So he, too, decides to prepare the way for his successor’s action, choosing self-sacrifice, forbidding himself to use the money at his disposal for charity, and spending it on the house instead. . He is excited by the prospect of working for a man he hasn’t met and will never know, guessing his tastes, his habits, even his little quirks, and responding to them in advance. It’s like having company, one of those “invisible friends” that children entertain, but without the fantasy. And bequeathing a matchless legacy to that friend: the unmatchable gift of being able to give.
It’s not an easy decision to make. In his excursions beyond the limits of the property, he can see for himself the extremes of suffering produced by child malnutrition, inadequate housing, and untreated illness, where poverty rules. What if he put aside a part of the money? No. Again he is tempted. But he realizes that it’s all or nothing. He cannot serve two masters.
Another and more serious objection is that the house is there already, and the needs of its inhabitant have been provided for. But it’s very easy for him to brush this objection aside. In spite of the supposed exhaustiveness to which his predecessor dedicated his life, and all the love he put into his work, it’s all too obvious that a great deal is missing. . At least it’s obvious to him, for two reasons: First, as time goes by, and people have access to more information and therefore have more opportunities for consumption, needs increase and diversify, as do the ways of satisfying them. The touching attempt to prepare a response to each of his desires in advance has turned out to be woefully inadequate. The second and more important reason is that he can benefit from his own experience as a receiver of the gift and act in consequence, whereas his predecessor had to rely almost entirely on intuition and guessing.
So he wastes no time in getting to work. The first task, imposed by a particularly cold winter, is to replace the now obsolete heating system with a more modern one, equipped with temperature controls. This provokes the first of a very long series of reflections concerning his successor. Will he be someone who feels the cold? The mere supposition is enough to give the priest the sense that he is in touch with the man who will take his place, and has already begun to accompany him, mute and inexistent but eloquent nonetheless; and he sees himself reflected in this situation, an imagined, inexistent figure accompanying the priest who originally built the house. . The whole edifice, down to its most hidden corners, is affected by the installation of the new thermostat-controlled boilers and the system of pipes. As the work proceeds, the priest takes note of various improvements and additions that are either necessary straightaway or logical steps in the process of perfecting the house for its future resident. The general theme of heating suggests the idea of supplementing the comforts of the house with a conservatory. Like a new Janus, the priest looks back at his predecessor (“How could he have overlooked this?”—a question he will ask again and again) and forward to his successor (“He might be a flower enthusiast”). He fills the conservatory with orchids, dwarf palms, and bromeliads, creating a tropical enclave: colors, scents, and forms that open and close in a tableau of unfamiliar beauties.
Since the new system of boilers is more than powerful enough to heat the house, he decides to exploit its excess capacity by putting a heated swimming pool in one of the basement rooms. To complement the pool, he builds a glass solarium. Maybe the next priest won’t want to swim, or sun himself; but maybe he will. .
As time goes by, and the priest identifies a possible interest here, and another there, the figure of his successor becomes more clearly defined. When he thinks that he was once the successor himself, he is overtaken by a strange dizziness, which compels him to continue. Everything he can see in the house, and the house itself, was conceived and made in accordance with a hypothesis about him, and now he is repeating that process, completing it, perfecting it.
Internal walls are torn down and expanses of masonry replaced with large windows to convert a whole string of attic rooms — the ones with the best exposure — into a studio that could be used for painting, or sculpture, or any other art or craft. . To keep all the options open, the priest fills that ample space with easels, drawing boards, clay-firing ovens, stretchers, paper, brushes, and chisels. Persisting in the artistic vein, he sets up a space for music downstairs, on the piano nobile, with a soundproof acoustic chamber, for which he orders a Bösendorfer piano, an Érard harp, violins and cellos made by the finest luthiers, and various exotic instruments — stringed, wind, and percussion — including a beautiful samisen. Next to this space, made by joining two interior rooms that he judged to be superfluous, is a little theater, opened up in the same way, with thirty seats (upholstered in wine-colored Venetian velvet), rococo decoration, and a stage equipped with the latest systems for changes of scenery and lighting.
At a certain point, before these renovations are completed, he begins work on the grounds, for which he has grand plans. The first is the construction of a tea pavilion, to which he commits himself heart and soul, determined to make it an epitome of refinement and comfort. He decides on a light, ethereal structure, a little house of dragonfly wings, continuous with its natural environment, as a contrast to the house’s majestic solidity. He approaches this task with the deepest seriousness; the pavilion is to be the alternative to the house in every respect. He rejects the designs submitted by a series of well-known architects until one set of plans, produced and modified according to his instructions, finally meets with his approval, and then the building begins. Bricks and mortar are ruled out; the whole thing is made from bamboo and rare timbers, fabric, glass, and paper. It’s a fairy-tale retreat, its spaciousness dissembled by the surrounding vegetation, the flowering vines that appear to be extensions of the structure, and the various hidden levels within. Although it has a studied austerity, the interior contains many little salons looking out onto different parts of the grounds, and an abundance of sliding panels, raffia mats, and rugs. The visitor enters via a broad, elevated veranda, suggestive of tropical colonies.
As one season gives way to another, the grounds begin to preoccupy the priest, and he spends a lot of time on them, without neglecting the house, in which there is always something to be done. In addition to replanting copses, laying out avenues of statues, introducing topiary, fountains, arbors, and a grotto, he undertakes more ambitious projects. He populates the gardens with deer, of a delicate and decorative breed, like the pheasants and peacocks that he also imports, which provide fleeting, sumptuous flashes of color among the plants. Specially trained staff are employed for the care and breeding of these creatures.
Neglecting the category of animals was, he thinks, a major oversight on the part of his predecessor. When considering an unknown future man, and trying to cover all his needs, animals to live with might be a priority. Or not. You never know. But since those humble, quiet companions have been a consolation and a joy to so many people, they cannot be ignored. For his successor they might be especially important, and the cost of acquiring them and providing an adequate habitat would reduce what he could give in aid to the poor. So the priest sets about building stables and kennels amusingly designed to resemble medieval castles, Hindu temples, and Mayan pyramids, all to scale, and fills them with handsome Arab steeds, greyhounds and mastiffs, Pomeranians and lapdogs. A tall columbarium on the top of an artificial hill beyond the lake is filled with doves imported from distant lands. And inside the house there are various aquariums of different sizes, to soothe the eye with mobile, live decoration, culminating in an enormous tank that takes up a whole wall, in which a big golden manta ray from the Indian Ocean glides among yellow longnose butterflyfish, little red fish as bright as rubies, slimy octopi, and seahorses riding on transparency like marionettes.