A 19th century nude has arrived in the post. All we know of her from the daguerreotype is that she was Italian but we can discern from the Venetian garden, not to say the distinctive chin, that she was most likely of noble birth. I only glanced at the picture yesterday but this morning the awareness of her nobility set in train images of gilded, guiltless aristocratic orgies and from there to my own mother until the image elided with that of R. and from there into the face of the faceless backside I enjoyed on thursday. And now, truth is, I feel a bit lost.

I could, or perhaps should, have descended further. I could've kicked back on the sofa with some digital porn and a bag of crisps, trying to fathom the name of a lover from my youth. I could've put my feet up and made that call to my elderly aunt, or re-read a novel I never much liked the first time. But I didn't. I stayed with the daguerreotype of my Italian lady. I stared and stared until it yielded the remembrance. In the ample buttock and hip, the twisted wrist and tilted head I finally understood that she resembled entirely Vallin's Bacchante with a Bunch of Grapes. I began my day.

The fleas are rampant.