This is the scenario: I am lying in bed in my bathrobe and I am trying to write my ideal story. I don’t know what happens in the story yet. I just know that Balzac used to write in a robe and presumably could only write in the robe. And not just any robe, but a white cashmere Dominican monk’s robe that was tied around his waist with a silk belt, from which hung a pair of scissors and a golden penknife.
Why didn’t I keep it? It was used to me and I was used to it. It molded all the folds of my body without inhibiting it; I was picturesque and handsome. The other one is stiff, and starchy, makes me look stodgy. There was no need to which its kindness didn’t loan itself, for indigence is almost always officious. If a book was covered in dust, one of its panels was there to wipe it off. If thickened ink refused to flow in my quill, it presented its flank. Traced in long black lines, one could see the services it had rendered me. These long lines announce the litterateur, the writer, the man who works. I now have the air of a rich good for nothing. No one knows who I am.
The items we possess and clothes we wear have unspoken power in our lives; in function, but as anchors to our stories, memories and identities.