Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of three Tides. This is something that happens only once every eight years.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

Since the World began it is certain that there have existed fifteen people.

If he requires my presence at other times, he calls out ‘Piranesi!’ until I come. Piranesi. It is what he calls me.

And You. Who are You? Who is it that I am writing for?

I dreamt of him once; he was standing in a snowy forest and speaking to a female child.

Birds are not difficult to understand. Their behaviour tells me what they are thinking. Generally it runs along the lines of: Is this food? Is this? What about this? This might be food. I am almost certain that this is. Or occasionally: It is raining. I do not like it.

So this, as far as I can tell, is what the birds told me. A message from afar. Obscure Writing. Innocence eroded.

Everything we’ve just said? We’ve said it all before.’

I want you to promise me that you won’t try to speak to them. Instead you must hide. Keep out of their way. Don’t let them see you.’

I chose this Vestibule as the starting point, the place from which everything else is reckoned.

This is what I call a Distributary World – it was created by ideas flowing out of another world.

‘Do the Statues exist because they embody the Ideas and Knowledge that flowed out of the other World into this one?’

However my hair is a different matter. Over the years, as it has grown longer, I have interlaced it with pretty things that I have found or made: seashells, coral beads, pearls, tiny pebbles and interesting fishbones. Many of these little ornaments are bright, shiny and have eye-catching colours. All of them rattle when I walk or run.

Shortly afterwards Ovenden abandoned mathematics and began a PhD in anthropology at the University of Manchester under Arne-Sayles’s supervision.

I resolve to take better care of Myself

It does not matter that you do not understand the reason. You are the Beloved Child of the House. Be comforted. And I am comforted.

D’Agostino told a friend that she wanted to go to university to study Death, Stars and Mathematics. Inexplicably the University of Manchester didn’t offer such a course,

PIRANESI This being what the Other calls me. (But I do not think that it is my name.)

Suddenly he knelt and began to write rapidly. No one has ever written to me before.

Oh, you talk about being a scientist and a disciple of reason – and most of the time you are. But you’re also a romantic.

Words and phrases that pulsate with mysterious energy – words such as ‘Manchester’

Are you Matthew Rose Sorensen?

Hush now! I said, Do not be afraid. You are safe. Go back to sleep. I will take care of us both.

‘I visited him in mid-November,’ I said. ‘It was just after four, a cold blue twilight.’

‘Battersea,’ I said. ‘You asked me once if I remembered Battersea. And now I do.’

And so for this reason I have decided to go with Raphael.

I took one last look at the Eternal House. I shivered. Raphael took my hand. Then, together, we walked into the corridor.

I tell them what I told Jamie Askill: that I was in a house with many rooms; that the sea sweeps through the house; and that sometimes it swept over me, but always I was saved.