IN THE FARTHEST CORNER of the smallest practice room, a room so small and nearly forgotten that even the curls of rosin on the floor had gathered dust, there was a little door, like one covering a cupboard, and behind this door is where my husband kept his failed compositions. If ever another human eye should see these, he once confessed, I would die of humiliation. And when he said this to me, I took pity on him, for indeed his eyes watered and his lip trembled, and for an instant it did seem possible that his huge distended heart might collapse upon itself in shame. So though I crept repeatedly into his practice rooms, I never once disturbed that little cupboard door.
But upon my return, I noted that the cupboard door stood ajar, as if opened from the inside by a very faint draft. And I was overpowered. By my own curiosity. My hands shook, my breath faltered, and the door opened to reveal not sagging shelves but a passageway ablaze with light. And rooms, yes, more rooms (had Lucie been present she would have received a deadly look, but Lucie, too, has been sent away), unlike those I had ever seen inside my husband's house. Rooms without windows, but lit from within by such brilliant colors, the strange color and light that emanates from expensive things: walrus tusks, snuff bottles, paintings so black that nothing could be discerned but a cheekbone or an eye, tapestries of rape, swords with sharkskin hilts, tiny jeweled boxes whose interiors rattled. I wanted to touch everything at once.
When I reached out to feel the tapestry, I saw her: long neck, seven strings, melancholy face. She was turned halfway to the wall, as if in embarrassment, propped between a footstool and a glass case displaying postage stamps. And selfishly I felt only joy: it was not Griselda, trapped in this airless place. But who was she, with her weak jaw and her melancholy expression?