Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

the door like bees around the entrance of a hive, Mr Canning in a coat of thick green velvet, the serene host. The gentlemen bow, clasp hands, utter their pleasantries, yet their mood seems sombre, abstracted, as though in their heads they carried delicate pyramids of thought that must, in every moment, be attended to. They grip their canes, hurry into the marble hall. The last arrives, horses spattered to the bit with mud; a fat gentleman is carried wincing over the puddles to the stone steps.

'My dear Bentley.'

'Greetings, Canning. Filthy weather.'

James spies on them through the banisters above the hall. Canning glances up, sees him and nods, nothing more, yet an intelligence has passed between them: Canning will see him later, James will come to him. Everything is perfectly understood.

The men talk below, their heads in clusters, then follow Canning towards the west wing. The house swallows them. A servant scrubs away their footprints.

James waits in Molina's studio. The painting of the twins is finished, propped unceremoniously against the painter's bed.

Molina says: 'I was afraid for the twins to see it. Painting is not a kind art. Art is not kind, not polite. They came and looked at it, looked a long time. They are very happy. So happy they are crying. Then I am crying also because I know that the painting is true. I have thought of you, my friend, of painting you. I think it will be very hard but I would like to try. Shall we try, eh?'

They try. James stands with his back to a tatty brown drape. On

a table beside him Molina places an open book, smuggled from the library while Mr Collins attended to a call of nature. It is a rare edition of Bartolomeo Eustachio - Tabulae Anatomicae Clarissimi Viri - the open page shows a male figure, feet planted into the lower corners of the page, hands pressing against the sky. The head is turned to one side and has the appearance of an angry moon. All the outer skin has been removed to show the blood vessels. In the drawing these appear like a complicated system of roots. For an anatomical illustration it is weirdly expressive. The man seems all too sensible of his condition, pained and disgusted by it as though he were the victim of some outrageous and inexplicable surgical procedure. His exposed heart is a parcel, clumsily wrapped. Even the tiny vessels of his cock have been exposed. It hangs, a small dark spike between the flayed musculature of his thighs. Above all, he has the air of one waiting, flexed in horror, for the return of his tormentor. Molina finds it fitting for the portrait. He does not say why. James assumes it is to reflect his interest in such things.

Molina draws, first by the light of day, then with the help of the candles. The first sketches he throws aside; the later ones he nods at cautiously. James glances at the broken clock, says: 'I must go now.'

Molina nods. 'The gentlemen wiU be expecting you.'

A servant is waiting for him in his room. Clothes he has not seen before are laid out on the bed: a suit of red satin, silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles. He has never worn clothes of such quality. He looks in the mirror. The servant waits, careful not to impose his own reflection. When James turns to him, he leads the way to where the gentlemen are gathered, a room on the ground floor smelling of pipe smoke and chemicals. A single strong light stands on the table. Next to it, the complicated focus of the room, is a device, slender at the base, and at its top a shining glass bowl. Inside the bowl is a dove, sometimes still, sometimes

beating its wings against the glass. The base of the glass is splashed with the bird's excreta. The gentlemen are gathered around the table. Several wear spectacles; one of them scribbles notes on a sheet of parchment. Mr Canning stands by the machine holding a handle attached to a pair of leather-cased pistons at the base of the machine. By means of these pistons the air will be removed from the glass. Mr Canning calls the glass bowl 'the receiver'. Beyond the light's frayed edge the room is very dark. There may or may not be others in the darkness. James steps forward. Faces turn to see who has entered, their glances linger a moment, then return to the experiment. They have seen it before a dozen times but Canning's machine, built with his own hands, is a peculiarly luxurious specimen.

'Now, gentlemen,' says Canning. He begins to turn the handle. Immediately the bird reacts to the change in its atmosphere. A last wild attempt at flight, to burst the glass. A furious knotted energy. Then an invisible hand settles on its back, pressing it to the bottom of the receiver. Some of the gentlemen nod their heads. The one who was writing looks up through spectacles, mutters: 'Ah, yes, yes.' Another gazes away into the darkness. Mr Canning turns the handle; the bird is convulsed, its wings half spread, flattened against the glass. The body distorts. Spasms are increasingly marked. Then they weaken to a kind of feeble trembling. The only sound is the steady clicking of the ratchets at the top of the pistons. The bird is still. Mr Canning lets go of the handle. There is silence, then the noise of sobbing. Someone outside the light. Mr Canning smiles. He has the face of a wise angel. He reaches up and adjusts a mechanism at the top of the receiver. There is a hiss of air, the bird is instantly revived, though its movements are drunken. Mr Canning reaches in, carefully removes the bird from the glass, cups it tenderly in his hands. The twins, dabbing at their tears but reassured now, drift from the shadows. Mr Canning hands the bird to Ann. It appears quite