Page:Diamonds To Sit On.pdf/123

 THE MUSEUM OF FURNITURE

in

himself: ‘To think that people once lived here! How grand ! ’ As Liza walked into the Museum she knocked against a man who was staring at a malachite column and was wistfully saying to himself : ‘ Just imagine it. People once lived here.’ She looked at the column with awe and then went upstairs. She wandered about for ten minutes in rooms that were so small and had such low ceilings that every person who came in looked like a giant. The rooms were stuffed with furniture, and as she looked at it with forced admiration she began to think : ‘ How nice that Paul the First arm-chair would look if only it were in our room next to the mattress.’ She would have liked to rest in one of these chairs, but it was against the regulations. She looked down, and to her astonishment she could see through the thick sheets of glass set into the floor. She saw an enormous hall in which there was more furniture and where some visitors were wandering round. She had never seen a hall under her feet before, and she stared down in amazement. Suddenly she noticed two men ; they were her new friends. Comrade Bender and the elderly bald gentleman. ‘ That’s good,’ she said to herself, ‘ it won’t be so dull now,’ and she immediately ran down­ stairs. She found herself in a large red drawing­ room in which there were about forty pieces of fur­ niture. It was walnut furniture with bent legs. She could not find a way out from the room, so she had to hurry back through the round room that had a glass ceiling, past the brocade arm-chairs of the Italian Renaissance, past the Dutch cupboards, past an enor­ mous Gothic bed, and at last found herself in another large room. She walked to the other end, where Comrade Bender was having an animated conversation with his friend. As Liza came up to them she heard Bender say: ‘ The furniture is very stylish, but I don’t think it is what we want.’