For him, it was impossible to celebrate with hoarse ha-has, like his cousins, the discomfiture of these women when they realized that they had wasted so many hours without accomplishing more than abundant drinking.

The gross obscenity, so public and noisy, like a parade of riches, was loathsome to Julio.

"There is nothing like this in Paris," his cousins repeatedly exulted as they admired the stupendous salons, the hundreds of men and women in pairs, the thousands of tipplers.

"No, there certainly was nothing like that in Paris." He was sick of such boundless pretension.

He seemed to be attending a fiesta of hungry mariners anxious at one swoop to make amends for all former privations.