretch, 'Yet we are making it a zero sum.'