The idea of paying a visit to Pablo Neruda’s home in Santiago had come as an afterthought. I’ve taken a fair number of house tours on my travels — often discovering that all the things I’d most like to see (the artist’s paintings, her desk or painting studio) were either sold off or sent to museums. Take the artist out of the house and what you are likely to have, more often than not, is a collection of rooms and some old furniture. Now, at the home of Neruda, the Nobel-winning Chilean poet and champion of the left, I had discovered a kindred spirit. I hadn’t even gotten through the front door of this house, but already, just at the sight of the garden, my heart was racing the way it does when I encounter a particularly enticing junk store, or a salvage yard, or a promising-looking yard sale. And this place possessed qualities of all those.But you can also see it in his living spaces. One step through the low, narrow entry to the dining room and we knew: The man who lived here loved to eat. The dining table is long, and set with English china and Mexican glassware, wonderful odd serving dishes, chairs arranged surprisingly close, in a way that suggests warmth and conviviality.when Pablo Neruda divorced Delia and married Matilde, the new love required a new room. At Isla Negra, the landlubber Neruda indulged his love of maritime objects more than in either of the other houses, with a dozen female ships’ figureheads jutting from the walls of the living room.