It was as if she HAD to return to this small,
slow, central whirlpool of disintegration and dissolution: just give it
a look.
She sat with Gerald drinking some sweetish liqueur, and staring with
black, sullen looks at the various groups of people at the tables. She
would greet nobody, but young men nodded to her frequently, with a kind
of sneering familiarity. She cut them all. And it gave her pleasure to
sit there, cheeks flushed, eyes black and sullen, seeing them all
objectively, as put away from her, like creatures in some menagerie of
apish degraded souls. God, what a foul crew they were! Her blood beat
black and thick in her veins with rage and loathing. Yet she must sit
and watch, watch. One or two people came to speak to her. From every
side of the Cafe, eyes turned half furtively, half jeeringly at her,
men looking over their shoulders, women under their hats.
The old crowd was there, Carlyon in his corner with his pupils and his
girl, Halliday and Libidnikov and the Pussum--they were all there.
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