Paul Bowles: Spider's House

He knew just which table he wanted. It was behind the door, beside the window, all by itself. Often when he was not working he had come here and sat an entire afternoon, lulled by the din and music from the other rooms into a stage of vague ecstasy, while he contemplated the small sheet of water outside the window. It was that happy frame of mind into which his people could project themselves so easily—the mere absence of immediate unpleasant preoccupation could start it off, and a landscape which included the sea, a river, a fountain, or anything that occupied the eye without engaging the mind, was of use in sustaining it. It was the world behind the world, where reflection precludes the necessity for action, and the calm which all things seek in death appears briefly in the guise of contentment, the spirit at last persuaded that the still waters of perfection are reachable. The details of market life and the personal financial considerations that shoot like rockets across the dark heavens of this inner cosmos serve merely to give it scale and to emphasize its vastness, in no wise troubling its supreme tranquillity.