The Art of Lying Down (11 page)

Whether driven out of their homes, looking for better lives, or simply part of nomadic cultures, people around the world have always been on the move. And those who travel a lot necessarily rest and sleep in many different places. With sufficient money and leisure, travelers can try out not only new ways of life but also new ways of lying down. During their visit to Majorca in 1838, George Sand and Frédéric Chopin could only shake their heads at the beds offered to them:

Madame Sand was a careful observer, and nothing escaped her sharp glance—neither the wooden beds in the villas and country houses made only “of two saw-horses with two boards and a thin mattress on top” nor (when, as she wrote, she “attempted to pierce the secret of monastic life”) “the very low alcoves decorated above with tiles like a burial chamber” in the dormitory of a Carthusian cloister.

The search for an appropriate spot to lie down away from home can become an existential challenge. If we aren’t already familiar with places we are going, we have to expect that they’ll be different from what we think, even if we saw a picture of the hotel room when we booked it. Perhaps the room is above a tavern that is open until the wee hours. Is the bed long and wide enough? In any case, thoughts of the many unknown people who have also lain, loved, sweated, or suffered in our temporary bed can make for an uneasy night.

Indeed, many people first realize the advantages of their native beds when they have to spend a night outside their own four walls, where they are forced to deal with unfamiliar and perhaps even unpleasant conditions. Not every strange bedroom invites the visitor to stay longer than absolutely necessary. Musty beds and sagging or short mattresses are just two potential problems. For some people, crucifixes or forest scenes with deer at the head of the bed cast a
pall over their thoughts and turn trying to fall asleep into an epic struggle. Dubious bedside rugs constitute another common problem—generally shaggy, brightly colored, often matted-looking, they inspire efforts to keep your feet from actually touching them. A clear whiff of room deodorizer raises the question of just what situation necessitated such generous use of this supposedly refreshing scent. It’s hard to keep your imagination in check. The writer Simon Winchester has his reasons for stating that in the age of mass tourism, the best way to travel is in your own easy chair, bed, or bathtub.

Reclining in a full airplane, at least in the economy class, is by definition a compromise. As soon as you lean your seat slightly back, you intrude into the already limited space of the person behind you. At the same time, your own physical and psychological well-being at the end of a long trip primarily depends on how comfortable you are, how far back you can tip your seat, how far you can stretch your legs—in short, whether the seat provides a pleasant environment even under difficult conditions. Frequent fliers share detailed information on-line about which airlines have the best seating and how they stack up in terms of price. Considering the aggression that a sudden reclining motion can unleash, it is amazing that there seem to be no official regulations about what passengers should be prepared to tolerate from
those in seats in front of them. Do other laws prevail when we are airborne?

Prominent travelers are notorious for indulging their whims even when away from home—and getting mightily on the nerves of hotel staffs in the process. When on tour, the famous tenor Enrico Caruso supposedly insisted on always having three mattresses and no fewer than eighteen pillows, evoking comparison to the princess and the pea with her twenty mattresses and just as many eiderdown comforters. Gustave Flaubert’s travel companion Maxime Du Camp ascribed to the great writer a special fondness for lying down while traveling: he “would have liked to travel, if he could, stretched out on a sofa and not stirring, watching cities, ruins, and landscapes pass before him like the screen of a panorama.” Flaubert loved the idea of traveling and his memories of his adventures but was less enamored of the experience of traveling itself.

Others visited exotic places but devised strategies for taking in new scents and sounds without the risk of getting lost in crowds. In 1870, the writer Clara Mundt, better known under the pen name Luise Mühlbach, observed the changing scenes of Cairo while lying in her secure room at the famous Hotel Shepheard, which had served as Napoleon’s headquarters and catered to guests with French chefs and Swiss maids. Her hotel bed served as a base within an
unlikely theater box, from which she could observe life playing like a film outside the windows:

The spirit of invention brought forth numerous modes of travel that did not require a change of bed and thus offered a measure of protection against unpleasant surprises. Early on, prosperous people devoted considerable resources to having made lounges and beds that could be easily taken along on a trip. Collapsible beds have existed since the time of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and transportable furniture played a large role in the conquest of the American West. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), the wife of a British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, had a folding bed along for her trip from London to Constantinople. And the dowry of Queen
Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (1688–1741) consisted in part of a silk-curtained canopy bed that could be taken apart for easy transport. Another example, this one from the second half of the nineteenth century, was the Dormouse or Mayer coach, named for the manufacturer, J. A. Mayer, of Munich. It was a roomy horse-drawn carriage with an interior that could be converted into beds. A Mayer coach was easy to identify thanks to the ventilation slits that funneled fresh air to those sleeping inside. Passengers slept while the coach was parked for the night or even, if necessary, during all-night runs. The long tradition of mobile sleeping units continues today in the Rolling Hotel. Designed by an inventive Bavarian entrepreneur, this conveyance combines a bus and a trailer with numerous sleeping cabins.

Those looking for a special thrill can even sleep in the beds of the famous—or infamous. Baghdad’s Saddam Museum displays not only the former leader’s weapons, uniforms, and other possessions seized when his palace was invaded in 2003 but also his bedroom. Couples can spend the night there for the equivalent of about $220. The neoclassical Villa Torlonia in the middle of Rome also draws tourists. From 1925 to 1943 Benito Mussolini called it home. Many visitors are particularly interested in il Duce’s pompous bedroom, even though it’s not available for overnight stays.

The increasingly popular practice of couch surfing makes it possible to find free accommodations in other cities or countries. It also fulfills a desire to experience a new place from the perspective of the people who live there instead of from a hotel. This new type of transitory, nomadic lifestyle is not, however, for the faint of heart; once in a while, the “couch” may turn out to be the host’s bed.

In some regions of Africa and Asia, more than two or three people who are neither related nor intimate sleep together without unleashing a scandal or even requiring an explanation. These days in Botswana or the Congo, for example, it’s not uncommon for people to sleep in groups. Pets may even join the mix. Communal sleeping is believed to protect against attacks by wild animals. Some cultures also believe, rather poetically, that your soul can get lost if you sleep alone.

Furthermore, the desire to be warm when sleeping is apparently so elementary that it banishes concerns about disturbances like snoring and limitations on a sleeper’s free movements. In Western societies in the past, physical proximity to strangers was not considered unpleasant either; personal boundaries were drawn differently. Moreover, sharing a bed with the head of a household could even be a way to reconcile after a fierce argument.

As Danielle Régnier-Bohler makes clear in the chapter she wrote for
The History of Private Life
, nocturnal promiscuity—that is, sexual relations with varying people in bed—seems to have been par for the
course in the Middle Ages and even later. In bed, that peninsula of privacy, as she calls it, people could give their feelings greater rein than almost anywhere else. It sounds a bit like a paradox: the bed was of course a private place, but everyone knew what kinds of things could happen there. Darkness invited deception or the “manipulation of reality” and was associated with guilt, adultery, and crime. Letting someone sleep alone was not only a way to grant him or her a peaceful night but a privilege and sign of honor. Another contributor to
The History of Private Life
, Philippe Contamine, explains that “sleeping together was often considered a consequence of poverty. Anyone who could afford to sleep alone wished to do so, or at any rate to sleep only with people of their own choosing.”

When it comes to sleep, considerable confusion seems to have reigned in the Middle Ages: a single bed might contain couples, their children, siblings, or servants as well as soldiers, students, invalids, or the poor. Travel could bring complete strangers together in bed. This may seem odd to us, but it doesn’t require extended explanation: another traveler could show up long after you had gone to bed and join you. On the other hand, if you had the misfortune to be a member of a lower class, you might have to clear out to make way for a social superior demanding a bed at your inn for the night.

Here, there, and everywhere: sleeping room at an inn in early modern Europe

When many people showed up at the same place needing a bed for the night—as often happened, for example, during pilgrimages—every corner of space at an inn was precious. Sometimes the visitors were put up in the hayloft, or if straw was in short supply, indoor spots to sleep were quickly organized with hay. Terrible headaches were common after a night in such a fragrant setting. In Brussels, Albrecht Dürer once saw a bed for fifty people. It was a place for drunks to sleep off their intoxication. In his book
Dark Scenes from a Life of Wandering: Notebook of a Craftsman
, a certain D. Rocholl provides vivid stories of his nocturnal experiences, apparently in late-nineteenth-century northern Germany. He describes one inn as a “refuge for beggars, traveling
entertainers with and without horse and wagon, broom makers, peddlers, umbrella makers, tinkers, Slovaks, Gypsies, rascals, and all traveling homeless and idle folk, male and female alike.” Soon chaos descends:

Why did separate sleeping arrangements finally catch on? Around the middle of the nineteenth century, critics began to condemn communal sleeping on hygienic or moral grounds. One frequent argument, here expressed by a French expert, was
that overly close quarters brought “the bodily emissions of those involved into conflict.” Such warnings also formed part of efforts to combat tuberculosis and syphilis. The origins of many illnesses remained unclear; even gout and scurvy were long considered communicable. Furthermore, inadequate ventilation could quickly lead to a lack of oxygen. When, in the nineteenth century, the construction of new living space could not keep pace with growth in the industrial centers, shift workers often had to share a bed with a bed lodger. The arrangement did not involve both parties’ sleeping together, but rather taking turns using the bed.

Trying to sleep in a cold bed in an unheated room can cost even the most tired person a good night’s sleep. In the past, people used hot-water bottles or sacks of warm sand to try to get comfortable. Those lacking such luxuries could make do with a brick that had been placed in the oven. Still, most people never faced the specter of freezing alone in bed. Moreover, preventing such a fate did not necessarily depend on the presence of human bedfellows. Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, the wife of the Duke of Orleans, once wrote: “What keeps me truly warm in bed is six small puppies.”