Joseph Mallord William Turner Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway paintingGustave Courbet Marine paintingGustave Courbet Woman with a Parrot painting
Chamcha's room struck the sleepless intruder as contrived, and therefore sad: the caricature of an actor's room full of signed photographs of colleagues, handbills, framed programmes, production stills, citations, awards, volumes of movie--star memoirs, a room bought off the peg, by the yard, an imitation of life, a mask's mask. Novelty items on every surface: ashtrays in the shape of pianos, china pierrots peeping out from behind a shelf of books. And everywhere, on the walls, in the movie posters, in the glow of the lamp borne by bronze Eros, in the mirror shaped like a heart, oozing up through the blood-red carpet, dripping from the ceiling, Saladin's need for love. In the theatre everybody gets kissed and everybody is darling. The actor's offers, on a you married?” “Any kids” “Not working, I suppose?” “Where are you living?” “What does your husband do?”
That pretty much exhausted her minimal interest in me and she turned the discussion to another mutual – well - on my part friend, on her part acquaintance. Her comment was that so-and-so had “done well” for herself