requited drink he was meditating upon the scene before him in
that state of curious tranquillity which was nearly always induced by
ceaseless circumfluent clamor. Sitting in this tunnel-shaped alcove, he
seemed to be in the box of a theater whence the actions and voices of
the contemplated company had the unreality of an operatic finale. After
a time the various groups and individuals were separated in his mind, so
that in their movements he began to take an easily transferred interest,
endowing them with pleasant or unpleasant characteristics in turn. Round
him in the alcove there were strange contrasts of behavior. At one table
four offensive youths were showing off with exaggerated laughter for the
benefit of nobody's attention. Behind them in the crepuscule of two
broken lamps a leaden-lidded girl; ivory white and cloying the air with
her heavy perfume, was arguing in low passionate tones with a cold-eyed
listener who with a straw was tracing niggling hieroglyphics upon a
moist surface of cigarette-ash. In the deepest corner a girl with a high
complexion and bright eyes was making ardent love to a partially drunk
and bearded man, winking the while over her shoulder at whoever would
watch her comedy. The other places were filled by impersonal women who
sipped from their glasses without relish and stared disdainfully at each
other down their powdered noses. At Michael's own table was a blotchy
man who alternately sucked his teeth and looked at his watch; and
immediately opposite sat a girl with a merry, audacious and somewhat
pale face of the Gallic type under a very large and round black hat
trimmed with daisies. She was twinkling at Michael, but he would not
catch her eye, and he looked steadily over the brim of her hat toward
the raffish and rutilant assemblage beyond. Along two sides of the wall
were large mirrors painted with flowers and bloated Naiads; here in
reflection the throng performed its antics in numberless reduplications.
Advertisements of drink decorated the rest of the space on the walls,
and at intervals hung notices warning ladies that they must not stay
longer than twenty minutes unless accompanied by a gentleman, that they
must not move to another table unless accompanied by a gentleman, and
with a final stroke of ironic propriety that they must not smoke unless
accompanied by a gentleman. The tawdry beer hall with its reek of
alcohol and fog of tobacco smoke, with its harborage of all the flotsam