The pencils are sleeping. They`ve been sleeping in this box since at least the mid-nineties when I received them following the death of Wladysław Bednarowski, a Cartesian philospher. There is a lot that could be written about Bednarowski.
I recall in this order: his love of Wagon Wheels, Fanta, his slip on suede shoes and fondness for brown, his enthusiasm for French culture, how he fought in the First World War and escaped from a Hungarian prison, his slow, heavy speaking style which made me think of a slow rural bus, the small terraced house on Aberdeen High Street which he rented from the university, his enormous and ever expanding collection of art monographs, his thick, at times bulbous features; and how, with age, his figure became increasingly hunched and how this had the effect of emphasizing the length of his arms.
I remember receiving chocolates every Christmas which he would pass at our house wearing a dark blue suit and bow tie. He drove a red MG for a while, I think.
I inherited a great many art materials from him. He said that when women were wanted to cheer themselves up, they bought hats: he bought art materials.
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The pencils have an enchanting, dryly woody smell, not so unlike cigars.
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