Each of the little drawers on this cabinet carries a pull with a frame for a label, so the baker could find the right one in the half-light before dawn, when the bread had to be in the oven long before the village woke. Found in Le Perche and dating to the early 20th century, it came out of a French bakery, six drawers across the front, panelled sides, and a worn top set on a black-painted plinth. Le Perche is deep country on the edge of Normandy, and a village bakery there was the one shop everyone walked to every single day, which is why its furniture was built to take years of flour, hands, and hard use. Sylvie sets it in the living room beneath a pair of old hunting prints, a silver dish and two glass candlesticks on top and a stack of art books at one end.
