And a thirst, less for bloodshed, than for a sherbet, seized him.
It was a square noted for the frequency of its bars, and many of their names, in flickering lights, shewed palely forth already.
Cuna! City of Moonstones; how færic art thou in the blue blur of dusk!
Costa Rica. Chile Bar. To the Island of June....
Red roses, against tall mirrors, reflecting the falling night.
Seated before a cloudy cocktail, a girl with gold cheeks like the flesh of peaches, addressed him softly from behind: “Listen, lion!”
But he merely smiled on himself in the polished mirrors, displaying moist-gleaming teeth and coral gums.
An aroma of aromatic cloves ... a mystic murmur of ice....
A little dazed after a Ron Bacardi, he moved away: “Shine, sah?” the inveigling squeak of a shoeblack followed him.
Sauntering by the dusty benches by the pavement-side, where white-robed negresses sat communing in twos and threes, he attained the Avenue Messalina with its spreading palms, whose fronds hung nerveless in the windless air.