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 In the midst of all this biographical litter, a miniature portrait of her appeared.

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"biographical litter"
Kind of a cruel way to describe all the shit that means the absolute most to one single person and practically zero to every other person who ever lived (at least until a date far into the future where somebody would be completely intrigued by finding a thousand year old wallet full of ephemera. Of course, it would still mean zero to them). Cruel but, I suppose, fitting. Even are disgusting shells are eventually just biographical litter.

"miniature portrait of her"
I think I can safely assume, without reading further, that "her" refers to Erlys. Unless this is some Freudian thing! Which it can't be because it's obviously Jungian. Merle misses Erlys and his mind wants to make sure he knows it.

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 The wallet was itself a sort of museum, on a smaller scale—a museum of his life, overstuffed with old ticket stubs, receipts, notes to himself, names and addresses of half- or sometimes totally forgotten folks from his past.

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I mean, sure, if I'd read this line before writing about the last line, I wouldn't have repeated what Pynchon was about to say. But then that's part of the reason why I like to write about things I read as I read them. Because it gives me space to come to things on my own terms. It allows me to do the work of understanding the writer even if the writer doesn't always ask me to do as much work as I've been trained to do by jerks like Danielewski, Barth, and Steinbeck (I mean, Steinbeck gives us so much surface story that means enough that most people sort of ignore the three or four other stories he's telling underneath the first and most obvious one, so maybe Steinbeck didn't train me exactly like the other two).

Part of the reason I don't read critical pieces about media and art I love is because I want to establish my own relationship with the art/media before I introduce a third party into the bedroom. Usually the more complex the art/media, the longer it takes me before I'll delve into other people's criticisms and thoughts. I still have never read any third party criticism on House of Leaves because I don't feel I've fully committed to thinking about every aspect that I'm perplexed by. Judging by that, I'll be long dead before I'm ready to read other people's takes on Pynchon!

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 A crowd had gathered around, including the familiar-unfamiliar group he'd come here with, all silently staring.

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"all silently staring"
This isn't about just being searched for some museum piece; it's all about the audience gathered to observe and witness Merle's secrets exposed. The group being both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time means all who know Merle and those who don't act as witness to his sins. Or revelations. Maybe he isn't exposing sins! Merle's probably no Lew Basnight!

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 Abruptly, in front of a display of Japanese weapons, an official person in ragged plainclothes, unshaven, mistrusting and bitterly humorless, who may or may not have been a museum guard, grabbed hold of him on suspicion of having stolen some small art object, and demanded that he empty out his pockets, including a bulging and dilapidated cowhide wallet, which the "guard" indicated was to be emptied, too.

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"in front of a display of Japanese weapons"
One major thing that distinguishes Japanese weapons from all other weapons is their relationship to suicide. And that form of suicide is by disembowlment, or, to fit with the passage, the emptying of one's internal organs for all to see.

"an official person in ragged plainclothes, unshaven, mistrusting and bitterly humorless"
It's possible this reflects back on the "people he didn't know but was supposed to know" bit in that Merle recognizes this person as an official working for the museum even though nothing except the "bitterly humorless" bit suggests their profession. It does feel a bit like a noir detective patting Merle down more than an official museum guard.

"who may or may not have been a museum guard"
Merle's uncertainty may be whether or not this person works for the museum, as a guard or something else, even though Merle senses that he's some kind of official authority. Using "guard" in quotation marks later suggests Merle doesn't entirely trust that this person has a right to accuse him and search him. But Merle feels obligated to empty his pockets anyway.

"suspicion of having stolen some small art object"
This stolen item may be at the heart of the dream. What has Merle taken from the world? What is he selfishly trying to keep for himself? Could it be part of the reason Erlys left him? Or is it just the dreams means to get Merle to expose himself to others (or, since the others may be aspects of himself, to himself).

"a bulging and dilapidated cowhide wallet"
With most people keeping all of their lives and information on phones, do the latest generations understand how common the image of a man's bulging wallet was? I suppose if they still watch Seinfeld, they've seen the episode with George's exploding wallet and so have some inkling of this fairly common object. It's hard to tell anymore what any young person knows or can relate to since they have access to everything. It all depends on what's been memed recently or what they've chosen to view through streaming services and YouTube, I suppose.

"indicated was to be emptied"
Obviously Merle couldn't hide a small object of art inside his cowhide wallet. The emptying of the wallet shows that it's the exposing of Merle's most inner secrets that is important here. People's wallets are full of memories, full of past lives, full of dead ends and failed timelines. I would guess a person's wallet was probably often full of a person's regrets: phone numbers, photographs, business cards, Christmas gift tags, concert tickets. Just a mishmash of things whose presence only the wallet's owner can easily explain.

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 He was there with a small party of people he didn't know, but in the dream was supposed to know.

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A common dream experience that most people reading this would instantly recognize. A strange concept that we only ever feel in dreams. "I know this person but I don't actually know this person." Being the way the brain works in the dream state, the possibilities of what this means to Merle, in this specific context and dream, are probably endless. Are they all some representation of part of himself, things he recognizes but not necessarily as another person? Are they people he's yet to meet but will sometime in the future, perhaps the dream state transcending time and space? (I want to believe (as in Mulder's poster and not in that I actually believe it) that when I dream of my cat Judas, gone for five years now, I am actually interacting with Judas in a dream he had while he was alive.) Or is it just as simple as it sounds: the brain created some stand-in characters to fill the space and story and Merle was supposed to know them. In the dream, he would have acted as if he did, full to the brim with camaraderie, but upon waking, he would quizzically recall how he didn't actually recognize any of them.

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 Not long after Erlys had gone off with Zombini the Mysterious, Merle Rideout dreamed he was in a great museum, a composite of all possible museums, among statues, pictures, crockery, folk-amulets, antiquated machinery, stuffed birds and animals, obsolete musical instruments, and whole corridors of stuff he would not get to see.

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"Not long after Erlys had gone off with Zombini the Mysterious"
Merle is in a heartbroken state when he has this dream. Is this the disaster that Merle has been trying to "ride out"? "Er lys" means "the light" in Norwegian. Here, Merle's light has died to be mysteriously reborn (or, more accurately, raised from the dead) elsewhere. Merle, being a photographer, depends on light. I mean, obviously everybody who has working eyes depends on light for day-to-day operations and would have to change everything if that light should go off with a mesmerist! But Merle's career (and passion) is to capture images to history using a camera which cannot physically operate without light. So if his light is gone, he can do nothing but wait it out until it returns.

"Merle Rideout dreamed"
We're delving down into Merle's subconscious here. One French anagram of Merle's name is "le id outre mer," or "the id overseas." Meaning Merle's subconscious has risen above the water line (yes, taking a bit of liberty with "overseas" as "over seas"), or come forward to be his conscious state. Basically what dreams do to us.

"he was in a great museum"
I suppose our memories can be regarded as a large composite museum of all possible museums, housing many, many Pynchonian lists of objects within it.

"a Pynchonian list of objects"
Pynchon loves long lists of things, doesn't he? At least this one didn't go on for one and a half pages! At times when he's making a list, you'd suspect him of padding out his word count. But it's Pynchon and if there's one thing he never needs is a longer word count.

"whole corridors of stuff he would not get to see"
This could refer to the things he would have experienced has Erlys never left him (both literally, as in the experiences they would have shared, and metaphorically, as in Merle couldn't see anything because his light had left him). It could also just point to the reality of how little we actually get to experience over our short lives.