The Museum of Final Journeys Read Online Free PDF

revealed them to be ghosts, a touch of air might have turned them to dust. The sleeves were empty, the hems ended in no slippers and no feet. Their fans stirred no air. It occurred to me that the little toylike object, which had caught my eye in my friend the tea-estate manager's house, might once have stood among these ghosts, their plaything, before it was spirited away by some light-fingered viewer. And so they had no vehicle, not even a miniature palanquin.
    I found myself invaded by their poetic melancholy and would have liked to linger, fancying myself a privileged visitor to a past world, but the caretaker gave a warning cough to remind me of his presence and our purpose in being here; I turned round to see him holding open another door to another chamber.
    And so I was marched through one filled with masks of wood, straw, leather and clay, painted and embellished with bone, shells, rings, strings and fur, masks that threatened or mocked or terrified, then one of textiles—printed, woven, dyed and bleached, gauze, muslin, silk and brocade—and after that one of footwear—fantastical, foolish, foppish—followed by one of headwear—caps and bonnets of velvet, straw, net and felt ... What kind of traveller had this been who desired and acquired the stuff of other people's lands and lives? Why did he? And how had it all arrived here to make up this preposterous collection?
    The guide, smiling enigmatically, would give me no clues. Now he was showing me cases filled with weapons of war—curved swords, stout daggers, hilts engraved with decorative patterns that concealed murderous intent—and now he was glancing to see my reaction to a display of porcelain and ceramic—delicate receptacles painted with scenes of arched bridges and willow groves, mountains and waterfalls, or abstract patterns of fierce intricacy in bold and brilliant colours.
    I felt sated, wanted to protest, hardly able to take in any more wonders, any more miracles, but detected a certain ruthlessness to my guide's opening of door after door, ushering me on and on, much further than I wished to go. I had thought of him as aged and frail, but his pride and determination to impress me seemed to give him a strength and stamina I would not have imagined possible and it was I who was exhausted, overcome by the heat, stopping to mop my face, even stumbling, yet also curiously unwilling to admit defeat and leave what I had undertaken incomplete.
    And there was a chamber we came across every now and then that I would have gladly lingered in, the chamber of scrolls and manuscripts, for instance, which I would have wished to examine more closely. Was this scroll Chinese, or Japanese or Korean? And what did it say, so elegantly, in letters like bees and dragonflies launched across the yellowed sheets, only half unrolled, with faded seals scattered here and there like pressed roses, the insignia of previous owners? Did states, lands, governments exist that produced documents of marriage, property or cases presented in court with such artistry—settlements of wills and disputes, perhaps decrees and laws and declarations of war and peace? What were they? I compared them in my mind to the tattered files that piled up in heaps on my desk, and marvelled. But only insects examined the ones here, eating their way through papery labyrinths, creating intricate tracks before vanishing, leaving behind networks of faint channels the colour of tea, or rust, and small heaps of grey excrement.
    Whole worlds were encrypted here and I looked to my guide for elucidation but he only gave a slight shrug as if to say: what does it matter? The young master collected them and that was what made them precious.
    And there was still more to see: cases that held all manner of writing materials with inks reduced to powder at the bottom of glass containers, pens and quills no one would ever use again, seals that no longer stamped; a chamber of clocks where no sand seeped through the