Piranesi

by Susanna Clarke

And You. Who are You? Who is it that I am writing for? Are You a traveller who has cheated Tides and crossed Broken Floors and Derelict Stairs to reach these Halls? Or are You perhaps someone who inhabits my own Halls long after I am dead?

This experience led me to form a hypothesis: perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation.

The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end.

No matter what the situation he is only ever “the other”. Someone else always takes precedence. He is always second fiddle. And he knows it. It eats him up.

Are you Matthew Rose Sorensen? I am … I stuttered. I am … At first I could get no further than this. I am … I am the Beloved Child of the House. Yes. Immediately I felt calmer. Was any other identity even necessary? I did not think that it was. Another thought struck me. I am Piranesi.

And on Thursday he will watch the Tides pouring in through the Doors and he will scream and scream. And I will laugh and laugh. I will laugh as long and as loud as he laughed at Matthew Rose Sorensen when he brought him here

I picked it up and held it for some time, thinking. I could take it and descend the Great Staircase in the First Vestibule to the Lower Halls. I could throw it into the Tides. I replaced the Gun in the bag and did up the closures. I returned to the Third Northern Hall.

From the way she (or he) holds up the lantern and peers at whatever is ahead, one gets the sense of a huge darkness surrounding her; above all I get the sense that she is alone, perhaps by choice or perhaps because no one else was courageous enough to follow her into the darkness.