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PARTISAN REVIEW
spiritual nourishment of one's voyaging. And that, he profoundly
hoped, would be what it was for Tansy. . . . Here were the poor,
here were the ruins, but the great difference between these man–
made ruins and the ruins of Pompeii was that the ruins for the most
part had not been found worth preserving or had been carried
away.... Life itself was something like the desolation that comes
to one eternally wading through the poem of The Waste Land with–
out understanding it. Awestruck by his callousness, his ignorance, his
lack of time, his fear that there will be no time to build anything
beautiful, fear of eviction, of ejection, man no longer belongs to or
understands the world he has created. Man had become a raven star–
ing at a ruined heronry. Well, let him deduce his own ravenhood
from
it
if he could.
They came to the Casa dei Vetti, or the Domus Vettorium, the
most famous house in Pompeii, which partly accounted for their
guide's haste; Pompeii closed at five and they had a late start.
Signor Salacci produced a key, unlocked a door, and they en–
tered: "You want lady-wife to see pictures? Only marrieds can see,"
he explained. "Each house a little town: garden; theatre: vomitory,
to vomit, and a love room inside."
"And to the right of the entrance is a Priapus," observed Roder–
ick, reading from the guidebook, "only shown by request. However,
Tansy," he continued, "here 'one has the best possible picture of a
Pompeiian noble's house since the beautiful paintings and marble
decorations have been left as they were in the Peristyle which has
been furnished with plants. One portion of the house has been pro–
vided with a roof and windows so as to protect the surprisingly well
preserved and most wonderfully executed murals depicting mytho–
logical scenes. There is a kitchen containing cooking utensils, and ad–
joining a locked private cabinet (obscene paintings) which belonged
to the master of the house and here too is a statue of Priapus in–
tended as part of the fountain... .' I hope," Roderick added, this
is not what your mother showed you on the stereopticon."
"Basin for goldfish," the guide was saying, "Peacocks and dogs.
Put phosphorus on stone. White columns and a blue sky. Difficult
to believe ... original... ." Signor Salacci sighed.
"You mean-?"
"Water jets and flying birds and phosphorus in the pavement,"
