you know, not anything informative. Tell me though, where will you live now? ’
‘ I don ’ t know. I suppose I ’ ll get a flat. Rosemary has appointed herself as my housekeeper. ’
Alexander laughed. He said, ‘ Why not come and live here? You don ’ t have to run the business, do you? ’
‘ What would I do here? ’
‘ Nothing. ’
‘ Come! ’
‘ Why not? ’ said Alexander. ‘ You could fleet the time idyllically. This place is the earthly paradise, as we all saw with perfect clarity in childhood before we were corrupted by the world. If you insisted on occupation I would teach you how to model clay or how to carve snakes and weasels out of tree roots. The trouble with people nowadays is they don ’ t know how to do nothing. I ’ ve had quite a job teaching Rosemary to do it, and she ’ s certainly more gifted in that direction than you are. ’
‘ You ’ re an artist, ’ I said, ‘ and for you doing nothing is doing something. No. I shall get back to Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus and What Is a Good General . ’ I had for some time been quietly engaged on a monograph on the Thirty Years War in which the competence of these two commanders was compared. This was to be a chapter in a projected larger work on what constituted efficiency in a military leader.
‘ There are no good generals, ’ said Alexander.
‘ You are the dupe of Tolstoy who thought all generals were incompetent because all Russian generals were incompetent. Anyway, I shall try to work more seriously in future. Antonia, it must be admitted, was time-consuming. ’
‘ Beautifully, ’ said Alexander. He sighed again and we were silent for a minute.
‘ Show me some of the results of your inactivity, ’ I said.
He rose and pulled back the curtain. He turned the switch in the studio and a number of strips flickered to life overhead, producing the illumination of an overcast afternoon in spring. The great room, which was a Cotswold barn converted by my mother, retained its high roof and rough-hewn wooden rafters from whose scored crevices the warm oily air, gently circulating, seemed to sift down an ancient dust. The long work table, with its scrubbed surface and neat groups of meticulously cleaned tools, spanned the farther wall. Other things, though with an air of having their own places, were dotted about: pieces of uncut stone, enormous tree roots stacked like a tent, wooden blocks of various sizes, like overgrown nursery bricks, tall objects covered with damp grey cloths, a box full of ornamental gourds, a pillar of ebony shaped by nature or art, it was hard to tell which. A row of clay bins flanked the wall by the window, and at the far end was a population of plaster casts, torsos, swinging headless bodies, and heads mounted on rough wooden stands. The floor of blue imitation Dutch encaustic tiles was covered, according to a fantasy of Alexander ’ s, with dry rushes and straw.
Alexander crossed the room and began carefully to undo the cloths which draped one of the tall objects. A revolving pedestal began to appear with something mounted upon it. As he removed the last cloth he switched off the centre lights and turned on a single anglepoise lamp on the work table which he swung round towards the pedestal. There was a clay head in the first stages of composition, the early stages when the wire framework had been roughly filled out and then the clay laid over it in various directions in long strips until the semblance of a head appears. This particular moment has always seemed to me uncanny, when the faceless image acquires a quasi-human personality, and one is put in mind of the making of monsters.
‘ Who is it? ’
‘ I don ’ t know! ’ said Alexander. ‘ It ’ s not a portrait. Yet I feel odd about it, as if I were looking for the person it was of. I ’ ve never worked quite like this and it may be useless. I did some quite non-realistic heads, you remember, ages ago. ’
‘ Your perspex phase.
‘ I don ’ t know. I suppose I ’ ll get a flat. Rosemary has appointed herself as my housekeeper. ’
Alexander laughed. He said, ‘ Why not come and live here? You don ’ t have to run the business, do you? ’
‘ What would I do here? ’
‘ Nothing. ’
‘ Come! ’
‘ Why not? ’ said Alexander. ‘ You could fleet the time idyllically. This place is the earthly paradise, as we all saw with perfect clarity in childhood before we were corrupted by the world. If you insisted on occupation I would teach you how to model clay or how to carve snakes and weasels out of tree roots. The trouble with people nowadays is they don ’ t know how to do nothing. I ’ ve had quite a job teaching Rosemary to do it, and she ’ s certainly more gifted in that direction than you are. ’
‘ You ’ re an artist, ’ I said, ‘ and for you doing nothing is doing something. No. I shall get back to Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus and What Is a Good General . ’ I had for some time been quietly engaged on a monograph on the Thirty Years War in which the competence of these two commanders was compared. This was to be a chapter in a projected larger work on what constituted efficiency in a military leader.
‘ There are no good generals, ’ said Alexander.
‘ You are the dupe of Tolstoy who thought all generals were incompetent because all Russian generals were incompetent. Anyway, I shall try to work more seriously in future. Antonia, it must be admitted, was time-consuming. ’
‘ Beautifully, ’ said Alexander. He sighed again and we were silent for a minute.
‘ Show me some of the results of your inactivity, ’ I said.
He rose and pulled back the curtain. He turned the switch in the studio and a number of strips flickered to life overhead, producing the illumination of an overcast afternoon in spring. The great room, which was a Cotswold barn converted by my mother, retained its high roof and rough-hewn wooden rafters from whose scored crevices the warm oily air, gently circulating, seemed to sift down an ancient dust. The long work table, with its scrubbed surface and neat groups of meticulously cleaned tools, spanned the farther wall. Other things, though with an air of having their own places, were dotted about: pieces of uncut stone, enormous tree roots stacked like a tent, wooden blocks of various sizes, like overgrown nursery bricks, tall objects covered with damp grey cloths, a box full of ornamental gourds, a pillar of ebony shaped by nature or art, it was hard to tell which. A row of clay bins flanked the wall by the window, and at the far end was a population of plaster casts, torsos, swinging headless bodies, and heads mounted on rough wooden stands. The floor of blue imitation Dutch encaustic tiles was covered, according to a fantasy of Alexander ’ s, with dry rushes and straw.
Alexander crossed the room and began carefully to undo the cloths which draped one of the tall objects. A revolving pedestal began to appear with something mounted upon it. As he removed the last cloth he switched off the centre lights and turned on a single anglepoise lamp on the work table which he swung round towards the pedestal. There was a clay head in the first stages of composition, the early stages when the wire framework had been roughly filled out and then the clay laid over it in various directions in long strips until the semblance of a head appears. This particular moment has always seemed to me uncanny, when the faceless image acquires a quasi-human personality, and one is put in mind of the making of monsters.
‘ Who is it? ’
‘ I don ’ t know! ’ said Alexander. ‘ It ’ s not a portrait. Yet I feel odd about it, as if I were looking for the person it was of. I ’ ve never worked quite like this and it may be useless. I did some quite non-realistic heads, you remember, ages ago. ’
‘ Your perspex phase.
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