Day 9
Went for a walk in Scylla Park today. That's the big one, by the river. Funny thing, though. There have always been artists here and there around this city, sketching and painting city scenes. Landscapes and the like, don't you know. Sell them to fellows to hang on their walls. I like a good hunting scene myself, although actually my walls back home mostly have maps on them.
I digress. All of a sudden, all of the artists in this blasted park—in the whole city, seems like—are doing portraits instead. Some of them had sitters, just out on the grass in their finery getting painted, and there's nothing so wrong abut that, although it strikes me a trifle vain. No, what bothered me were the sketchers.
The sketchers were scattered throughout the park, dressed quite informally, and just sketching passers-buy. Faces, mostly, from what I saw, but also body postures and even activities, if you can believe such a thing.
I don't want to be sketched by these people to whom I haven't even been introduced. Setting aside the decorum of the whole thing, it's a matter of personal safety. Suppose I were to be sketched while I, myself, was sketching out a map, or making note of how a street runs? If it made its way to the government I could be expelled or worse.
I will not fail at my task. But they aren't making it easy.