Even without this subjective inquietude it would have been an unpleasant summer.  All the world was at sixes and sevens, the social unrest stirred up by the war showed no signs of subsiding, but indeed, quite the contrary, there was trouble in the very air—­ominous portents of a storm whose dull, grim growling down the horizon could be heard only too clearly by those who did not wilfully close their ears, grin fatuous complacence, and bleat like brainless sheep:  “All’s well!”

High-spirited youth and witless wealth a-lust for strange new pleasures turned from the long strain of conflict to indulgence in endless orgies of extravagance like nothing ever witnessed by a world long since surfeited with contemplation of weird excesses:  daily that wild dance of death attained wilder stages of saturnalia, the bands blaring ever louder to drown the mutter of savage elemental forces working underneath the crust.

And ever and anon a lull would fall and the world would shudder to the iteration of a word that spelled calamity to all things fair and sweet and lovable in life, the word Bolshevism....

In the Cafe des Exiles there was endless discord and strife.

For several reasons trade was not what it had been, even for the slack season of summer it was poor.  The cost of everything had gone up, waiters were insubordinate and unreasonable in their demands, Mama Therese had been constrained to increase the fixed price of the dinner, old customers took umbrage at this and their patronage elsewhere.

Mama Therese cultivated a temper that grew day by day more vile, Papa Dupont displayed new artfulness in the matter of sneaking his daily toll of drink and showed it; the two squabbled incessantly.

One of the chefs, surmising the irregularity of their relations and foreseeing an imminent break, sought to turn it to his own profit by making amorous overtures to Mama Therese, who for reasons of her own, probably hoping to make Papa Dupont jealous, encouraged the idiot.  And, as if this were not sickening enough, Papa Dupont, far from resenting this menace to the pseudo-peace of the menage, ignored if he did not welcome it, and daily displayed new tenderness for Sofia.  He kept near her as constantly as he could, he would even interrupt a wrangle with Mama Therese to favour the girl with a languishing glance or a term of endearment; he was forever caressing her disgustingly with his eyes.

The swing door between the cafe and the pantry had warped on its hinges and would not stay quite shut.  Normally it stuck in a position which permitted whoever was at the zinc an uninterrupted view of the desk of la dame du comptoir.  Instead of having it fixed, Papa Dupont put off that duty from day to day and developed a fond attachment for the place at the zinc.  For hours on end Sofia, on her high stool, would be conscious of his gloating regard, his glances that lingered on the sweet lines of her throat, the roundness of her pretty arms.