on this spot i pause before the campagna marble fireplace in the library and wonder if i’m having fun yet, if today is some transcendent day that will stand out in my memory besides every odd inconsequential thing i seem to stockpile like a wary and manic bird. i stop and wonder if time will stop sharply and throw back a dazzling chandelier, if the house will sink suddenly into the sea.

this room was constructed in another country and brought here by steamship and reassembled. it doesn’t really matter what significance these objects take on while i look at them; this house and its contents have outlived the fortune that made it. i move through each room, often without noticing myself or my reactions, fascinated by the bulk and ugliness of the various tapestries.

still, i am surprised by the incredible cupidity that raised these alabaster walls, gilded these cielings. here are thousands of things caught forever in one moment, tourists flocking with their cameras, circulating through the rooms and exhibit spaces with little variation, sometimes forced to change direction by velvet barriers or minor floods. i am no different.