In the streets an impression of being at a depth continued: the walls of high apartment buildings rose like rock-faces on either side; the lorries and cars that went past festooned with men with rifles were like lobsters or crabs with heavy claws. It was necessary to get past these to climb up the spiral staircase to our apartment where there was airiness and light. High narrow windows jutted up into a slightly sloping roof; walls were panelled in a soft wood which was like the lining of my father's boxes of cigars. My earliest memories of our apartment are of the evenings when I would sit with my father in his study and he would read me stories from mythology or from children's magazines. There was a vogue at the time for an early type of science-fiction magazine, and I suppose it was from these that my mind picked up some of its lasting images. When I was in my father's study it would seem that we were in the cabin or gondola of an airship; we were gliding above the rooftops of the grey and watery city; my father was the captain and I was his mate; we were looking for somewhere to land where we would make a new home, or perhaps we would carry on for ever like that bird I suppose that first flew out of the ark.
