him or force him into a stillness through the tightness of my embrace.
Once in an attempt to divert him I persuade him to view an exhibition of mechanical toys and curiosities and in the back room of a shop we see a soldier marching, a bear playing a drum, a fiddle player, and a trickster playing hunt the dice but in truth all are a little tawdry and their cleverness of invention makes little impression on him. Then one day as we take the bridge across the river a man hands us a bill that we think is for some miracle cure or foolish entertainment that springs up everywhere as if the city must constantly entertain its citizens with what is base and ignoble. But Will stops to read it and it invites ‘those desirous of beholding the wonders of nature’ to view the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London. And for a second I think Will might remonstrate with the hawker of these printed bills and tell him, as I have heard him tell others who imprison a creature which has the right to live unchained, that they commit a crime against Heaven. But instead of rage he says nothing and hands me the paper to pocket and then we proceed with our walk and we pass the Royal Academy school where Will tells me about his student days and then journey to Westminster Abbey where not much more than a boy he practised drawing amidst the tombs and effigies. He grows quiet again as he looks about his old haunts and shows me the things he drew and I start to believe that he is considering the path his life has followed since those days and I do not know whether those young dreams he harboured are replaced by better ones or if it feels to him as if they are broken into fragments and trampled over. The Abbey is cold to the eye and to the body with its marble and stone and neither candle or gilt can stop me shivering and I am glad when he takes my arm and we return to the sunlight.
It’s an impulse that I think he will deny when I ask him if we can go and look at the menagerie and I suppose my request is a foolishness that will offend him but I am desperate to find something that will distract him and I am frightened, because already I have seen the signs, that he will slip away from me into despondency. And I think even his anger is better than the state where nothing can prompt him into feeling and all is governed by a heavy lethargy. But I am surprised when he makes no objection. And when we pay our admission money I worry that as Christ did he will think of throwing over everything he considers wicked and an abomination of life and all that is holy. He is sullen as we view the strange creatures that have been brought from distant countries and the excited chatter of the other spectators is an irritant to him and when he sees a great hulk of a bear chained to a wall he compares it loudly to the toys we viewed and then to those unfortunates who once were held in this damp and dismal place. People are looking at him and so I try to calm him and tell him it was a mistake for us to come here but as we are about to go he breaks free from the gentle link of my arm and wanders to a cage under the high walls where ravens blacken the ramparts.
I stand at his shoulder as he stares at it but says nothing. The creature unlike anything I have ever seen is all sinewy strength and its brindled tawny body is coloured like the tail of the comet. It prowls from one side of the miserable cage to the other and then it turns and looks at us, its eyes burning with a yellow fire that speaks of some hidden fury, some intense hatred. Every one of its movements frightens me, a fear that is made worse by my sense that the cage that holds it looks makeshift, so when William takes a step closer to the bars I try to pull him back but he agitatedly motions me away and I release my grasp. And it’s not like any of the other creatures, whether the monkeys who sought to ingratiate themselves for whatever scraps they might be given or the other dismal animals each as abject and
Once in an attempt to divert him I persuade him to view an exhibition of mechanical toys and curiosities and in the back room of a shop we see a soldier marching, a bear playing a drum, a fiddle player, and a trickster playing hunt the dice but in truth all are a little tawdry and their cleverness of invention makes little impression on him. Then one day as we take the bridge across the river a man hands us a bill that we think is for some miracle cure or foolish entertainment that springs up everywhere as if the city must constantly entertain its citizens with what is base and ignoble. But Will stops to read it and it invites ‘those desirous of beholding the wonders of nature’ to view the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London. And for a second I think Will might remonstrate with the hawker of these printed bills and tell him, as I have heard him tell others who imprison a creature which has the right to live unchained, that they commit a crime against Heaven. But instead of rage he says nothing and hands me the paper to pocket and then we proceed with our walk and we pass the Royal Academy school where Will tells me about his student days and then journey to Westminster Abbey where not much more than a boy he practised drawing amidst the tombs and effigies. He grows quiet again as he looks about his old haunts and shows me the things he drew and I start to believe that he is considering the path his life has followed since those days and I do not know whether those young dreams he harboured are replaced by better ones or if it feels to him as if they are broken into fragments and trampled over. The Abbey is cold to the eye and to the body with its marble and stone and neither candle or gilt can stop me shivering and I am glad when he takes my arm and we return to the sunlight.
It’s an impulse that I think he will deny when I ask him if we can go and look at the menagerie and I suppose my request is a foolishness that will offend him but I am desperate to find something that will distract him and I am frightened, because already I have seen the signs, that he will slip away from me into despondency. And I think even his anger is better than the state where nothing can prompt him into feeling and all is governed by a heavy lethargy. But I am surprised when he makes no objection. And when we pay our admission money I worry that as Christ did he will think of throwing over everything he considers wicked and an abomination of life and all that is holy. He is sullen as we view the strange creatures that have been brought from distant countries and the excited chatter of the other spectators is an irritant to him and when he sees a great hulk of a bear chained to a wall he compares it loudly to the toys we viewed and then to those unfortunates who once were held in this damp and dismal place. People are looking at him and so I try to calm him and tell him it was a mistake for us to come here but as we are about to go he breaks free from the gentle link of my arm and wanders to a cage under the high walls where ravens blacken the ramparts.
I stand at his shoulder as he stares at it but says nothing. The creature unlike anything I have ever seen is all sinewy strength and its brindled tawny body is coloured like the tail of the comet. It prowls from one side of the miserable cage to the other and then it turns and looks at us, its eyes burning with a yellow fire that speaks of some hidden fury, some intense hatred. Every one of its movements frightens me, a fear that is made worse by my sense that the cage that holds it looks makeshift, so when William takes a step closer to the bars I try to pull him back but he agitatedly motions me away and I release my grasp. And it’s not like any of the other creatures, whether the monkeys who sought to ingratiate themselves for whatever scraps they might be given or the other dismal animals each as abject and
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