In the last cantos of the PURGATORIO, Dante crosses from the Purgatorial world, passing through the two rivers (Dante must first pass through the River Lethe which flows in shadow, then through the River Eumoe: the first river washes away all memory of sin; the second restores the memory of righteousness,) to approach the higher world of Beatrice. It is a stage at which Dante is humbled and shamed by the memory of his sins and unfaithfulness to Beatrice. In the scheme of Eliot's poem, this twilight kingdom is the condition in which man has to face the truth about himself and life, as Kurtz did. Until Dante is freed from shame and sin, he is unable to meet Beatrice's gaze (Southam, 103, 100).