Who had said that, about perfection and reality being in the same place? Here was something which her consciousness could not wretchedly devour, and by making it part of her fantasy make it worthless. It occurred to her that here at last was something real and something perfect. She marvelled, with a kind of gratitude, that they were all still here, and her heart was filled with love for the pictures, their authority, their marvellous generosity, their splendour. These children step through a wood hand in hand, their garments shimmering, their eyes serious and dark, their two pale heads, round full buds, like yet unlike.ĭora was always moved by the pictures. Dora stopped at last in front of Gainsborough’s picture of his two daughters. Vaguely, consoled by the presence of something welcoming and responding in the place, her footsteps took her to various shrines at which she had worshipped so often before: the great light spaces of Italian pictures, more vast and southern than any real South, the angels of Botticelli, radiant as birds, delighted as gods, and curling like the tendrils of a vine, the glorious carnal presence of Susanna Fourment, the tragic presence of Margarethe Trip, the solemn world of Piero della Francesca with its early-morning colours, the enclosed and gilded world of Crivelli.

She felt that the pictures belonged to her, and reflected ruefully that they were about the only thing that did. She could look, as one can at last when one knows a great thing very well, confronting it with a dignity which it has itself conferred. She wandered a little, watching with compassion the poor visitors armed with guide books who were peering anxiously at the masterpieces. Passing between them now, as through a well-loved grove, she felt a calm descending on her.

She climbed the stairs and wandered away into the eternal spring-time of the air-conditioned rooms.ĭora had been in the National Gallery a thousand times and the pictures were almost as familiar to her as her own face. She wondered if she should try telephoning Sally again but she no longer wanted to see Sally.

It was as good a place as any other to decide what to do.

Dora hadn’t especially intended to visit the National Gallery, but once she was there she went in.

The Bell by Iris Murdoch