Re: Vauxhall Gardens
In a sense, those illustrious lace and velvet, cringing silhouettes, who contemptuously eye, but show no symptom of their disapproval where they perch, affluent little bellbirds on mist-soaked moss benches, are invisible to him, as well. He relishes the many-faced sight, the incandescence of color in daylight, how he feels behind a patina, a firmament as he strolls. He doesn't eye the gilded architecture nor the exotic displays for the idle, underworked. He listens, keenly, a grand listener, chin down at this angle better able to affix his ear to harken, a skilled observer.
“It was once a crime to steal a maidenhead. The woman was thought to have lost a limb, an irretrievable piece of herself. The culprit would be executed or exiled. I don’t believe such a practice exists anymore, at least not where I live, where crime is rampant and justice a joke… “
The crow corner of his cat-eyes twitch, as she speaks of dreams. Oh! THE DREAM, MERRILY, MERRILY… and the right hand of his, a phantom limb, inserts into his pocket. Clenches,
The porticos draped in red remind him.
“Indeed, of a great many things have I dreamt of late… “