truth, I had said! But why be a writer if not to harness all the dreams that might otherwise drive me mad? Should anyone pay me for it? Why should anyone read these dreams, these silly fantasies?
I turned away from the window, the closed window, and plodded to the centre of this museum of a room. I counted ten Persian carpets of mixed sizes laid out to cover the parquet floor, some very old, some recent.Mrs. Oliver Marshall’s frustrated gaze permeated the atmosphere of my mind, and I wanted to finger things, accidentally-on-purpose break that Roman glass bowl, or the Royal Copenhagen china pieces in the walnut cabinet, or do something irreverent, disdainful. There was a deep, dark aroma of furniture wax and wood blended with other kinds of cleaning liquids and polishes. Someone spent a lot of time in here bringing to a shine all the bits and baubles. Monique, perhaps. I caught sight of myself in a small, round mirror with scenes from the New Testament in relief on a frame. My expression was a glaring one, judgmental and austere, with a slight frown, the sort of look one never gives to a mirror unprepared.
The room was a complete clutter of objects and furniture, the fruit of someone’s labours at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, or else the inheritance of an antiquarian. Since the room was very full, it seemed smaller than it was. Along the northern wall, in between the two long windows which faced the back garden, there was a huge bookshelf stretching from floor to ceiling, containing old volumes: Byron, Tennyson, Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
, travel books dating from the late sixteenth and seventeenth century, Galileo, a whole run of classical writers like Cicero, Livy and Aristotle, nineteenth-century picture books illustrating life in Biblical lands, biographies of people unremembered, novels, volumes of verse, first editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Darwin, volumes of early archaeological texts about Egypt and Mesopotamia, books containing etchings of paintingsby Dürer, Rembrandt, Michelangelo. But then I knew Mr. Prain liked antiquarian and second-hand bookstores.
Beyond the bookcase and the other window there was a collection of antiquities from ancient Greece and Cyprus, a few small Egyptian gods and scarabs, Hellenistic coins, a black-on-red glazed Athenian vase, odd pieces of glass, gold, bronze, a pottery figure of a man on a horse with his arms raised up, a painted Anubis, a Roman portrait head and a huge, decorated iron knife that seemed rather Nordic. It had an intricate snake design on its scabbard. There were a few paintings near this, and a framed tapestry: a sampler, aged and faded, of the alphabet.
I moved to a place in front of the double doors, looking back down the long room. At the far end, to the west, there was a marble fireplace surmounted by a mantelpiece strewn with Asiatic items: a wooden dragon and two
famille jaune
Chinese vases, jade figurines and a roaring tiger. The misericord that had so disturbed me was hidden from view by an array of Crusader armour on a model. There were small marble statues of Hermes and Pan, the latter with penis erect. Our round table, and the two armchairs, waited nearby, illuminated by the dismal light of the north-facing window. There were other armchairs, side-tables, lamps, and a chaise-longue, which indicated that the room was supposed to be used. Moreover, to the left of the door there was a sheeny desk and chair, a standard lamp and a bookshelf full of files. There was also a drinks cabinet. Perhaps Mr. Prain used the room as astudy, I thought. Perhaps he felt most at home in this dark den, in the company of curios which seemed by their intrinsic qualities to conspire to remove this room from the rest of the house and place it in a timeless zone in which the outside world was peripheral and unimportant. Certainly, he preferred to be here. Why else would he bring me to this room?
My attention was then caught by a large painting on the southern wall,
I turned away from the window, the closed window, and plodded to the centre of this museum of a room. I counted ten Persian carpets of mixed sizes laid out to cover the parquet floor, some very old, some recent.Mrs. Oliver Marshall’s frustrated gaze permeated the atmosphere of my mind, and I wanted to finger things, accidentally-on-purpose break that Roman glass bowl, or the Royal Copenhagen china pieces in the walnut cabinet, or do something irreverent, disdainful. There was a deep, dark aroma of furniture wax and wood blended with other kinds of cleaning liquids and polishes. Someone spent a lot of time in here bringing to a shine all the bits and baubles. Monique, perhaps. I caught sight of myself in a small, round mirror with scenes from the New Testament in relief on a frame. My expression was a glaring one, judgmental and austere, with a slight frown, the sort of look one never gives to a mirror unprepared.
The room was a complete clutter of objects and furniture, the fruit of someone’s labours at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, or else the inheritance of an antiquarian. Since the room was very full, it seemed smaller than it was. Along the northern wall, in between the two long windows which faced the back garden, there was a huge bookshelf stretching from floor to ceiling, containing old volumes: Byron, Tennyson, Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
, travel books dating from the late sixteenth and seventeenth century, Galileo, a whole run of classical writers like Cicero, Livy and Aristotle, nineteenth-century picture books illustrating life in Biblical lands, biographies of people unremembered, novels, volumes of verse, first editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Darwin, volumes of early archaeological texts about Egypt and Mesopotamia, books containing etchings of paintingsby Dürer, Rembrandt, Michelangelo. But then I knew Mr. Prain liked antiquarian and second-hand bookstores.
Beyond the bookcase and the other window there was a collection of antiquities from ancient Greece and Cyprus, a few small Egyptian gods and scarabs, Hellenistic coins, a black-on-red glazed Athenian vase, odd pieces of glass, gold, bronze, a pottery figure of a man on a horse with his arms raised up, a painted Anubis, a Roman portrait head and a huge, decorated iron knife that seemed rather Nordic. It had an intricate snake design on its scabbard. There were a few paintings near this, and a framed tapestry: a sampler, aged and faded, of the alphabet.
I moved to a place in front of the double doors, looking back down the long room. At the far end, to the west, there was a marble fireplace surmounted by a mantelpiece strewn with Asiatic items: a wooden dragon and two
famille jaune
Chinese vases, jade figurines and a roaring tiger. The misericord that had so disturbed me was hidden from view by an array of Crusader armour on a model. There were small marble statues of Hermes and Pan, the latter with penis erect. Our round table, and the two armchairs, waited nearby, illuminated by the dismal light of the north-facing window. There were other armchairs, side-tables, lamps, and a chaise-longue, which indicated that the room was supposed to be used. Moreover, to the left of the door there was a sheeny desk and chair, a standard lamp and a bookshelf full of files. There was also a drinks cabinet. Perhaps Mr. Prain used the room as astudy, I thought. Perhaps he felt most at home in this dark den, in the company of curios which seemed by their intrinsic qualities to conspire to remove this room from the rest of the house and place it in a timeless zone in which the outside world was peripheral and unimportant. Certainly, he preferred to be here. Why else would he bring me to this room?
My attention was then caught by a large painting on the southern wall,
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