Cecil Beaton's New York

Cecil Beaton's New York Synopsis

Excerpt from Cecil Beaton's New York: Illustrated From Drawings by the Author and From Photographs by the Author and Others

Lying in your cabin on a stormy night, listening to the rolling and straining of the ship, you will hear sounds to remember. Fittings and woodwork creak as the wind and waves heave the ship from side to side. With cracklings like those of a newly lit fire, she leans over, attains a small, tortured crescendo of sound, remains suspended for a brief moment, then quivers slowly back again. The height of the roll brings one of the most satisfying of shipboard sounds. As the rocking and creaking subsides, a thousand small objects throughout the ship, in your cabin, in the alleyways, the libraries, the Louis Quatorze saloons, slither from their positions in a miniature avalanche, the whole resembling the retching of someone at the taffrail - the straining and retching which increases in volume until the vomit spews up and all is quiet. So the ship retches and strains until the distant new noise of sliding and tumbling is heard.

A few days of the ship's movement seems to bring another sense into use - a new dimension has entered life. Accord/ ing to the motion of the ship, to climb up a ?ight of stairs may be laborious, as if your feet were weighted, or you may rise gently, effortlessly, like a marionette.

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