В самом первом сообщении блога я обещала опубликовать некоторые письма моих друзей по преписке.
С гордостью представляю Миссис Толл (фамилия изменена): когда мы познакомились в 1999 году, она работала учителем английского языка и литературы в одной из школ Англии.
Письма из сборника "Monster Letters" (2001 год):
The Hermitage in London
Dear Valya,
Here we are crossing the courtyard with fountains at Somerset House. I had forgotten how big it is, and its wonderful position overlooking the Thames, which looks cold and miserable today. We go into the main building, with high arched ceilings, carved plater and chandeliers, and we hand over our tickets for the exhibition.
The first thing I see is a live picture of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, recorded by live camera, and I am surprised to see there is no snow. I stare for a little while, and then we get busy looking. Well, words alsmost fail me. I knew Catherine was a great and powerful ruler, but the sheer scale of her acquisitions, and their beauty left me amazed.
Where do I begin? There were a number of rooms of exhibits, and like the Blake exhibit, it was all carefully lit.
One room had cases of snuffboxes, all of exquisite workmanship, and with gold, diamonds and other jewels. These were arranged in cases, and magnifying glasses put out so you cold look at them more closely. They had pictures and portraits on them, and were wonderful to look at. Pieces of her dinner services were on display, again of great beauty, and fine colours. The full dinner services amounted to hundreds and hundreds of pieces. Also with the snuffboxes were chatelaines, exquisite pieces worn at women's waists for their keys and household things like scissors. Again the workmanship and the value of the gems is hard to imagine.
Another room had weapons on display, including the lovely miniature ones she had made for her grandchildren. The handles of the swords were made of precious metals and jewels, and the blades were chased and engraved. Some of her clocks were on display, and Roger and I stared long and hard at these, attracted by the magnificence of the ornamentation.
I have bought you some postcards by the way, including one of the clocks, and the snuffboxes, so you can see their beauty for yourself, not with my clumsy words. There were magnificent teapots, writing tables and chess sets, tables, chairs and even one of her parasols. There were medals, cameoes, and carved gemstone in cabinets of extraordinary design. I noted with interest that a lot of the goods were of English and French origin - she shopped on an international scale! I noted that many of the weapons were made in Tula, south of Moscow, and that the Imperial pottery was set up by an Englishman.
My particular favourites were a cabinet of the most wonderful hair ornaments, which came from China. These were made of gold, in the most intricate and wonderful designs, featuring birds, animals and flowers. One large and elaborate piece had a tiny, jewelled frog on it, a minute thing no larger than half a fingernail, and perfect in every respect. Two ladies standing next to me were trying to find the frog, and without a word, I gently tapped with my nail at the place, and they were delighted to see it.
As I mentioned at the Blake exhibition, when people are very interested, the atmosphere gets very quiet, with occasional oohs and aahs of delight, and it was the same here. I should add that we retrace our steps at the end, just to look at some of the lovely things again. Then we went and bought you post cards, and I hope you like them. I have also got you a guide to the Gallery, and some other post cards of London.
Roger has a cold, so we went out, and went down the road to an Italian sandwich bar, staffed by good looking young men, where we had a cappuccino each (coffee with hot frothy milk, and chocolate sprinkled over it, but you probably had it in America) and a pecan Danish.
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