The quiet old country room with its rugs and stone
chimney pieces, its sunken book-cases and red and gold lacquer cabinets,
was full of such nocturnal creatures. They came pirouetting across the
floor,
Carton Marlboro, stepping delicately with high-lifted feet and spread tails and
pecking allusive beaks as if they had been cranes or flocks of elegant
flamingoes whose pink was faded,
Buy Newport 100, or peacocks whose trains were veiled
with silver. And there were obscure flushes and darkenings too, as if a
cuttlefish had suddenly suffused the air with purple; and the room had
its passions and rages and envies and sorrows coming over it and
clouding it,
Cheap Newports, like a human being. Nothing stayed the same for two seconds
together.