AND SO TO BED

Diane Von Furstenberg reports from dreamland in her new book, Beds (Bantam), a peep at the world's best boudoirs

the bed is a place to dream, to reflect. The more space around it—the more freedom. air, and openness—the better.

For each one of us, for each person at every age, there is a bed, where we spend a third of every day and where we have our most intimate moments. For the infant it's a cradle; for the baby it's a crib. The adolescent's bed is a bed of solitude, where one finds oneself alone, sad, and misunderstood, where one goes to sleep dreaming of becoming Marilyn, Madonna, or Albert Einstein. The young adult's bed can be a mattress on the floor, with scattered pillows and books to reflect an untidy existence of early efforts, full of life and hope. The bed of newlyweds is large, sumptuous, with embroidered, perfumed sheets. In the days of kings and queens this bed was at the center of the castle, a sacred place where future dynasties were conceived and bom. The matrimonial bed symbolizes the achievements of love and family; it is a reflection of the couple that inhabits it. Sometimes it splits into two, becoming twin beds, or twin bedrooms—one feminine, the other masculine. There are beds of every style, from cots to fourposters—canopied beds, Colonial beds, Shaker beds, Quaker beds, Art Nouveau beds, simple Bauhaus beds, Art Deco beds. There are temporary beds— hospital, hotel, and guest beds, beds on trains and ships and planes. The bed is also the place of final wisdom, where one dreams that last dream. After that, the bed remains silent in the room, awaiting a new beginning.