Chapter 2
Il hell del ghiaccio
For the first time in her life Clarice Starling's sharp mind failed her, it seemed her brain had become a tubula rasa, the blank slate of a newborn. With the breath knocked out of her and her body stinging as freezing needles stabbed her all over like arctic acupuncture, the pain overshadowed any rational thought or sense. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, she felt strangely calm, serene almost and she wondered if she was in shock, or worse, dead. As she hung suspended in the sub zero water one of her senses slowly returned to her. A scraping, groaning sound broke the throbbing silence. A surprisingly pleasant image came to her. Fishing with her father, the sound of the boat's prow bumping against the tires hanging from the jetty. Fishing. Water. Ice. She was under the ice! In a rush of adrenalin or panic, or both, she propelled herself to the surface only to bump against a thick ceiling of ice, she felt around frantically for the hole in which she fell through but it seemed it had mysteriously disappeared! As her hands beat against the thick ice ceiling, the terror, which coursed through her veins, caused her limbs to ache and the core of her brain to burn as her heart slowed. Her hands and feet had started to develop a tingly numbness; it spread over her face as the cold rushed into her ears and nose. A horrible suffocating feeling was building up in her lungs as they filled with carbon dioxide and she attempted to ignore the dire need for air. As she continued to scrape her numb fingers over the infuriatingly smooth ice a terrible grip seized her right ankle and jerked her down into the dark water below.
Considering the lack of feeling in her legs it took a few seconds for Clarice to register as she turned her head to see what it was that was pulling her down into the murky depths. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked down into the grey, dead face of Dr. Frederick Chilton. She tried to kick with her other leg but was too weak from the cold. As she struggled against his, vice like grip she looked about and saw other familiar faces. The flutist Benjamin Raspail, clad in a colourless tuxedo, the Memphis guards Boyle and Pembry, she recognized the face of the Italian Inspector, Rinaldo Pazzi from a case file. She even saw Mason Vergers face, or what resembled a face, its toothsome aquatic appearance seemed quite fitting for the surroundings. This was Dr. Lecters own personal hell in which he stored away those who he thought deserved condemnation, those who like Judas must stand frozen through all eternity twisting and writhing in the lowest and most terrible level of hell. It was then that Clarice thought back to the days when she sat stiffly in church while the Lutheran preacher ranted emphatically about the threat of hellfire to the bored congregation as sweat flew from his face and hit the unlucky parishioner's in the front pews. Hell was not a furnace of flames, but a lake of ice.
Il hell del ghiaccio
For the first time in her life Clarice Starling's sharp mind failed her, it seemed her brain had become a tubula rasa, the blank slate of a newborn. With the breath knocked out of her and her body stinging as freezing needles stabbed her all over like arctic acupuncture, the pain overshadowed any rational thought or sense. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, she felt strangely calm, serene almost and she wondered if she was in shock, or worse, dead. As she hung suspended in the sub zero water one of her senses slowly returned to her. A scraping, groaning sound broke the throbbing silence. A surprisingly pleasant image came to her. Fishing with her father, the sound of the boat's prow bumping against the tires hanging from the jetty. Fishing. Water. Ice. She was under the ice! In a rush of adrenalin or panic, or both, she propelled herself to the surface only to bump against a thick ceiling of ice, she felt around frantically for the hole in which she fell through but it seemed it had mysteriously disappeared! As her hands beat against the thick ice ceiling, the terror, which coursed through her veins, caused her limbs to ache and the core of her brain to burn as her heart slowed. Her hands and feet had started to develop a tingly numbness; it spread over her face as the cold rushed into her ears and nose. A horrible suffocating feeling was building up in her lungs as they filled with carbon dioxide and she attempted to ignore the dire need for air. As she continued to scrape her numb fingers over the infuriatingly smooth ice a terrible grip seized her right ankle and jerked her down into the dark water below.
Considering the lack of feeling in her legs it took a few seconds for Clarice to register as she turned her head to see what it was that was pulling her down into the murky depths. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked down into the grey, dead face of Dr. Frederick Chilton. She tried to kick with her other leg but was too weak from the cold. As she struggled against his, vice like grip she looked about and saw other familiar faces. The flutist Benjamin Raspail, clad in a colourless tuxedo, the Memphis guards Boyle and Pembry, she recognized the face of the Italian Inspector, Rinaldo Pazzi from a case file. She even saw Mason Vergers face, or what resembled a face, its toothsome aquatic appearance seemed quite fitting for the surroundings. This was Dr. Lecters own personal hell in which he stored away those who he thought deserved condemnation, those who like Judas must stand frozen through all eternity twisting and writhing in the lowest and most terrible level of hell. It was then that Clarice thought back to the days when she sat stiffly in church while the Lutheran preacher ranted emphatically about the threat of hellfire to the bored congregation as sweat flew from his face and hit the unlucky parishioner's in the front pews. Hell was not a furnace of flames, but a lake of ice.