Violin by Anne Rice

capitals of double rich acanthus leaf, and high high above, see the broken arches of the cove, and between each a painted figure; see the paneled frame around the high stained-glass window.
    Yes, it is day. This is the light of day streaming through the stained glass! It shines on the artfully painted nymphs in panels high above, dancing for us, dancing too in the glass itself. I close my eyes. I open them. I touch the marble. Real, real.
    You are here. You can’t be awakened or taken from this place; it’s true, you see it!
    We climb these stairs, we move up and up amid this palace of Italian stone and stand on a mezzanine floor and face three giant stained-glass windows, each with its own goddess or queen, in diaphanous robes, beneath an architrave, with cherubs in attendance and flowers drawn in every border, festooned, garlanded, held in outstretched hands. What symbols are these? I hear the words, but I see; that is what makes me tremble.
    And at each end of this long dreamy space there is an oval chamber. Come look. Look at these murals here, look at these paintings that reach so high. Yes, richly narrative, and once again the bold classical figures dance, heads are wreathed in laurel, contours full and lush. It has the magic of the pre-Raphaelites.
    Is there no end to combination here, to beauty woven into beauty? No end to cornices and friezes, moldingsof tongue and dart, of proud entablatures, to walls of boiserie? I must dream.
    They spoke in the angel language, Mariana and the other, Lucrece, they spoke that soft singing tongue. And there, I pointed: the gleaming golden masks of those I loved. Medallions set high upon the wall: Mozart, Beethoven; others …, but what is this, a palace to every song you’ve ever heard and been unable to endure without tears? The marble shines in the sun. Such richness as this can’t be made by human hands. This is the temple of Heaven.
    Come down the stairs, down, down, and now I know, with heart sinking, that this must be a dream.
    Though this dream can’t be measured by the depths of my imagination, it is improbable to the point of impossible.
    For we have left the temple of marble and music for a great Persian room of glazed blue tile, replete with Eastern ornament that rivals the beauty above in its sumptuousness. Oh, don’t let me wake. If this can come from my mind, then let it come.
    That this Babylonian splendor should follow on that bold Baroque glory cannot be, but I so love it.
    Atop these columns are the sacrificial ancient bulls with their angry faces, and look, the fountain, in the fountain Darius slays the leaping Lion. Yet this is no shrine, no dead memorial to things lost.
    Behold, the walls are lined in shining étagères that hold the most elegant glassware. A café has been made within these decorative reliefs. Once again I see a floor of incomparable mosaic. Small graceful gilded chairs surround a multitude of little tables. People talk here, move, walk, breathe, as if this magnificence were something they have taken utterly for granted.
    What place is this, what country, what land, where style and color could so audaciously come together? Where convention has been overrun by masters of all crafts. Even the chandeliers are Persian in design, great silver metal sheets with intricate patterns cut out of them.
    Dream or real! I turn and strike the column with my fist. Goddamn it, if I’m not here, let me wake! And then comes the assurance. You are here, most definitely. You are here body and soul in this place, in the Babylonian room beneath the marble temple.
    “Come, come.” Her hand is on my arm. Is it Mariana or the other lovely one—with the round face and large generous eyes—Lucrece? They commiserate, the two in a singing Latinish tongue.
    Our darkest secret.
    Things shift. I’m here all right, because this I’d never dream.
    I don’t know how to dream it. I live for music, live for light, live for colors, yes, true, but what is this, this