Читать книгу Lost Heritage - Robert Blake - Страница 5

Oxford, 1923

That afternoon Professor Spencer received me at her home. While she was serving tea in elegant china cups accompanied by butter pastries and Belgian chocolates given to her by a student, I was admiring her magnificent drawing room furniture. She must have spent years looking for each piece so that they all fitted together perfectly, as if it were the mechanism of a Swiss watch.

The walls were filled with numerous paintings, most of which were of grand hunting scenes. In the centre, a beautiful white marble fireplace presided over the room, and in front of it was a magnificent leather sofa flanked by two patterned armchairs in pastel colours. To the left of the fireplace there was a huge globe of the earth next to a walnut shelf containing some of the great classics of Russian literature. At the other end of the room, under the main window, a large grand piano completed the decor.

‘Why don’t you take a seat, and I'll tell you everything I know,’ she said after sitting down in her armchair.