Dante, we must remember, did none of this. He saw lust for what it actually is—a mighty wind that blows overwhelming sinners and ceaselessly driving them on. It, however, does not begin this way. It did not in the life of Francesca and Paulo. It is first a gentle breeze. Their affair began with a seemingly innocent activity—reading a book about King Arthur—precisely about Lancelot and Guinevere. The wind began to blow and then to howl and Francesca and Paulo are thrown down in it. Instead of excusing the sin, Dante condemns it through Virgil. The stumble down the wrong path and then find that the once soft breeze is a gale is so hard at their backs that they can not now escape its force. Also, Dante will have none of this silly romanticism which is foisted on Inferno by sublimating, intellectual New Englanders intent upon reading their own versions of Lancelot and Guinevere. In Hell, Francesca and Paulo lose their humanity. They continue to hold onto each other—the only mutuality that we witness in Hell. It is shown, however, to be faux-mutuality. Paulo has become something—of some thing—that Francesca drags around the first circle eternally. What they have is not love. They have become what lust reduces everything to. They have become things that fulfill needs rather than human beings. Thus, it was no surprise that intellectual New Englanders like Wharton got what they wanted (license) and got what Dante said they would. They inherited the wind.