A historical film could have been shot in Erasmus Darwin’s residence. Several, in fact. The kitchen into which I followed my host was equipped according to the very latest word in 1970s technology. Or, more precisely, the American 1970s, with lots of chrome and glass and touchingly naive design work. Darwin prepared coffee in a huge machine with a glass container for coffee beans on top of it. As it ground the beans, the machine rumbled like an airliner taking off. Standing on one of the tables under the colorful stained-glass windows was a bright, gleaming antique food processor, with CUISINART written on its side. The fridge was also a brand that I didn’t know.

Carrying a tray, on which he had placed coffee cups, a cream jug, and a sugar bowl, Erasmus led me into the sitting room. Here the 1970s capitulated ingloriously to the 1920s or 1930s—superbly polished leather furniture and dark wood everywhere—in the wall panels as well as the furniture—a marble fireplace . . . in which, to my amazement, genuine logs were burning! As far as I was aware, that was strictly forbidden—at one time, to combat the famous London smog, all the fireplaces in the city had been converted for gas. There was no TV, of course, but there was a valve radio, housed in a substantial wooden cabinet that looked like a small cupboard.

“Are you not feeling cold, Antoine?” Erasmus asked. “Perhaps a drop of porto with cognac?”

“But it’s summer outside,” I said, amazed. I don’t always grasp certain elementary things straight away. “Ah . . . but then . . . it’s so cool in here. Thick walls, right? Thanks, I’ll gladly take a drop of porto with cognac.”

A look of relief appeared on Erasmus’s face.

“Why, of course, you’re from Musco . . . Russia!” he said delightedly. “Drinking in the morning wouldn’t bother you!”

“It’s almost lunchtime already,” I said diplomatically, making myself comfortable in the deep leather armchair.

“Damn the porto!” Erasmus exclaimed. “Fine, old, warm-hearted Irish whisky!”

Well, after all, three centuries is quite long enough, not only to acquire part of an abbey in the center of London, but also to become an alcoholic.

From out of a wide sideboard with shelves concealed by little doors of cloudy matte-glass, Erasmus took several bottles. He examined them fastidiously and selected one that had no label at all.

“A hundred and fifty years old,” he told me. “I have whisky older than that, but that’s not really important. What matters is that in those days petrol engines had not yet polluted nature with their stench, rye was rye, malt was malt, and peat was peat . . . Would you like ice, Antoine?”

“No,” I said, mostly out of politeness, in order not to make Erasmus go to the kitchen.

“Quite right!” Erasmus said approvingly. “Ice is for the uncouth yokels in the colonies. If required, I have pure Irish water . . .”