Piranesi(3)
2. The skeleton of the Fish-Leather Man was once displayed differently, its bones threaded together with thongs of fish leather, but over time the leather decayed
3. The people who came after the Fish-Leather Man (presumably the People of the Alcove) held human life in such reverence that they patiently collected his bones and laid him with their own dead
Question: when I feel myself about to die, ought I to go and lie down with the People of the Alcove? There is, I estimate, space for four more adults. Though I am a young man and the day of my Death is (I hope) some way off, I have given this matter some thought.
Another skeleton lies next to the People of the Alcove (though this does not count as one of the people who have lived). It is the remains of a creature approximately 50 centimetres long and with a tail the same length as its body. I have compared the bones to the different kinds of Creatures that are portrayed in the Statues and believe them to belong to a monkey. I have never seen a live monkey in the House.
The Fifteenth Person: The Folded-Up Child
The Folded-Up Child is a skeleton. I believe it to be female and approximately seven years of age. She is posed on an Empty Plinth in the Sixth South-Eastern Hall. Her knees are drawn up to her chin, her arms clasp her knees, her head is bowed down. There is a necklace of coral beads and fishbones around her neck.
I have given a great deal of thought to this child’s relationship to me. There are living in the World (as I have already explained) only Myself and the Other; and we are both male. How will the World have an Inhabitant when we are dead? It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies. I have postulated that the House intended the Folded-Up Child to be my Wife, only something happened to prevent it. Ever since I had this thought it has seemed only right to share with her what I have.
I visit all the Dead, but particularly the Folded-Up Child. I bring them food, water and water lilies from the Drowned Halls. I speak to them, telling them what I have been doing and I describe any Wonders that I have seen in the House. In this way they know that they are not alone.
Only I do this. The Other does not. As far as I know he has no religious practices.
The Sixteenth Person
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?
My Journals
ENTRY FOR THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE ALBATROSS CAME TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HALLS
I write down what I observe in my notebooks. I do this for two reasons. The first is that Writing inculcates habits of precision and carefulness. The second is to preserve whatever knowledge I possess for you, the Sixteenth Person. I keep my notebooks in a brown leather messenger bag; the bag is generally stored in a hollow place behind the Statue of an Angel caught on a Rose Bush in the North-Eastern Corner of the Second Northern Hall. This is also where I keep my watch, which I need on Tuesdays and Fridays when I go to meet the Other at 10 o’clock. (On other days I try not to carry my watch for fear that Sea Water will get inside and damage the mechanism.)
One of my notebooks is my Table of Tides. In it I set down the Times and Volumes of High and Low Tides and make calculations of the Tides to come. Another notebook is my Catalogue of Statues. In the others I keep my Journal in which I write my thoughts and memories and make a record of my days. So far my Journal has filled nine notebooks; this is the tenth. All are numbered and most are labelled with the dates to which they refer.
No. 1 is labelled December 2011 to June 2012
No. 2 is labelled June 2012 to November 2012
No. 3 was originally labelled November 2012, but this has been crossed out at some point and relabelled Thirtieth Day in the Twelfth Month in the Year of Weeping and Wailing, to the Fourth Day of the Seventh Month in the Year I discovered the Coral Halls
Both No. 2 and No. 3 have gaps where pages have been violently removed. I have puzzled over the reason for this and tried to imagine who might have done it, but as yet have reached no conclusion.
No. 4 is labelled Tenth Day of the Seventh Month in the Year I discovered the Coral Halls, to the Ninth Day of the Fourth Month in the Year I named the Constellations
No. 5 is labelled Fifteenth Day of the Fourth Month in the Year I named the Constellations, to the Thirtieth Day of the Ninth Month in the Year I counted and named the Dead
No. 6 is labelled First Day of the Tenth Month in the Year I counted and named the Dead, to the Fourteenth Day of the Second Month in the Year that the Ceilings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First North-Eastern Halls collapsed
No. 7 is labelled Seventeenth Day of the Second Month in the Year that the Ceilings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First North-Eastern Halls collapsed, to the last Day of the same Year
No. 8 is labelled First Day of the Year I travelled to the Nine-Hundred-and-Sixtieth Western Hall, to the Fifteenth Day of the Tenth Month of the same Year
No. 9 is labelled Sixteenth Day of the Tenth Month in the Year I travelled to the Nine-Hundred-and-Sixtieth Western Hall, to the Fourth Day of the Fifth Month in the Year the Albatross came to the South-Western Halls
This Journal (No. 10) was begun on the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month in the Year the Albatross came to the South-Western Halls.
One of the drawbacks of keeping a journal is the difficulty of finding important entries again and so it is my practice to use one notebook as an index to all the others. In this notebook I have allocated a certain number of pages to each letter of the alphabet (more pages for common letters, such as A and C; fewer for letters that occur less frequently, for example Q and X). Under each letter I list entries by subject and where in my Journals they are to be found.