Everybody recognises authors from the title of their books. If we only try to name writers – whoever they could suddenly pop in our mind – the name of their books immediately comes after as if we knew nothing else on them. When we think about authors, we often overlook their lives – I daresay that more often we don’t even know anything about them. A visit to the Charles Dickens Museum is an amazing opportunity to discover where the important British author lived and how his life was. Clerkenwell is a lively London’s central area at only a few minutes from Russell Square and Holborn. As I get out of Chancery Lane, I walk up along Grays Inn Road, a trafficked street which leads straight to a chaotic junction between Theobald Road and Clerkenwell Road. Once I’ve crossed over, I turn left in Roger Street, leaving the deafening honk of the cars and roars of the engines behind, and Doughty Street materialises before me. Old and elegant Georgian houses neatly line the side of the road, and the silence and tranquillity of the zone seem to have magically transported me to a totally different area. The museum of Charles Dickens, a five-store building, stands at number 49 – although the original entrance of the author’s dwelling was at number 48. An aromatic scent of coffee, coming from the stylish cafe at the end of the corridor, fills my nostrils as I enter the building, but my curiosity is stronger than the craving for the dark hot drink, and I approach the wooden desk where a gentle assistant takes the payment of the ticket and provides me with a useful visitor’s foldable guide. I step-by-step follow the guide, visiting meticulously all the floors. The ground floor includes the beautiful and aesthetic dining room, followed by the morning room, where Catherine Dickens, the wife of the writer, spent time with her children and arranged the household matters. The kitchen and washhouse are in the basement along with a small, but well-provided wine cellar. The visit continues to the first floor where Dickens’s drawing room and study – in which two huge bookshelves packed with books tower in front of the entrance – are astonishing. The more I climb the stairs, the more I get into the personal life of Dickens; the bedrooms and dressing rooms occupy the second and third floor. The curiosity rapidly turns into marvellous wonder and fascination, as it seems to be back to an old epoch of development and huge changes, characterised by extreme contradictions. I imagine that time, the Nineteenth century, and the Industrial Revolution is creating a new economic system and a new social class. London must have been different; columns of dark grey smoke soared from the chimneys on the roofs of the houses. A constant, mysterious fog invaded the streets, and the cries of angry cabbies echoed, accompanied by the rhythmical clip-clopping of horse hooves. Dickens sat at his desk in his studio, alone, and sheets confusedly scattered in front of him. He sighed and glanced out of the window, looking at the light breeze shaking the branches of the trees. Charles had only half an hour before his friends arrived for dinner. He had to rush a little to complete the ending chapter of his latest work. Unexpectedly, the giggling of children boomed in the stairway, followed by the heavy and noisy thumping of steps. His children ran down to see how the preparation of dinner was going on. Dickens stood up and fiercely stared at them. Mary and Kate immediately stopped their run and sheepishly smiled at their father, but, as Charles turned his back, they resumed their run. Dickens shook his head, and a soft smile grew on his face. In the meantime, the servants in the kitchen, under the severe control of Catherine Dickens, were intensely working; everything had to be perfect, everything had to taste good. Catherine had thoroughly instructed them about the food they had to prepare. Mistakes were not tolerated. And the servants knew what that meant; Lady Catherine’s knowledge in food and recipes was undeniably thorough and precise, she would have detected any variation and change by only smelling the dishes. At six-thirty, the bell rang; Dickens, who had just finished to dress up, sauntered down the stairs, and, at the bottom, he found his wife and daughters waiting for him to welcome the guests. John Forster was the first to step in the entrance hall after him Daniel Maclise. They shook Charles’s hand and respectfully saluted Catherine and daughters. The dinner could begin and, as often it happened, the dishes laid on the table at the same time. Forster asked Dickens as to how the new novel was going, and the author, smiling wryly, replied that he had finished it, but, before giving it to him, he had to go through a scrupulous editing process. As Forster insisted, Dickens politely answered that it was too early to disclose what the novel was about, but he would have liked it. The literary agent gave up; there was no point in insisting. When Charles Dickens said no, it was an unquestionable no. As the delicious dinner ended, Dickens invited his guests to the drawing room. Plenty of desserts and a huge bowl filled with Dickens’s favourite punch laid on the table in the far corner. The lectern stood in the middle of the room, a handwritten paper laying on it. As the guests made themselves comfortable on the green leather sofas, sipping the warm drink and nibbling a slice of a scrumptious fruit cake, Charles reached the stand and started reading a short story.
A middle-aged woman interrupts my daydream as I stand on the threshold of the drawing room. She says “excuse me” as I step on the side to let her go through. I daydreamt. I imagined everything. I sigh, shaking my head and smiling. I, for a moment, plunged in the time of Charles Dickens, I savoured his life and walked in the same rooms in which he used to create his astounding and flawed characters and criticise that world which was changing and developing too rapidly and unequally.
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November 2020
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