Brideshead from within
Charles provides very vivid description of a place his friend lived, and a place where he himself was really happy. Most of his attention was given to a terrace which, due to his words, “was the final consummation of the house’s plan; it stood on massive stone ramparts above the lakes, so that from the hall steps it seemed to overhang them, as though, standing by the balustrade, one could have dropped a pebble into the first of them immediately below one’s feet. It was embraced by the two arms of the colonnade; beyond the pavilions groves of lime led to the wooded hill- sides. Part of the terrace was paved, part planted with flower-beds and arabesques of dwarf box; taller box grew in a dense hedge, making a wide oval, cut into niches and interspersed with statuary, and, in the centre, dominating the whole splendid space rose the fountain”. In few years Charles will paint four beautiful pictures of the house, and the picture of this place was considered by his friends the best one.
Beauty to be painted
Charles has decided to portray Julia, so her beauty will be remembered through years. the day they start working “had been an afternoon of low cloud and summer squalls, so overcast that at times I had stopped work and roused Julia from trance in which she sat”, everything seemed to be against Charles’ decision – weather with bad light and Julia’s low spirits.
A room to die in
When old lord Flyte came home it became clear that he was near to die so he has made up his mind to bring the last months in the house of his parents. He has chosen a room for himself: “it was a splendid, uninhabitable museum of Chippendale carving and porcelain and lacquer and painted hangings; the Queen’s bed, too, was an exhibition piece, a vast velvet tent like the baldachino at St Peter’s”. it seems that he wanted to spend his last days in the environment he has spent his life – luxurious and rich-looking
