Apocalyptic fantasies; End of the world -- Fiction; Natural disasters -- Fiction; Science fiction
But what intensely interested me in that room was a big thing standing
at the maroon-and-gold wall between wardrobe and dressing-table--that
gilt frame--and that man painted within it there. It was myself in oils,
done by--I forget his name now: a towering celebrity he was, and rather
a close friend of mine at one time. In a studio in St. John's Wood, I
remember, he did it; and many people said that it was quite a great work
of art. I suppose I was standing before it quite thirty minutes that
night, holding up the bits of candle, lost in wonder, in amused contempt
at that thing there. It is I, certainly: that I must admit. There is the
high-curving brow--really a King's brow, after all, it strikes me
now--and that vacillating look about the eyes and mouth which used to
make my sister Ada say: 'Adam is weak and luxurious.' Yes, that is
wonderfully done, the eyes, that dear, vacillating look of mine; for
although it is rather a staring look, yet one can almost see the dark
pupils stir from side to side: very well done. And there is the longish
face; and the rather thin, stuck-out moustache, shewing both lips which
pout a bit; and there is the nearly black hair; and there is the rather
visible paunch; and there is, oh good Heaven, the neat pink cravat--ah,
it must have been _that--the cravat_--that made me burst out into
laughter so loud, mocking, and uncontrollable the moment my eye rested
there! 'Adam Jeffson,' I muttered reproachfully when it was over, 'could
that poor thing in the frame have been you?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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