Things: A Story Of The Sixties; A Man Asleep

Your eye,

first of all, would g l i d e over the

grey

fitted carpet in the narrow, looooong and high-ceilinged corridor.

Its walls would be cupboards, in light-coloured wood, with fittings of gleaming brass.
Three prints,depicting, respectively,

1.The Derby winner Thunderbird
2. A paddle-steamer named Ville-de-Motitereau
3.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

Further on ........

beyond a padded door, there would be shelving on both sides of the corner,
for caskets and for records, beside a closed gramophone of which only four machined-steel knobs
would be visible, and above it, a print depicting The Great Parade of the Military Tattoo.
Through the window, draped with white and

brown

curtains in cloth imitating Jouy wallpaper, you would glimpse a few trees,
a tiny park, a bit of street. A roll-top desk littered with papers and pen-holders would go with a small cane-seated chair.
On a console table

a telephone
a leather diary
a writing pad

Then, on the other side of another door, beyond a low, square revolving bookcase supporting a large, cylindrical vase
decorated in blue and filled with

yellow roses

, set beneath an oblong mirror in a mahogany frame, there would be a narrow table with its two benches upholstered
in tartan, which would bring your eye back to the leather curtain.

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