martin had never been allowed to sit on the chaise longue in garnets library when his employer had been alive , although he had often times transported garnet from the confines of his wheelchair to lay on the divans soft fabric in the manner - so he liked to believe - of his aesthetic hero des esseintes , but since his solitary return to the apartment martin had taken to stretching out , full length , on its comfortable cushions every afternoon , in part as the basis of a convalescence regime , but also partly through sheer childish perversity , now that there was no one around to tell him to do otherwise .