Piranesi Read online

  Reading over what I have just written, I have realised something. I have used two systems to number the years. How could I not have noticed this before?

  I am guilty of bad practice. Only one system of numbering is needed. Two introduces confusion, uncertainty, doubt and muddle. (And is aesthetically unpleasing.)

  In accordance with the first system I have named two years 2011 and 2012. This strikes me as deeply pedestrian. Also I cannot remember what happened two thousand years ago which made me think that year a good starting point. According to the second system I have given the years names like ‘The Year I named the Constellations’ and ‘The Year I counted and named the Dead’. I like this much more. It gives each year a character of its own. This is the system I shall use going forward.

  Statues

  entry for the eighteenth day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  There are some Statues that I love more than the rest. The Woman carrying a Beehive is one.

  Another – perhaps the Statue that I love above all others – stands at a Door between the Fifth and Fourth North-Western Halls. It is the Statue of a Faun, a creature half-man and half-goat, with a head of exuberant curls. He smiles slightly and presses his forefinger to his lips. I have always felt that he meant to tell me something or perhaps to warn me of something: Quiet! he seems to say. Be careful! But what danger there could possibly be I have never known. I dreamt of him once; he was standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child.

  The Statue of a Gorilla that stands in the Fifth Northern Hall always catches my eye. He is depicted squatting on his Lower Limbs, leaning forward and propping himself up on his Powerful Arms and Fists. His Face fascinates me. His Great Brow overshadows his Eyes and in a human person this expression would be called a scowl, but in the Gorilla it seems to mean the exact opposite. He represents many things, among them Peace, Tranquillity, Strength and Endurance.

  There are many others that I love – the Young Boy playing the Cymbals, the Elephant carrying a Castle, the Two Kings playing Chess. The last I will mention is not exactly a favourite. Rather it is a Statue, or, to be more exact, a pair of Statues, that never fails to arrest my attention whenever I see it. The two Statues flank the Eastern Door of the First Western Hall. They are approximately six metres tall and have two unusual features: firstly, they are much larger than the other Statues in the First Western Hall; secondly, they are incomplete. Their Trunks emerge from the Wall at their Waists; their Arms reach back to push mightily; their Muscles swell with the effort and their Faces are contorted. They are not comfortable to contemplate. They seem to be in pain, struggling to be born; the struggle may be fruitless and yet they do not give up. Their Heads are extravagantly horned and so I have named them the Horned Giants. They represent Endeavour and the Struggle against a Wretched Fate.

  Is it disrespectful to the House to love some Statues more than others? I sometimes ask Myself this question. It is my belief that the House itself loves and blesses equally everything that it has created. Should I try to do the same? Yet, at the same time, I can see that it is in the nature of men to prefer one thing to another, to find one thing more meaningful than another.

  Do trees exist?

  entry for the nineteenth day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  Many things are unknown. Once – it was about six or seven months ago – I saw a bright yellow speck floating on a gentle Tide beneath the Fourth Western Hall. Not understanding what it could be, I waded out into the Waters and caught it. It was a leaf, very beautiful, with two sides curving to a point at each end. Of course it is possible that it was part of a type of sea vegetation that I have never seen, but I am doubtful. The texture seemed wrong. Its surface repelled Water, like something meant to live in Air.

  PART 2

  THE OTHER

  Batter-Sea

  entry for the twenty-ninth day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  This morning at ten o’clock I went to the Second South-Western Hall to meet the Other. When I entered the Hall he was already there, leaning on an Empty Plinth, tapping at one of his shining devices. He wore a well-cut suit of charcoal wool and a bright white shirt that contrasted pleasingly with the olive tones of his skin.

  Without looking up from his device he said, ‘I need some data.’

  He is often like this: so intent on what he is doing that he forgets to say Hello or Goodbye or to ask me how I am. I do not mind. I admire his dedication to his scientific work.

  ‘What data?’ I asked. ‘Can I assist you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘In fact, I won’t get far if you don’t. Today the subject of my research is’ – at this point he looked up from what he was doing and smiled at me – ‘you.’ He has a most charming smile when he remembers to use it.

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘What are you trying to find out? Do you have a hypothesis about me?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. It might influence the data.’

  ‘Oh! Yes. That is true. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s natural to be curious.’ He placed his shining device on the Empty Plinth and turned around. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  I sat on the Pavement, cross-legged, and waited for his questions.

  ‘Comfortable?’ he said. ‘Good. Now tell me. What do you remember?’

  ‘What do I remember?’ I asked, confused.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As a question it lacks specificity,’ I said.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said. ‘Try to answer it.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I suppose the answer is everything. I remember everything.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘That’s rather a large claim. Are you sure?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Give me some examples of the things you remember.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘suppose you were to name a Hall many days journey from here. Providing that I had visited it before, I could immediately tell you how to get there. I could name every Hall you would need to travel through. I could describe the notable Statues you would see on the Walls, and, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, I could tell you their positions – which Wall they stood against, whether North, South, East or West – and how far along the Wall they stood. I could also enumerate all the …’

  ‘What about Batter-Sea?’ asked the Other.

  ‘Um … What?’

  ‘Batter-Sea. Do you remember Batter-Sea?’

  ‘No … I … Batter-Sea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I do not understand …’

  I waited for the Other to explain, but he said nothing. I could see that he was observing me closely and I was sure that this question was crucial to whatever research he was conducting, but as to how I was supposed to answer it, I had not the least idea.

  ‘Batter-Sea is not a word,’ I said at last. ‘It has no referent. There is nothing in the World corresponding to that combination of sounds.’

  Still the Other said nothing. He continued to gaze at me intently. I gazed back, troubled.

  Then: ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, light suddenly dawning. ‘I see what you are doing!’ I started to laugh.

  ‘What am I doing?’ asked the Other, smiling.

  ‘You need to find out if I am telling the truth. I just said that I can describe the way to any Hall that I have previously visited. But you have no way of judging the truth of my claim. For example, if I were to describe the Path to the Ninety-Sixth Northern Hall, you would not know if my directions were accurate because you have never been there. So you have asked me a question with a nonsense word in it – Batter-Sea. Very cunningly you have chosen a word that sounds like a place. A place that is battered by the Sea. Now if I were to say that I remembered Batter-Sea and then described the way there, you would know I was lying. You would know I was simply boast
ing. You have put this in as a control question.’

  ‘That’s it exactly,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I am doing.’

  We both laughed.

  ‘Have you more questions for me?’ I asked.

  ‘No. All done.’ He was about to turn away to enter the data in his shining device, but something about me caught his attention and he gave me a puzzled sort of look.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Your glasses. What happened to them?’

  ‘My glasses?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They look slightly … odd.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The arms are wrapped round and round with strips of something,’ he said. ‘And the ends hang down at the sides.’

  ‘Oh! I see,’ I said. ‘Yes! The arms of my glasses keep breaking off. First the left. And then the right. The salt-laden Air corrodes the plastic. I am experimenting with different methods of mending them. On the left arm I have used strips of fish leather and fish glue and on the right arm I have used seaweed. That is less successful.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I imagine it would be.’

  In the Halls beneath us the incoming Tide struck a Wall. Boom. It withdrew, surged forward through the Doors and struck the Wall of the Next Chamber. Boom. Boom. Boom. Withdrew again; surged forward again. Boom. The Second South-Western Hall thrummed like the plucked string of an instrument.

  The Other looked anxious. ‘That sounded really close,’ he said. ‘Oughtn’t we to be getting out of here?’ He does not understand the Tides.

  ‘There is no need,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ he said. But he was not reassured. His eyes widened and his breathing became more shallow and rapid. He kept glancing from Door to Door as though expecting to see Water pouring in at any second.

  ‘I don’t want to get caught,’ he said.

  Once the Other was in the Eighth Northern Hall. A strong Tide from the Northern Halls rose in the Tenth Vestibule, followed moments later by an equally strong Tide from the Eastern Halls in the Twelfth Vestibule. Vast quantities of Water poured into the surrounding Halls, including the one where the Other was. The Waters plucked him up and carried him away, sweeping him through Doors and battering him against Walls and Statues. Several times he was completely immersed, and he expected to drown. Eventually the Tides cast him up on the Pavement of the Third Western Hall (a distance of seven Halls from where he began). That is where I found him. I fetched him a blanket and hot soup made of seaweed and mussels. As soon as he was able to walk, he took himself off without a word. I do not know where he went. (I never really know.) This happened in the Sixth Month of the Year I named the Constellations. Since then the Other has been afraid of the Tides.

  ‘There is no danger,’ I told him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  Boom. Boom.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In five minutes, the Tide will reach the Sixth Vestibule and mount the Staircase. The Second Southern Hall – two Halls east of here – will be flooded for an hour. But the Water will be no more than ankle deep and it will not reach us.’

  He nodded, but his anxiety levels remained high and he left a short while after.

  In the early evening I went to the Eighth Vestibule to fish. I was not thinking about my conversation with the Other; I was thinking of my supper and of the beauty of the Statues in the Evening Light. But as I stood, casting my net into the Waters of the Lower Staircase, an image rose up before me. I saw a black scribble against a grey Sky and a flicker of bright red; words drifted towards me – white words on a black background. At the same time, there was a sudden blare of noise and a metallic taste on my tongue. And all of the images – no more than fragments or ghosts of images really – seemed to coalesce around the strange word, ‘Batter-Sea’. I tried to get hold of them, to bring them into sharper focus, but like a dream they faded and were gone.

  A white cross

  entry for the thirtieth day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  If you examine my previous Journal (Journal no. 9) you will see that I wrote very little in the final month of last year and the first month and a half of this one. (This sometimes happens for a reason that I will explain below.) During this period an event took place, which I have been meaning to write about. I shall do so now.

  It was the very depths of Winter. Snow was piled on the Steps of the Staircases. Every Statue in the Vestibules wore a cloak or shroud or hat of snow. Every Statue with an outstretched Arm (of which there are many) held an icicle like a dangling sword or else a line of icicles hung from the Arm as if it were sprouting feathers.

  There is a thing that I know but always forget: Winter is hard. The cold goes on and on and it is only with difficulty and effort that a person keeps himself warm. Every year, as Winter approaches, I congratulate Myself on having a plentiful supply of dry seaweed to use as fuel, but as the days, weeks and months stretch out I become less certain that I have sufficient. I wear as many of my clothes as I can cram onto my body. Every Friday I take stock of my fuel and I calculate how much I can permit Myself each day in order to make it last until Spring.

  In the Twelfth Month of last year the Other suspended his work on the Great and Secret Knowledge and cancelled our meetings because he said it was too cold to stand about talking. My fingers were numb with cold – which caused my handwriting to deteriorate. Eventually I stopped writing in my Journal altogether.

  About the middle of the First Month a Wind came up from the South. It blew for days without ceasing and though I tried hard not to complain about it, I found it something of a trial. It blew stinging Snow into the Halls. It blew on me at night in my bed in the Third Northern Hall. It howled in the Vestibules, catching up handfuls of loose snow and making them into little ghosts.

  Not everything about the Wind was bad. Sometimes it blew through the little voids and crevices of the Statues and caused them to sing and whistle in surprising ways; I had never known the Statues to have voices before and it made me laugh for sheer delight.

  One day I rose early and went to the Forty-Third Vestibule. The Halls that I passed through were grey and dim, with just a suggestion of Light in the Windows – the idea of Light, more than Light itself.

  My intention was to gather seaweed, both for food and fuel. Normally I must wait until Spring, Summer and Autumn to dry seaweed. Winter is too cold and wet. But it had occurred to me that if I could hang the seaweed up (perhaps across a Doorway) then the Wind would dry it quickly. The only difficulty would be in securing the seaweed so that it did not blow away. I had thought of three different ways to do this and was eager to try all of them to see which would prove the most efficient.

  As I crossed the Eleventh Western Hall, the Wind knocked me from one Paving Stone to another as if I were a chess piece on a board. (I made some highly original moves!)

  I descended the Staircase in the Forty-Third Vestibule and entered the Lower Hall, the one that lies directly beneath the Thirty-Seventh South-Western Hall. One effect of the Wind was that the High Tides were much higher and more violent than usual; the Low Tides were conversely lower. It was Low Tide just then and the Sea had drawn back so far that the Hall was entirely empty of Water (which hardly ever happens). It was strewn with remnants of the Tide: seaweed, which streamed in the Wind like little banners, and pebbles, starfish and shells, which rattled across the Stone Pavement as the Wind chased them.

  It was early, a handful of moments after Dawn. I could see the pale golden Sky reflected in some of the Windows in the Courtyard. Ahead of me the grey, restless Waters were framed in the Doorway that led to the next Hall. The wildness of the Water contrasted with the severity of the lines of the Doorway.

  I bent down and began to gather the cold, wet seaweed. Even this simple task was made more difficult by the Wind, since so much of my energy had to be expended on staying in the same place. The Wind also caught the strands of seaweed; they lashed my hands and made them cold
and sore.

  After a while I straightened Myself to ease my back. Once again, I raised my eyes to the Doorway that led to the next Hall.

  I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. Its whiteness was a blazing whiteness; it far outshone the Wall of Statues behind it. It was beautiful but I did not understand it. The next moment brought enlightenment of a sort: it was not a cross at all but something vast and white, which glided rapidly towards me on the Wind.

  What could it be? It must be a bird, but if I could see it at such a great distance, then it must be a bird of much greater size than the birds I was accustomed to. It swept on, coming directly towards me. I spread my arms in answer to its spread wings, as if I was going to embrace it. I spoke out loud. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! was what I think I meant to say, but the Wind took my breath from me and all I could manage was: ‘Come! Come! Come!’

  The bird sailed across the heaving Waves, never once beating its wings. With great skill and ease it tipped itself slightly sideways to pass through the Doorway that separated us. Its wingspan surpassed even the width of the Door. I knew what it was! An albatross!

  Still it continued, straight towards me, and the strangest thought came to me: perhaps the albatross and I were destined to merge and the two of us would become another order of being entirely: an Angel! This thought both excited and frightened me, but still I remained, arms outstretched, mirroring the albatross’s flight. (I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!) My heart beat rapidly.

  The moment that he reached me – the moment that I thought we would collide like Planets and become one! – I gave out a sort of gasping cry – Aahhhh! In the same instant, I felt some sort of pent-up tension go out of me, a tension I did not know I had until that moment. Vast, white wings passed over me. I felt and smelt the Air those wings brought with them, the sharp, salty, wild tang of Faraway Tides and Winds that had roamed vast distances, through Halls I would never see.