TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

The Grand Piano Room

My wife, though drunk, honestly pitied me. I ran out into the corridor; right there had been the door to the grand piano room, and then further down the corridor had been my office and at the end were the stairs to the studio. And on this side, further along, there had been a snooker room and my father’s office. ‘Lucy.’ My wife was in exactly the same place I had left her, in the doorway, with a silly smile on her face. ‘Where are my paintings?’ ‘What paintings?’ ‘The ones I used to paint, in oil?’ ‘So, you’re a painter?’ My wife let out a nervous laugh. ‘I used to paint, you should remember.’ ‘When? A hundred years ago?’ ‘It’s not important. Where are they?’ ‘They could be in the kitchen, on the cupboard.’ I went in to the kitchen. My daughter, in her nightie, was quarrelling with the same man. I forced myself past them without a word. There were, indeed, some rolled-up, dusty, cobwebbed canvasses. I cleaned off the cobwebs and had a look; nothing had changed. They were still the same: new, bright and free. The paintings had been made in the studio, in the large empty hall fragrant with sun and paint. It was only there that they could have been painted. It was the best proof

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