699.10
The wind from behind stood Otto’s hair on end, and blew along before him an empty tin can, throwing it bounding over spots of snow, jingling it over bare stretches of pavement, to hurl it lost among the mutilated shadows as he turned the corner into her street and saw that he was not alone....
And when he raised his eyes, looking east toward the hospital, he was alone in the street. The wind had gone down, and the still cold was unbearable. He stood numb, surrounded by ice, among the frozen giants of buildings, as though to dare a step would send him head over heels in a night with neither hope of morning to come nor heaven’s betrayal of its triumphal presence, in the stars.
NOTE:Â in canto 28, the Sowers of Discord are characterized by their mutilated bodies. In the following canto, Vergil asks Dante: "'What are you waiting for? Why do you stare / as if you could not tear your eyes away / from the mutilated shadows passing there?'"
further, in canto 31, Dante sees "what seemed a cluster of great towers," but is told by Vergil that "they are not towers but giants."
