Sunday 11 May 2014

XI: Kshesinskaya's Apartments, Midnight

Midnight finds you back at Kshesinskaya's flat. The place is empty now, and silent.

She leads you up the stairs to her loft room. The moon shines in through the skylight, making everything glow a faint silver. You can hear distant sounds from the city beyond - late night revellers, the rumblings of trams.

There are three paintings in the room.

The first, a very small painting, is of a key, held by an old man or woman's hand.

The second, very large, depicts a dark, featureless figure standing behind a kind of veil.

The third and final one is another arrangement of something like the qliphoth. Ten trees in a forest, with a lurid, starry sky above them. In the centre there is a figure, turned away, with his back to the viewer.

"Here are my pieces," the ballerina says. She appears to be studying your reactions. "What do you make of them?"