Things and A Man Asleep Read Free Page B

began to collapse under the heaps of objects, of furniture, books, plates, papers, empty bottles. A war of attrition began from which they would never emerge victorious.
    With a total floor area of thirty-five square metres, which they never dared check, their flat consisted of a minute entrance hall, a cramped kitchen, half of which had been converted into a washroom, a modest-sized bedroom, an all-purpose room - library, living-room or study, spare bedroom - and an ill-defined nook, halfway between a broom-cupboard and a corridor, in which space had somehow been found for a matchbox fridge, an electric water- heater, an improvised wardrobe, a table, at which they ate, and a laundry-box which doubled up as a bench-seat.
    On some days the lack of space became overwhelming. They would suffocate. But it was no use pushing back the boundaries of their two-roomed flatlet, no use knocking down walls, calling up corridors, cupboards, openings, no use imagining ideal wardrobes or taking over adjacent flats in their dreams, they would always end up back in what was their lot, their only lot: thirty-five square metres.
    Judicious improvements would undoubtedly have been feasible: a partition wall could have been removed, freeing a huge and ill-used corner space, a too-bulky piece of furniture could be replaced advantageously, a set of cupboards could spring up. Doubtless, then, provided it was repainted, stripped, done up with a little love, their dwelling would have been unquestionably charming, with its one red-curtained window and its other window with green curtains, with its long, rather wobbly oak table that had been bought at the flea market filling the whole length of one wall section, beneath the very fine reproduction of a mariner's chart, and which a little roll-top Second Empire escritoire made of mahogany with inlaid brass beads, several missing, separated into two working desks - to the left, for Sylvie, to the right, for Jérôme - each signalled by an identical red blotter, an identical glass tile, an identical pencil-box; with its old pewter-rimmed glass jar that had been transformed into a lamp, with its metal-reinforced, wood-veneer seed-measuring jar which did as a waste- paper basket, with its two unmatched armchairs, its rush- seated chairs, its milking stool. And the neat, clean and ingenious whole would emanate friendliness and warmth, a wholesome aura of work and shared living.
    But the mere prospect of the work involved scared them. They would have had to borrow, to save, to invest. They could not bring themselves to do it. Their hearts weren't in it: they thought only in terms of all or nothing. The bookcase would be light oak or it would not be. It was not. Books piled up on two dirty wooden shelving stacks, and, in double rows, in cupboards which should never have been used that way. For three years an electric point remained unrepaired, without their making up their minds to call in an electrician, whilst along almost every wall ran crudely spliced and shoddily extended leads. It took them six months to replace a curtain pulley-rope. And the slightest hold-up in regular maintenance resulted within twenty- four hours in a mess which the beneficent presence of trees and gardens so close at hand made even more unbearable.
    The temporary, the provisional held absolute sway. They were in wait only of a miracle. They would have summoned architects, contractors, builders, plumbers, decorators and painters. They would have gone on a cruise and on their return would have found a flat transformed, converted, refurbished, a model apartment, miraculously enlarged, full of custom-built details, removable partitions, sliding doors, an efficient and unobtrusive heating system, invisible electrical wiring, good quality furniture.
    But between these too grand daydreams in which they wallowed with strange self-indulgence, and their total lack of any actual doing, no rational plan, matching the objective necessities to their