The Calligrapher. Edward Docx
Читать онлайн.| Название | The Calligrapher |
|---|---|
| Автор произведения | Edward Docx |
| Жанр | Зарубежные любовные романы |
| Серия | |
| Издательство | Зарубежные любовные романы |
| Год выпуска | 0 |
| isbn | 9780007404810 |
THE
CALLIGRAPHER
EDWARD DOCX
To Emma
‘Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit;’
John Donne
‘I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of
durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art.’
Vladimir Nabokov
‘He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky.
“I know myself,” he cried, “but that is all –” ’
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Contents
12 The Dream (‘Image of her …’)
28 A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day
29 A Valediction, Forbidding Mourning
I might as well confess up front that I am in league with the Devil. It’s not a big deal – a stint of social nihilism here, a stretch of marital sabotage there – and I’m afraid it goes with the job. Seek for long enough and you will find that most human pursuits have a patron saint; but, of all the arts in the world, only calligraphy has a patron demon. His name is Titivillus. And he is a malicious little bastard.
Imagine a medieval monastery – somewhere in the high Pyrenees, say, with a great arched gate and tall white stone walls. In one corner of the cloistered courtyard there is a tower. Up the spiral staircase, nearer to the light and away from the damp, is usually to be found a large, round room. This is the scriptorium. And here, seated on stools, bent over their desks, arranged in a horseshoe around the senior supervisor, the armarius, are the monks.
In their right hands they have quills, and in their left they hold their