Daniel Ridgway Knight paintings

Daniel Ridgway Knight paintings
Eric Wallis paintings
Edmund Blair Leighton paintings
kinsman. Each as he came into the room made first for the plovers’ eggs, then noticed Sebastian and then myself with a polite lack of curiosity which seemed to say: ‘We should not dream of being so offensive as to suggest that you never met us before.’
‘The first this year,’ they said. ‘Where do you get them?’
‘Mummy sends them from Brideshead. They always lay early for her.’ When the eggs were gone and we were eating the lobster Newburg, the last guest arrived.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t get away before. I was lunching with my p-p-preposterous tutor. He thought it ‘was very odd my leaving when I did. I told him I had to change for F-f-footer.’
He was tall, slim, rather swarthy, with large saucy eyes. The rest of us wore rough tweeds and brogues. He had on a smooth chocolate-brown suit with loud white stripes, suède shoes, a large bow-tie and he drew off yellow,

Federico Andreotti paintings

Federico Andreotti paintings
Fra Angelico paintings
Frederic Edwin Church paintings
the luggage vans. In half an hour we were ready to start and in an hour we started. My three platoon commanders and myself had a carriage to ourselves. They ate sandwiches and chocolate, smoked and slept. None of them had a book. For the first three or four hours they noted the names of the towns and leaned out of the windows when, as often happened, we stopped between stations. Later they lost interest. At midday and again at dark some tepid cocoa was ladled from a container into our mugs. The train moved slowly south through flat, drab main-line scenery.
The chief incident in the day was the - C.O.’s ‘order group’. We assembled in his carriage, at the summons of an orderly, and found him and the adjutant wearing their steel helmets and equipment. The first thing he said was: ‘This is an Order Group. I expect you to attend properly dressed. The fact that we happen to be in a train is immaterial.’ I thought he was going to send us back but, after glaring at us, he said, ‘Sit down.’

Pino paintings

Pino paintings
Pablo Picasso paintings
Pierre-Auguste Cot paintings
would be after that fall, poor boy”; for the library being at the foot of a flight of steps, Sir Alfred and the nurse naturally thought he had fallen down them.
A long time had past and Tom had not been allowed to see anyone as he had concussion of the brain. At last he was allowed to see someone and nurse asked him who he would choose for his first visitor. “Smith” was the reply. In came Smith very shyly. Why did you fling me down on that stone” demanded Tom.

Chapter IV

Now Smith was not usually a butler. He was really a professional thief and so he soon thought of what to say, so turning to the nurse he said “I think I had better go for the excitement of seeing anybody after such a long time of quiet has made him a bit mad,” with that he left the room.

Thomas Kinkade almost heaven painting

Thomas Kinkade almost heaven paintingThomas Kinkade A Peaceful Retreat paintingJohn Collier Lady Godiva painting
And so it began again. They talked for an hour. At length Major Gordon lost patience and said: “Very well. Am I to report that you refuse all cooperation with Unrra?”
“We will cooperate in all necessary matters.”
“But with regard to the Jews?”
“It must be decided by the Central Government whether that is a necessary matter.”
At length they parted. On the way Bakic said: “Dey mighty sore with you, Major. What for you make trouble with dese Jews?”
“Orders,” said Major Gordon, and before going to bed drafted a signal: “Jews condition now gravely distressed will become desperate winter stop Local authorities uncooperative stop Only hope higher level.”
A fortnight passed. Three aeroplanes landed, delivered their loads and took off. The R.A.F. officer said: “There won’t be many more of these trips. They usually get snow by the end of October.”
The partisans punctiliously checked all supplies and never failed to complain

William Bouguereau Biblis painting

William Bouguereau Biblis paintingWilliam Bouguereau The Two Sisters paintingWilliam Bouguereau Two Sisters painting
what has happened.”
“So far as the press of Neutralia is concerned, nothing happened.”
The Poet had shaved that morning and shaved ruthlessly. The face he thrust near Scott-King’s was tufted with cotton-wool. Now he withdrew it and edged away. Scott-King joined the group of delegates.
“Well,” said Miss Bombaum, “I seem to have missed a whole packet of fun last night.”
“I seem to have missed it too.”
“And how’s the head this morning?” asked the American scholar.
“Seems like you had fun,” said Miss Bombaum. verandah above the square, showering copious blessings on the palms and fountains and trams and patriotic statuary. He approached the group in the foyer with the intention of making himself
“I went to bed early,” said Scott-King coldly. “I was thoroughly over-tired.”
“Well, I’ve heard it

Lord Frederick Leighton Perseus and Andromeda painting

Lord Frederick Leighton Perseus and Andromeda paintingLord Frederick Leighton Daedalus and Icarus paintingLord Frederick Leighton Actaea the Nymph of the Shore painting
long, entitled The Last Latinist, to commemorate the coming tercentenary of Bellorius’s death. It appeared in a learned journal. Scott-King was paid twelve guineas for this fruit of fifteen years’ devoted labour; six of them he paid in income tax; with six he purchased a large gun-metal watch which worked irregularly for a month or two and then finally failed. There the matter might well have ended.
These, then, in a general, distant view, are the circumstances—Scott-King’s history; Bellorius; the history of Neutralia; the year of Grace 1946—all quite credible, quite humdrum, which together produced the odd events of Scott-King’s summer h. Let us now “truck” the camera forward and see him “close-up.” You have heard all about Scott-King but you have not yet met him.
Meet him, then, at breakfast on a bleak morning at the beginning of the summer term. Unmarried assistant masters at Granchester enjoyed the use of a pair of collegiate rooms in

Thomas Gainsborough Landscape with Cattle painting

Thomas Gainsborough Landscape with Cattle paintingSandro Botticelli Venus and Mars paintingSandro Botticelli Pallas and the Centaur painting
We listened to the news,” said Lucy. “Nothing from Madras.”
“They’ve probably got orders to shut down on it. I.D.C. have got the BBC in their pocket.”
“I.D.C.?” I asked.
“Imperial Defence . They’re the new hush-hush crypto-fascist department. They’re in up to the neck with I.C.I. and the oil companies.”
“I.C.I.?”
“Imperial Chemicals.”
“Roger,” said Lucy, “we really must go if we’re to get anything to eat.”
“All right,” he said. “See you later at the Café.”
I waited for Lucy to say something encouraging. She said, “We shall be there by eleven,” and began looking for her bag among the chintz cushions.
I said, “I doubt if I can manage it.”
“Are we taking the car?” Roger asked.
“No, I sent it away. I’ve had him out all day.”
“I’ll order some taxis.”
“We could drop Basil and John somewhere,” said Lucy.
“No,” I said, “get two.”
“We’re going by way of Appenrodts,” said Lucy.

Gustav Klimt The Virgins (Le Vergini) painting

Gustav Klimt The Virgins (Le Vergini) paintingGustav Klimt The Fulfillment (detail I) paintingGustav Klimt The Embrace (detail_ square) painting
For the civilized man there are none of those swift transitions of joy and pain which possess the savage; words form slowly like pus about his hurts; there are no clean wounds for him; first a numbness, then a long festering, then a scar ever ready to reopen. Not until they have assumed the livery of the defence can his emotions pass through the lines; sometimes they come massed in a wooden horse, sometimes as single spies, but there is always a Fifth Column among the garrison ready to receive them. Sabotage behind the lines, a blind raised and lowered at a lighted window, a wire cut, a bolt loosened, a file disordered—that is how the civilized man is undone.
I returned to the house and darkened the rooms once more, relaid the dust-sheets I had lifted and left everything as it had been.

The manuscript of Murder at Mountrichard Castle lay on the chest of drawers in my club bedroom, reproaching me morning, evening and night. It was promised for publication in June, and I had never before disappointed my publishers. This year, however, I

Unknown Artist Muhammad Ali pop art painting

Unknown Artist Muhammad Ali pop art paintingUnknown Artist Bruce Lee paintingUnknown Artist Audrey Hepburn painting
Mrs. Kent-Cumberland had suddenly become more emotional and more parsimonious. She was liable to unprecedented outbursts of tears, when she would crush Gervase to her and say, “My poor fatherless boy.” At other times she spoke gloomily of death duties.

V

For some years in fact “Death Duties” became the refrain of the household.
When Mrs. Kent-Cumberland let the house in London and closed down a wing at Tomb, when she reduced the servants to four and the gardeners to two, when she “let the flower s go,” when she stopped asking her brother Ted to stay, when she emptied the stables, and became almost fanatical in her reluctance to use the car, when the bathwater was cold and there were no new tennis balls, when the chimneys were dirty and the lawns covered with sheep, when Gervase’s cast-off clothes ceased to fit Tom, when she refused him the “extra” expense at school of carpentry lessons and mid-morning milk—“Death Duties” were responsible.
“It is all for Gervase,” Mrs. Kent-Cumberland used to explain. “When he inherits, he must take over free of debt, as his father did.”

Caravaggio Amor Vincit Omnia painting

Caravaggio Amor Vincit Omnia paintingRaphael Saint George and the Dragon paintingPablo Picasso The Old Guitarist painting
bound to be a success. I’ve discussed it all with Beckthorpe—that’s the chap who’s selling me the farm. You see the crop has failed every year so far—first coffee, then seisal, then tobacco, that’s all you can grow there, and the year Beckthorpe grew seisal, everyone else was making a packet in tobacco, but seisal was no good; then he grew tobacco, but by then it was he ought to have grown, and so on. He stuck it nine years. Well if you work it out mathematically, Beckthorpe says, in three years one’s bound to strike the right crop. I can’t quite explain why but it is like roulette and all that sort of thing, you see.”
“Yes, darling.”
Hector gazed at her little, shapeless, mobile button of a nose and was lost again ... “Play up, play up,” and after the match the smell of crumpets being toasted over a gas-ring in his study ...

II

Later that evening he dined with Beckthorpe, and, as he dined, he grew more despondent.

William Bouguereau The Broken Pitcher painting

William Bouguereau The Broken Pitcher painting
William Bouguereau Love Takes Flight painting
Caravaggio Adoration of the Shepherds painting
POSTCARD
So now we are back and sang old lang syne is that how you spell it and I kissed Arthur but wont speak to Robert and he cried not Robert I mean Arthur Although Mr. McMaster had lived in Amazonas for nearly sixty years, no one except a few families of Shiriana Indians was aware of his existence. His house stood in a small savannah, one of those little patches of sand and grass that crop up occasionally in that neighbourhood, three miles or so across, bounded on all sides by forest.
The stream which watered it was not marked on any map; it ran through rapids, always dangerous and at most seasons of the year impassable, to join the upper waters of the River Uraricoera, whose course, though boldly delineated in every school atlas, is still largely so then Bertie apologized to most of the people hed insulted but Miss P. walked away pretending not to hear. Goodness what a bitch.

Vincent van Gogh Irises painting

Vincent van Gogh Irises paintingWassily Kandinsky Farbstudie Quadrate paintingGustav Klimt The Bride painting
Angela, because (as cannot be made too clear) she was a thoroughly nice girl, was always charming to him, and he returned her interest gratefully. She was, however, a part of his past, not of his future. His regard was sentimental but quite unaspiring. She was a piece of his irrecapturable youth; nothing could have been more came to him as a surprise that was by no means welcome.
They had left a particularly crowded and dull dance, and were eating kippers at a night club. They were in the intimate and slightly tender mood which always developed between them when Angela had said in a gentle voice:
“You’re always so much nicer to me than anyone else, Tom; I wonder why?” and before he could deflect her—he had had an unusually exacting day’s and the dance had been stupefying—she had popped the question.

Rembrandt Belshazzar's Feast painting

Rembrandt Belshazzar's Feast paintingLord Frederick Leighton Leighton Flaming June paintingRaphael La Belle Jardiniere painting
rather afraid of Imogen’s father. She was afraid Henry was going to be like him. How charming she looks now. She cannot understand why all the boys aren’t in love with her. When Mrs. Hay was young, they would have been. None of Basil’s friends seemed quite the “marrying sort” somehow. Now if only Basil would marry someone like Imogen Quest.....
“But do you know, I think I’ve met Ernest Vaughan? Or at least someone pointed him out to me once. Didn’t you, Swithin?”
“Yes. You said you thought he was rather .”
“Imogen!”
“My dear.”
“I think he is. Isn’t he short and dirty with masses of hair?”
“Always drunk.”
“Yes, I remember. I think he looked very charming. I want to meet him properly.”
“Imogen, you can’t, really. He is too awful.”
“Didn’t he do those pictures in Richard’s room? Richard, will you invite me to meet him one day?”
“No, Imogen, really I couldn’t.”

Edgar Degas Woman Combing Her Hair painting

Edgar Degas Woman Combing Her Hair paintingFrederic Edwin Church Autumn paintingTitian Sacred and Profane Love [detail] painting
but paused when T.'s T.'s Tom bucked at him. Anastasia too seemed shocked by my deed. "Violence!" Stoker appealed to the crowd. "No respect for law and order!" People stirred; even White-helmet, though he'd come between us in my behalf, bent to assist his sooted comrade and grumbled that the man had after all been simply doing his duty.
"Tomorrow the Revised New Syllabus," I said to My Ladyship. "Today the stick."
The other white helmet now escorted to me Hedwig Sear -- at her request, it turned out, who had observed from the viewing-stand my entry. She was gowned in black, her face veiled; Anastasia hurried to her, and they wept together as Three-T grazed. The shock of Croaker's assault, it seemed, had cleared Hedwig's mind; she spoke lucidly and quietly, impeded only by her at the critical condition of her husband. Dr. Sear lay in the Infirmary, she told me, at the point of death. Her one wish was to join him, but she'd come to Founder's Hill at his request in order to honor Max and give me a message. The circumstances of her attack she recounted with extraordinary calm -- despite the fact that

Fabian Perez Flamenco painting

Fabian Perez Flamenco paintingFabian Perez Flamenco Dancer II paintingFabian Perez christine painting
The day being fine, though chill, the herd was outside in the pounds, officially supervised by one of Reginald Hector's aides. But that fellow (chosen by lot, I learned later, when the ex-Chancellor forsook the independent life) was either irresponsible or incompetent, and nowhere in sight. Once I'd got over my surprise at how much smaller everything seemed than in my kidship, I groaned at the evidences of neglect: the barn and fences needed whitewash; the pounds were filthy, the feed-cribs bare. Worst of all, the herd itself was depleted by half -- owing, I could only hope, to ignorant neglect and not some keeper's bloody appetite -- and the survivors were ragged and pinched as inmates of a concentration-campus. In vain I looked about for Hedda O.T.S.T., for Becky's Pride Sue or Tommy's Thomas: I recognized no one. Anastasia hung back, not to intrude upon my . With smarting eyes I rushed into the pound; the does scattered like wild things. Could that be B.'s P. Sue, a pinched and gimpy crone? As I wept at the likelihood, and with chagrin that they knew me no more than I them, a strong bleat came from the barn, a bucky challenge; and after it -- head couched and hooves a-pound -- Redfearn's Tom, charging from

Claude Monet Girls In A Boat painting

Claude Monet Girls In A Boat paintingPietro Perugino Madonna with Child paintingClaude Monet Woman with a Parasol painting
likelihood soon EAT me, if not the entire University? That incorporated in its circuitry all the dreams and definitions that tricked studentdom into believing in its own existence, and in the reality of its flunkage? Some symbol! But Bray clicked his tongue (and sundry buttons on the console) and forestalled these objections by reminding me that, the lift having automatically reascended, there was no way out of the Mouth except through the Belly, and no way into the Belly, as far as he knew, save by WESCAC's admittance, upon inspection of our credentials. "Why not put your card in the slot?" he suggested. "That doesn't commit you to anything, especially since you've eradicated the signatures. It's as good a way as any to challenge the , if you take that so seriously. Mine's already in."
I'd not seen him insert it; no matter; jammed my card into the slot, upside down and backwards with reference to its spring-term presentation.
"It seems quite reasonable to me," Bray said, pulling the side-lever, "that the nature of the card doesn't influence the opening of the port, but determines what happens afterwards. If we were Nikolayan agents, for example, I imagine the port would still open, but then we'd be EATen. Don't you agree?"

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rainbow

Joseph Mallord William Turner RainbowFishermen at SeaJohn Singer Sargent Venetian Canal
Rank as was his reek, even in my tolerant nostrils, I asked his pardon with as much humility as was compatible with dignity.
"As you know, Dr. Bray," I said, "I used to believe you were a flunkèd impostor. I don't think you're flunkèd any longer."
"But I may yet be an impostor?" he inquired, I think lightly. "No matter. Is it true you no longer regard yourself as a Grand Tutor? You could make a public statement to that effect, you know, and not go through the Belly. I say this purely from concern for your safety; I have no grudge against you."
I believed him. For one thing, he had no further cause to regard me as a rival, either to his office or to Anastasia's favors, which I would not seek. But some lingering pride forbade me to do quite as he suggested. He might not be what he claimed to be, I told him, but he was not simply an impostor, as I'd formerly maintained; there was something more

Albert Bierstadt paintings

Albert Bierstadt paintings
Andreas Achenbach paintings
Alphonse Maria Mucha paintings
door. "You're probably right. Run along, now."
What happened then is somewhat equivocal. I recognized a number of the exiting visitors as Nikolayan officials from the University Council -- all of them, in fact, except one who covered his face with his hat, and whom I therefore took to be Classmate X. At the same time I chose to think that I'd hit upon the right response to the aide (it suited my general Answer, certainly), and that his directive and gesture with the latch were invitations to pass through. It's true he said "Stop" when I entered, and that Stoker drew and clicked his pistol, cursing when it failed to fire. But it was not unlike Stoker to frighten people thus for sport, and Iwas gating the aide aside somewhat roughly in my haste. In any case no one restrained me, whether because I'd chanced upon the password or because no one finally cared.
Not so Classmate X's colleagues: I saw a number of hands fly into coat-breasts as I slicked up the walk.
"Dr. Chementinski!" I called. "It's George Giles, the Goat-Boy! I have news from Leonid Andreich."

Thomas Kinkade paintings

Thomas Kinkade paintings
Thomas Stiltz paintings
Tamara de Lempicka paintings
Everything I told you before was wrong!" I shouted in his ear. "Be like you used to be -- even worse! Be like Croaker!" My cries resounded in the bell and flushed out several blackbirds; but assert as I might that he must embrace what I'd bid him eschew, I could not stir him.
"Don't sit there like T. L. Sakhyan!" I implored. I was standing on the teeth of two giant gears; as I leaned forward to shout "Wake up!" I caught at a nearby cable to save my balance. It ran to the outside clapper of that central bell, second smallest of the lot, which now was struck one mighty stroke. The Eierkopfian lenses shivered; every bird rushed from the Belfry; Eblis's hands flew to his ears, and he piped a little squeak of pain. More, the after-swing of the bell disturbed his long equilibrium: the escapement teetered back and forth until its passenger fell, just beyond my reach. His lab-coat caught on the knife-edged fulcrum; for a moment I thought him saved; then fulcrum and coat both gave way -- the latter sliced through, the former snapped off where the Infinite Divisor had shaved it almost to nothing --

Vladimir Volegov paintings

Vladimir Volegov paintings
Vincent van Gogh paintings
Vittore Carpaccio paintings
embarrassment to someone high in the administrative hierarchy of the c, who had chosen to commit an extraordinary infanticide in order to be rid of me. The scheme was feasible enough: I would be found dead by some other high official within a few days (assuming they were not all in on the plot): because of the delicate involvement of WESCAC there would be no publicity, lest the Administration be embarrassed or a valuable scientist lost; the Campus Security Police would make a secret investigation, which could be thwarted by any professor-general or vice-chancellor; the findings, if any, would be submitted to the Attorney-Dean, who if he weren't involved in the thing himself would anyhow not prosecute without the Chancellor's consent. What Max regarded as even more significant, however, was that there had been apparently no investigation at all, on the one hand, nor on the other any attempt by the culprit to follow through with his crime. It could be no secret to the guilty party that I had been spirited out of the dumbwaiter, though he might

Caravaggio Taking of Christ painting

Caravaggio Taking of Christ paintingCaravaggio The Incredulity of Saint Thomas paintingArthur Hughes La Belle Dame Sans Merci painting
durn good,"was Greene's new refrain, whether he was speaking of Anastasia, "Miss Sally Ann," New Tammany collegeconvinced that Anastasia had got what she deserved from him ("Flunking hussy, leading me on she hadn't never been touched, and all the time selling it faster'n O.B.G.'s daughter!"), he did not excuse himself of the felony. He was flunked, he saw plainly now; had always been flunked, in every wise. He had despoiled the forests and destroyed their aboriginal inhabitants, vaunted his uncouthness, ridden roughshod with his vulgar ; he had been no husband to his wife (who however he was sure now had betrayed him many times over), no father to his children (wastrels and delinquents though they were). Let them Shaft him; he deserved no less a penalty, even from he saw now to be corrupt from Belfry to Basement. Or, if the whore he'd alleyed and her pimp the false Grand Tutor chose to hush the thing up, let them acquit him: once free he'd divorcehis wife, resign from his enterprises, quit

Caravaggio Amor Vincit Omnia painting

Caravaggio Amor Vincit Omnia paintingRaphael Saint George and the Dragon paintingPablo Picasso The Old Guitarist painting
agreed, though with some misgivings; the gossip one had heard about Virginia Hector's unhappy condition inspired no confidence in her as an accurate reporter.
"Wait." I caught her arm. "Here comes someone else." A door from the corridor had opened and shut, and sharp heels clicked down the aisle next to ours. The lights blinked out entirely for two seconds; in the pause one heard a surge from the crowd outside. The clicking hesitated also, then resumed with the light. But I laid a finger to my lips and drew Anastasia two steps back into our aisle, because while the sound bespoke a woman's tread, it called to my mind the clickish voice of Harold Bray, and I wanted a moment to consider a half-formed notion that accompanied his hateful image: the texts of his false Certificates were cited by their bearers as coming not simply from the Old or New Syllabus, but specifically from the Founder's Scroll; assuredly there were transcriptions of the document which he might have consulted, but my antipathy put nothing past him. If one began with the assumption that he was a fraud and then looked for the motive of his imposture