[James is a wellspring of solitude, in this place. He rarely troubles himself to seek out company, though he does not go out of his way to eschew it. He is a man unmade by circumstance. James McGraw is not James Flint is not James Barlow, yet he persists in being.
Cobbling together a new existence is not as easy as sitting beside Mr. Gates at a tavern and conjuring up some childhood horror in which to cloak himself. Mr. Barlow is a widower, a carpenter, a navy man. Someone who is tired. Someone who is honest.
Yet every man he's ever been loves to read. He cannot cut away that part of himself. Could not ever, he thinks, and so even here he persists. He is sitting on the couch, one arm draped along its strangely textured cushions, Don Quixote propped on his thigh, his other hand braced between the pages. He shifts when he needs to turn one. He is not slow to read, nor does he - like so many of his contemporaries - need to mouth words aloud as he goes.
He pauses, though, at that knock and the words that follow. Lays a red ribbon between the pages and takes his feet down from the coffee table as if the ghost of eighteenth century propriety has somehow followed him here.]
no subject
[James is a wellspring of solitude, in this place. He rarely troubles himself to seek out company, though he does not go out of his way to eschew it. He is a man unmade by circumstance. James McGraw is not James Flint is not James Barlow, yet he persists in being.
Cobbling together a new existence is not as easy as sitting beside Mr. Gates at a tavern and conjuring up some childhood horror in which to cloak himself. Mr. Barlow is a widower, a carpenter, a navy man. Someone who is tired. Someone who is honest.
Yet every man he's ever been loves to read. He cannot cut away that part of himself. Could not ever, he thinks, and so even here he persists. He is sitting on the couch, one arm draped along its strangely textured cushions, Don Quixote propped on his thigh, his other hand braced between the pages. He shifts when he needs to turn one. He is not slow to read, nor does he - like so many of his contemporaries - need to mouth words aloud as he goes.
He pauses, though, at that knock and the words that follow. Lays a red ribbon between the pages and takes his feet down from the coffee table as if the ghost of eighteenth century propriety has somehow followed him here.]
Enter.