From a certain point on, once the boring installation of the plumbing, heating, wiring, and sewage is completed to the priest’s satisfaction, and the floors, ceilings, walls, doors, and windows have been duly covered and adorned, he feels that one phase is finished, and he can now begin to concentrate on the next. His focus has always been, and always will be, his successor in the parish, in accordance with the plan that moved him to act in the first place. Not for an instant does he lose sight of his objective: to build a house that will satisfy all the needs of its inhabitant, who as a result will not have to spare a moment or a thought for himself, and will be able to dedicate his energies entirely to the welfare of others. In a way, he is building a monument to Charity. But he is also building a house, and must, unavoidably, apply himself to the practical questions that keep arising. For the moment, he is moderately satisfied to have finished what might be called the “shell”; now he can move on to the contents. What he has achieved is no mean feat, because that “shell” has two surfaces: the outer surface made up of façades, roofs, slates, awnings, balconies, shutters, cornices, chimneys, window frames, and moldings; and the inner surface: paintings, paneling, coffered ceilings, floors. . Inside the shell, there will be further layers, each with its inner and outer surface, even if he considers all the spaces as forming a whole, which is what he plans to do; layers that will gradually bring him closer (while also taking him farther away), closer to a center that still seems very remote. And that center — it strikes him now with the force of a revelation — is Charity, devotion to others. That’s why any approach to it will also be a distancing: because what he has staked on this enterprise, with supreme generosity, is his own death.
In any case, the phase that is now beginning comprises innumerable complications and seems, at the outset, infinite. Since he’s intending to have the house fully furnished and equipped, with every last teacup and towel in place, ready to be lived in as soon as it’s finished (although he’s not actually preparing it for himself but for an unknown successor, who won’t arrive until some time after his death, possibly years later), he will have to get the whole thing finished and attend to every part, great or small, of that whole. It would be an exaggeration to speak of “infinity,” because there’s a limit to what can fit in a house; the house itself is that limit. But, in accordance with his previous reasoning, the asymptotic approach to the center, to the smallest and most central item (the coffee spoon, the adaptor plug), seems never-ending. The furniture in each of the many rooms, the decoration, the useful objects provided for every occasion in daily life. . And yet that proliferation has an advantage over the design and building of the structure: it facilitates more flexible variations with which to satisfy the needs of the future inhabitant who is the constant focus of his thoughts.
Now is the time to pat himself on the back for having multiplied the interior spaces: their number allows for the satisfaction of different, even incompatible, tastes and proclivities: thus a penchant for modern, comfortable design, and even for avant-garde experiments (in moderation), need not preclude stateliness in the French or English manner, or medieval austerity, or the rustic simplicity of straw-seated chairs and camp beds. . All this is easier to say than to do, of course; but it’s a spur to ingenuity and inventiveness in furnishing.
The catalogs of the finest suppliers pile up on the priest’s desk, but he is not satisfied. Thonet, Chippendale, Jean-Michel Frank, and Boulle, launched on their elliptical orbits, converge and coincide, pursuing harmony in diversity. Antique dealers on three continents pack and dispatch their treasures. From the far end of a room, an Empire bed with golden lion’s feet responds to a heavy curtain of green velvet with crimson tassels. Wreathed in his tiny aura, a decorative, almost comic Ganesh in an Indian plaster relief presides over a large rug with blue djinns against a cream ground. The little Louis XV chairs and pedestal tables, so fragile, as if held up by a puppeteer’s invisible threads, welcome the florid morning light pouring in through the picture windows. . Gradually the house fills up, like a puzzle patiently assembled. There is a danger of ending up with something like a bazaar or a showroom. The priest is aware that he is subject to forces pulling in opposite directions: one toward diversity, to ensure that the future occupant, of whom nothing can be known since he doesn’t yet exist, will find some point or line to his taste; the other toward coherence, which is what will make the house an attractive whole. His best efforts are devoted to reconciling these demands, which is why he adopts a timeless design frame, somewhere between Victorian and art deco, within which striking or exotic touches will function as details: noticeable, pleasing, but also discreet.
Although he directs and oversees all of the work, and has the last word, he listens to his many helpers and takes their advice into account. Throughout the long days, he is accompanied by architects and designers, who stay on into the evening, chatting after dinner. He confides particularly in the cabinet-makers: rough tradesmen, and clearly very strong, but capable of an almost feminine delicacy and attention to detail in the exercise of their skills. He feels a secret affinity with them because, in his way, he too is creating a work, which although invisible for the moment will one day be as real and tangible as theirs: a man, a priest like himself, the long-anticipated one whose sanctity he is fashioning. He has come to love that man, almost to regard him as the son he will never have. He prefers not to think about the personal sacrifice he’s making for him, declining to do the good works required by his ministry, which would be such a balm to his souclass="underline" in a way he is doing them, although the effects are displaced and delayed.
The priest is disheartened to discover that the tradesmen and professionals working on the house have little regard for charity (although this opposition also spurs him on and reaffirms his convictions). For them it’s normal, and indeed entirely just, that he should build a luxurious mansion while neglecting to come to the aid of the needy. The way they see it, the poor deserve the conditions they live in, because they’re lazy or don’t even want to improve themselves; whatever you give them will only prolong their poverty. They’ve never known anything else, and they’re satisfied with what they know. In merely practical terms, without having to go into moral, historical, or sociological considerations, it’s obvious that poverty, especially in its extreme forms, is a phase that societies have to go through, and can’t simply be eliminated. Why even try? The poor live happily with their lacks, and don’t even see them as such.