Chapter 9. Gallery of Visions.

March 9, 1891

For the first time in a long time, seventy-five-year-old Adrian Elliott felt the unusually burning and cool breath of death nearby—throughout his life, he had spent a lot of time thinking about death, but even more often he depicted it, either on the canvases of his mind or on the physically tangible matter with corresponding paints: at the moments described, Adrian Elliott, perhaps for the first time in his entire life, thought about the very path that he was for some reason forced to walk through the limits of this truly ruthless sublunary world—he felt like a real artist, an artist of his own life and in his own life! It seemed to him that only in these minutes he was able to fully and truly comprehend the destiny prepared for him by the Almighty Himself—to be and to be a great artist!

Slowly leaving the limits of the very exquisitely decorated room that served as a bedroom for his flesh, but not for his mind, for it never rested, Adrian Elliott cautiously entered the spaces of a long, dimly lit corridor, on both sides of which there were a truly countless number of paintings, and at the end of which, in turn, there was a window covered with a dense curtain—wanting to disperse this truly mysterious twilight as soon as possible, despite the apathetic thoughts completely dominant in his soul, he intended to reach the light, and accordingly to free the aforementioned window from that dense anthracite curtain.

Step by step, with a slow, trembling gait—that's how he approached the first of the paintings, which was now located on the right side of his being: his extremely exhausted, exhausted from being in this ruthless and cruel world, eyes were constantly tearing up, thereby not allowing Adrian Elliott to see in the smallest details that exceptional creation—an idea or a material personification of this idea?—which once so skillfully escaped from his masterful brush… The feeling of the closeness of death burned his flesh with a kind of agonizing cold, the nature of which he was not able to explain to himself at these moments: Adrian Elliott was perfectly aware that he was now living, perhaps, the last minutes on this earth, but… but he so wanted to reach in this twilight the essence of the curtained window, and accordingly to free the bright, radiant light locked in the shackles of this curtain. Yes, he, Adrian Elliott—the one who does not see the light at the end of his path—decided at all costs to get to the end of the corridor, to the window, to free the freedom of light from a kind of prison: but is there light there?! Frantically striving for light, Adrian Elliott was never able to cultivate a truly deep and mature question in his mind—is there light where Adrian is looking for it?! Is there light behind this curtain or does darkness reign there? Why did he decide that there was light there, behind this curtain?! Why did he decide that the light wanted to enter his house?! Continuously striving to free, as he believed, the light from some kind of imprisonment, Adrian Elliott never asked himself the question: does this light need to be freed? He, Adrian Elliott, is in the dark, not the light—he, Adrian Elliott, needs to be freed, but by no means the light. The light lives its own life, independent of Mr. Elliott—Mr. Elliott, on the other hand, cannot exist without light: the light does not care at all whether the windows of that artist will be open, but the artist does care…

So where is Adrian Elliott going? To the light? No, he is moving toward the abyss of the unknown and his feet, like Charon's boats, are carrying his flesh, but, perhaps, not his name into the endless abyss of the always calm Lethe… And perhaps he is approaching death?! But the tears in his eyes testify that he does not want, does not wish to die: his soul and mind rejoice—they understand that death is right. Death is a line that sums up a person's life, and if it is absent in this universe, then what is this life given to us for, what is its meaning and essence?! The meaning of life is enclosed in death and he who does not realize this or does not wish to realize it is a fool.

So, having stopped next to the first of the paintings—it must be mentioned that each of them was recognized by his contemporaries as an exceptional masterpiece—Adrian Elliott suddenly felt as if in the depths of his being, like small sparks on a long-dried ash heap, fragments of former emotions, ideas, memories, and visions, deeply covered with the dust of time, began to revive: this is how Adrian Elliott made his first step in the amazing gallery of human visions, which, like dreams, continuously replacing one another, flashed motley before his already significantly faded blue eyes—and were they not dreams?! What evidence is there that all this was true?! Most of the witnesses, the witnesses of his youth, were already dead, however, just as he himself would soon die—is all this true or a figment of his imagination? Perhaps his imagination in its death throes is continuously painting these colorful scenes in order to embellish the bitterness of sorrow—sorrow for the minutes of life that are constantly leaving? And maybe it was not he who painted these paintings at all? Maybe he is not the author of these paintings? Then who is he? And why are these paintings in his house? Why, then, did the question of who he is arise in his mind only before the very moment when he had to leave this world?! No! He, Adrian Elliott, is the author of these masterpieces! He painstakingly worked on each of them—he clearly understands this, even if the confirmation of this is so shaky and transparent visions: but this is not one vision, there is a whole gallery of them! Amazing! At the very hour when death, like a hungry predator near a victim, with traces of saliva on its lips, wanders near the future prey, a person, who is this prey and victim, relives the best and most pleasant visions, as well as memories, as if the last exhalation of his being frantically craves to show him what exactly he is losing—to show him so that he begins to regret what he did not do for one reason or another…