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Miscellany These are all of his creations not numerous enough to merit their own pages, or which are displayed apart from everything else. In the show window there sits a painting at a peculiar angle, showing both a man walking through a café's door and a woman at a table, watching him intently. A curl of honey blonde here, a long eyelash there are perhaps her only identifying features as her face is concerned. In her blue-gray eye is a look of marked recognition, her feminine hand tightening on a metal quill within it in anticipation. Sunlight filtered in through the door to fall upon the man stepping through, affording his shady appearance an undeserved light. Also in the window, and displayed more prominently on a table near the sales counter, are a number of dolls. All are female. All have real hair, preserved in a mysterious way that does not effect its real texture. Most of this is black and straight, suspiciously like the artist's; some is red and faintly curled, still more sandy blonde and tightly curled, brunette and curled. . .he'd somehow gotten hair from women, it seemed, though these occurrences are much more rare than instances of his own. Most of the dolls are nude, carved and painted with enough detail that they stand on their own, but only a handful are positioned in such a way that clothes could not be put on them. Some already do have dresses, always modest but rarely extravagant. Seeing how welcoming the clothed ones appear to a child's eye, it seems to serve testament to a sometimes hard-acknowledged fact; there were some artful things Nicholas Ardel could not do. Sewing, especially the sewing of tiny, tiny clothes, was among them. On a bookshelf behind the sales counter (the open layout of the store makes it perfectly accessible) are stocked, mostly, the works of Pyrus Darius; three copies of each issue of his serial publication, 'The Great Annihilator'. These contain stories, poetry and drawings of varied topics, although he is most well-known for his graphic, unforgiving depictions of violent mutilation. cannibalism and so on. That such things can sit without ceremony beside poems of love and devotion is, to say the least, strange. Also stocked are five copies of the artist's book, King Ink, which is a collection of stories and songs, common themes being of love, death and loss. Against the artist's workspace, adjacent to the paintings of salvation, there sits an upright piano in ivory and ebony. Most often a black board is set protectively against its keys. Three golden pedals are arranged for sound manipulation at the bottom. Its legs are thick and styled as might be expected from looking at his furniture, and it is kept obsessively in tune. While no bench remains in front of it permanently, he can often be seen pulling a plain black one from the back to play the instrument, which leaves one to wonder if he intends to sell it after all. Below the salvation paintings sits a marble bench, and upon this bench, alone, there sits a life-sized doll of porcelain and stuffed cloth. Her hair is a mass of dark brown curls spilling down her back; her eyes, large and brown; her face of a delicate beauty, with a full mouth longing through her slight features; her torso is of cloth in order to be soft and welcoming, clad in a simple, white bell-sleeved dress that just passes her knees in sitting; her elbows and knees are bent, allowing her delicate porcelain hands to sit in her lap. All in all, it is a doll of startling realism, leading one to wonder what sort of passion went into her creation.