Unknown Artist Vanitas Still Life painting

blackout curtains over all the windows instead. That night, for the last time, Saladin Chamchawala played his old role of doorman, dressed up in an English dinner-jacket, and when the guests came -- the same old guests, dusted with the grey powders of age but otherwise the same -- they bestowed upon him the same old pats and kisses, the nostalgic benedictions of his youth. "Look how grown," they were saying. "Just a darling, what to say." They were all trying to hide their fear of the war, _danger of air-raids_, the radio said, and when they ruffled Saladin's hair their hands were a little too shaky, or alternatively a little too rough.
Late that evening the sirens sang and the guests ran for cover, hiding under beds, in cupboards, anywhere. Nasreen Chamchawala found herself alone by a food-laden table, and attempted to reassure the company by standing there in her newsprint sari, munching a piece of fish as if nothing were the matter. So it was that when she started choking on the fishbone of her death there was nobody to help her, they were all crouching in corners with their eyes shut;

Martin Johnson Heade Magnolia Blossoms on Blue Velvet painting

back. And you can tell my father that I'll do the same to every other dirty spy of his." Livilla confirmed this the next day when she came to complain that Castor had beaten her; she said that he had beaten her because she told him how disgusted she was with him for striking a man who could not strike back and for insulting his rather. Tiberius believed them. He said nothing to Castor but put up a bronze statue of Sejanus in Pompey's theatre, an extraordinary honour to be paid to any man in his lifetime. This was understood to mean that Castor was out of favour with Tiberius in spite of his protectorship (for Sejanus and Livilla had circulated their version of the quarrel ) and that Sejanus was now the one person whose favour was worth courting. Many replicas of the statue were therefore made, which his partisans put in a place of honour in their halls on the right hand of Tiberius's statue: but the statues of Castor were rarely seen. Castor's face showed his resentment so clearly now whenever

Pierre Auguste Renoir The Umbrellas painting

cakes; 'Admirable. Admirable, Pollio.' Now and then he will pause and ask: 'Now which is the right word to use here? Shall I say that the returning envoys persuaded or excited this tribe to revolt? Or shall I say that the account they gave of the situation influenced the tribe in its decision to revolt? Actually, I think, they gave agreatest historian of our age; and not above asking advice in small points of style from men of taste, either. Why, this word influenced I gave him myself.'" Pollio said: "That's right. My cook's too good. Next time I'll borrow yours and a few dozen bottles of your so called Falernian wine and then I'll get really honest criticism." Sulpicius made a gesture of deprecation: "Gentlemenn impartial account of what they had seen.' Then a murmur goes up from the couches, 'Influenced, Pollio. Use inftuenced'. ‘Thank you, friends,' he says, 'you are very kind. Slave, my penknife and pen! I'll change the sentence at once if you'll forgive me.' Then he publishes the book and sends each of the diners a free copy. They say to their friends, chatting at the Public Baths: 'Admirable book, this. Have you read it? Pollio's the

Theodore Robinson On the Housatonic River painting

found herself armed, unawares; the heroine of a fairy story turning over in her hands the magic ring; she had only to stroke it with her fingertips and whisper the charmed word, for the earth to open at her feet and belch forth her titanic servant, the fawning monster who would bring her whatever she asked., but bring it, perhaps, in unwelcome shape. She had no interest in me that evening; the jinn rumbled below us uncalled; she lived apart in a little world, within a little world, the innermost of a system of concentric spheres, like the ivory balls laboriously carved in China; a little problem troubling her mind - little, as she saw it, in abstract terms and symbols. She was wondering dispassionately and leagues distant from reality, whom she should marry. Thus strategists hesitate over the map, the few pins and lines of coloured chalk