Location from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The habitable heart of the House — dry marble galleries above the tide line where Piranesi has made his home among the statues, warmed by a sourceless light.
The Middle Halls feel sacred in the way an empty cathedral feels sacred — not because anyone has consecrated them but because the silence and the scale and the quality of the light conspire to make everything that happens here feel important. Footsteps echo. Whispered words carry. The statues seem to listen. This is where Piranesi has built his life. He knows these halls by heart — which statue stands where, which staircase leads to the best fishing pools, which vestibule catches the most light in the morning. He has worn paths into the marble floor from years of walking the same routes. The halls are not warm exactly, but they are not cold either — they maintain a temperature that is simply present, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, like the House has no opinion about human comfort and has landed on something adequate by accident. At night — or what passes for night, when the diffuse light dims — the halls are extraordinarily quiet. The only sounds are the distant murmur of tides far below and, occasionally, the cry of an albatross far above.
Vast halls of clean, dry marble, lit by a diffuse pearlescent glow that seems to emanate from the stone itself. The statues here are pristine — no coral, no algae, no watermarks — standing in their niches exactly as they were carved, whenever that was. The air is still and slightly warm. Piranesi has arranged his living space in one particular hall: a sleeping area near a statue he finds comforting, a workspace where he writes in his journals, dried seaweed and fish hanging from improvised racks, shells and interesting stones arranged on ledges in careful displays.
Also known as: The Dry Halls, Piranesi's Halls