American fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories, American
In every one of these pictures, the dominant figure, whether it stood
for Lincoln, Napoleon, Washington, or some other general or ruler;
whatever uniform or regalia clothed its human shape, had the same head.
The heads of the fighting men in all these pictures were those of
dogs, all alike in any one picture, but differing from one to another;
terriers or wolf-hounds or mastiffs or what not. The heads of any men
not soldiers were those of oxen or sheep or horses or some other mild
sort of animal. The head of the dominant figure I then took to be
invented, legendary, fabulous--oh, that’s not the word I want.
“Mythological?” I suggested, the only interruption I interjected into
his entire narrative.
Yes, mythological, he returned. I thought it was a mythological
creature. The long-jawed head, like a hound’s; the little pointed
yellow beard under the chin; the black, naked ears, like a hairless
dog’s ears and yet not doggy, either; the ridge of hair on top of
the skull; the triangular shape of the whole head; the close-set,
small, beady, terribly knowing eyes; the brilliant patches of color
on either side of the muzzle; all these made a piercing impression of
individuality and yet seemed not so much actual as mythological.
It takes a great deal longer to tell what we saw on that third floor
than it took to see it. All round the galleries under the pictures were
cases of drawers, solidly built in one length like a counter and about
as high. Thwaite went down one side of the gallery and Rivvin down the
other, pulling them out and slamming them shut again. All I saw held
photographs of pictures. But Rivvin and Thwaite were taking no chances
and looked into every drawer. I had plenty of time to gaze about me
and circulated at a sort of cantering trot around the green-velvet
miniature sofas and settees placed back to back down the middle of the
floor-space. It seemed to me that Mr. Hengist Eversleigh was a great
master of figure and landscape drawing, color, light and perspective.
As we went down the duplicate staircase at the other corner from where
we came up Thwaite said:
“Now for those bedrooms.”
By the stair we found another valet’s or footman’s apartment,
sitting-room, bedroom and bathroom, just like the one by the other
stair. And there were four more between them, under the studio and over
the lounging-rooms.
On the east and west sides of the building were “the” bedrooms, twelve
apartments, six on each side; each of the twelve made up of a bedroom,
a dressing-room and a bathroom.
The beds were about three feet long, and proportionately narrow and
low. The furniture, bureaus, tables, chairs, chests-of-drawers and
the rest, harmonized with the dimensions of the beds, except the
cheval-glasses and wall-mirrors which reached the ceilings. The
bathtubs were almost pools, about nine feet by six and all of three
feet deep, each a single block of porcelain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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