X/3 The shut book, which itself extends the theme of the opening illustration, represents the answer to Dante's question on the perception of time by the inhabitants of Hell. Time, for them, diminishes towards the present and their awareness of events will cease altogether at the Last Judgement which will mark the closing of the book of future time. All this is embodied here in the picture of a book drawn in exaggerated reverse perspective with human events lying as it were beyond it, shut and clasped as it is. The book features reinforcing imagery in the form of an eclipse, a handless watch, and the final letters of the alphabet (Z and Omega). The collage elements representing the medley of human activity come appropriately enough from old copies of the Illustrated London News. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.