As the poets move along, they come to a place where the souls are not placed vertically in the ice, but they are supine with only their faces raised out of the ice. As a result, their tears freeze in their eyes, creating little crystal visors over their eye sockets. Dante is beginning to feel chilled and also feels a wind blowing over the ice — Virgil says that the source of the wind will soon be known.
One of the shades locked up to the face in the ice of Ptolomea, the third round of the ninth circle, begs Dante to remove the sheath of ice over his eyes so that he may cry freely for a while. Dante promises to do so if the shade tells him his name, saying that he will go to the last rim of the ice if he does not keep his promise. The shade complies, saying that he was Friar Albergio.
Dante, sure that Friar Albergio is not yet dead, is shocked at this confession. Albergio tells Dante that his sin was so terrible that the moment he committed it, he was taken out of his body and thrust here, and that a demon took the place of his soul in his worldly body. He names another person that Dante knows for certain is alive that this has also happened to, and Dante does not believe him, though the shade is convincing. Dante refuses to keep his promise to remove the frozen tears from the shade's eyes, saying that rudeness in Hell is a courtesy. Dante makes a plea to the city of Genoa about this sinner, telling them that they have a demon in their midst, and says that he wishes the whole lot of them driven from the Earth.
