To Denis Buffard Incalculable are the benefits civilization has brought us, incommensurable the productive power of all classes of riches originated by the inventions and discoveries of science. Inconceivable the marvellous creations of the human sex in order to make men more happy, more free, and more perfect. Without parallel the crystalline and fecund fountainsof the new life which still remains closed to the thirsty lips of the people who follow in their griping and bestial tasks. - Malcolm Lowry
Your eye, first of all, would glide over the grey fitted carpet
in the narrow, long and high-ceilinged corridor. Its walls would be
cupboards, in light-coloured wood, with fittings of gleaming brass. Three
prints, depicting, respectively, the Derby winner Thunderbird, a
paddle-steamer named Ville-de-Motitereau, and a Stephenson locomotive,
would lead to a leather curtain hanging on thick, black, grainy wooden
rings which would slide back at the merest touch.
There, the carpet would give way to an almost yellow woodblock floor,
partly covered by three faded rugs. It would be a living room about
twenty-three feet long by ten feet wide. On the left, in a kind of recess,
there would be a large sofa upholstered in worn black leather, with pale
cherrywood bookcases on either side, heaped with books in untidy piles.
Above the sofa, a mariner's chart would fill the whole length of that
section of the wall. On the other side of a small low table, and beneath a
silk prayer-mat nailed to the wall with three large-headed brass studs,
matching the leather curtain, there would be another sofa, at right angles
to the first, with a light-brown velvet covering; it would lead on to a
small and spindly piece of furniture, lacquered in dark red and providing
three display shelves for knick-knacks: agates and stone eggs, snuffboxes,
candy-boxes, jade ashtrays, a mother-of-pearl oystershell, a silver fob
watch, a cut-glass glass, a crystal pyramid, a miniature in an oval frame.
During the day, the light flooding in would make this room seem a little
sad, despite the roses. It would be an evening room. But in the winter,
with the curtains drawn, some spots illuminated - the bookcase corner, the
record shelves, the desk, the low table between the two settees, and the
vague reflections in the mirror — and large expanses in shadow, whence all
the things would gleam - the polished wood, the rich, heavy silks, the cut
glass, the softened leather — it would be a haven of peace, a land of
happiness.
The first door would open onto a bedroom, its floor covered with a
light-coloured fitted carpet. An English double bed would fill the whole
rear part of it. On the right, to both sides of the window, there would be
tall and narrow sets of shelves holding a few books, to be read and read
again, photograph albums, packs of cards, pots, necklaces, paste
jewellery. To the left, an old oak wardrobe and two clothes horses of wood
and brass would stand opposite a small wing-chair upholstered in
thin-striped grey silk and a dressing table.
Through a half-open door giving on to a bathroom you would glimpse thick
bathrobes, swan-neck taps in solid brass, a large adjustable mirror, a
pair of cut-throat razors and their green leather sheaths, bottles,
horn-handled brushes, sponges. The bedroom walls would be papered with
chintz; the bedspread would be a tartan blanket.
There, life would be easy, simple.