Musil's Unfinished Work

In an out of the way mansion, one of those places that once housed the aristocracy, you notice--by the simple fact that it is the only item in that place that has failed to be neglected--a rug, beautifully woven with blues, golds, royal purple: all the colors that would catch your eye in a bazaar. Your eyes graze over it and it pulls you in, your feet slowly follow, now left, now right, now warp, now weft, following the intricate designs, until you discover that this rug is like no other rug in that it is woven with no discernible repeated pattern, every tract of it is unique, each a uniquely designed world. Weaving still left and right you pass the halfway point of the room and the patterns become proportionately more complex, more striking, more colorful, brighter and darker, set with higher contrast. And then suddenly--two thirds the way to the other side of the room--both color and form glitch: here and there are sections frayed, loose, tracts of hardwood floor sometimes showing through the fabric. It is only when you reach the far end of that large room that you see the loom and the threads hanging still over the warp beams--an innumerable assortment of beautiful yarns, spun but not yet combined, derelict possibilities of the unfinished work of a dead artist.