Except when Anthony was drinking, his range of sensation had become less
than that of a healthy old man and when prohibition came in July he
found that, among those who could afford it, there was more drinking
than ever before. One's host now brought out a bottle upon the slightest
pretext. The tendency to display liquor was a manifestation of the same
instinct that led a man to deck his wife with jewels. To have liquor was
a boast, almost a badge of respectability.
In the mornings Anthony awoke tired, nervous, and worried. Halcyon
summer twilights and the purple chill of morning alike left him
unresponsive. Only for a brief moment every day in the warmth and
renewed life of a first high-ball did his mind turn to those opalescent
dreams of future pleasure--the mutual heritage of the happy and the
damned. But this was only for a little while. As he grew drunker the
dreams faded and he became a confused spectre, moving in odd crannies of
his own mind, full of unexpected devices, harshly contemptuous at best
and reaching sodden and dispirited depths. One night in June he had
quarrelled violently with Maury over a matter of the utmost triviality.
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