Piranesi leads Raphael out of the labyrinth

Piranesi’s departure with Sarah Raphael is the moment he chooses companionship in the Other World over remaining alone in the House he loves. The choice does not erase his attachment to its halls, statues, and dead: he first returns the dead to their places, bids farewell to the statues he most loves, and leaves with his journals and personal treasures. At the threshold, Raphael takes his hand, and they enter the corridor together.

The decision to leave

In a journal entry dated the thirtieth day of the ninth month in the year the albatross came to the South-Western Halls, Piranesi recalls his belief that the World and the House are, for practical purposes, identical. He imagines the House wanting an inhabitant who can witness its beauty and receive its mercies. To leave it empty therefore feels like a moral and emotional cost, not simply a change of residence: he cannot bear the thought of the House without anyone living there.

But remaining would mean being alone. Raphael has promised to visit, yet Piranesi understands that when she returns to the Other World he will know she is elsewhere. His earlier sense of company had depended partly on misunderstanding: he thought the Other was in another part of the House when, in fact, the Other went back to his own world. The contrast matters. Raphael is truly his friend, while the Other’s feelings toward him had been mixed; a promised visit cannot make continued solitude equivalent to shared life. Piranesi accordingly decides to go with Raphael.

Farewell to the House

The departure follows an act of care for the dead. Before leaving, Piranesi returns them all to their allotted places, completing the responsibility that has shaped his life in the House. He then walks through its halls as he has done innumerable times before, visiting his most beloved statues. His farewell is made through looking: each familiar face becomes something he may be seeing for the last time. The repeated goodbyes register the cost of leaving without turning the House into a place he has ceased to love.

That attachment has been formed by years of direct exploration. Piranesi has travelled as far as the Nine-Hundred-and-Sixtieth Hall to the west, the Eight-Hundred-and-Ninetieth Hall to the north, and the Seven-Hundred-and-Sixty-Eighth Hall to the south. He has climbed to the Upper Halls, where clouds move through the halls and statues appear in mist; explored the Drowned Halls, where white water lilies cover the dark water; and seen the collapsed ceilings, floors, and walls of the eastern Derelict Halls. From doorways he has repeatedly looked ahead and seen the halls and passages continue into the distance, with no indication that the World was ending. Leaving is thus not an escape from a world he considers finished. It is a decision to cross beyond a world that still appears immense and ongoing.

Preparing for the crossing

On the first day of the tenth month, Piranesi makes practical and personal preparations. He retrieves a small cardboard box marked AQUARIUM and bearing a picture of an octopus: the original box for the shoes Dr Ketterley had given him. When Dr Ketterley ordered him to hide from 16, Piranesi had taken the ornaments from his hair and stored them there. Now, wanting to look his best on entering the New World, he spends two or three hours putting them back: seashells, coral beads, pearls, tiny pebbles, and interesting fishbones he has found or made. A box once used to conceal what he wore becomes the container from which he restores his chosen appearance.

Raphael is astonished by how pleasant he looks when she arrives. Piranesi takes his messenger bag, carrying all his journals and favourite pens, so the crossing does not require him to abandon the record of the life he has lived. The ornaments and journals mark different kinds of continuity: one gathers the beauty he has collected in the House around his person; the other preserves his observations and memories as he goes elsewhere.

The passage and its significance

Piranesi and Raphael walk toward two Minotaurs in the south-eastern corner of the House. Between them, the shadows shimmer and suggest a corridor or alleyway, with dim walls and distant lights whose moving colours Piranesi cannot interpret. The route is neither described as a familiar hall nor explained in advance; it presents the Other World as a threshold glimpsed but not yet understood. Piranesi takes one last look at the Eternal House and shivers. Raphael takes his hand, and the two walk into the corridor together.

The gesture completes the choice established in his journal. Piranesi does not leave because the House has lost its beauty or its claim on him; he leaves because love of the House cannot answer the loneliness he anticipates there, while Raphael’s friendship offers a life shared with another person. The ending therefore holds attachment and departure together: the House remains beloved, the farewell is real, and the crossing begins not alone but hand in hand.