Chapter 8 Summary

The party grinds on into the night, for 50 pages, as the guests try to impress each other with their intellect and charm but descend into alcoholic chaos as "the voices of guests lay in monotonous layers on the pestilential heat, rising into the lighted regions, falling away to the dark beds of shifting infested silence. Mr. Schmuck of 20th Century Schmuck joins the party and talks about German composers. The voices of guests and their conversations intersect and collide randomly, as is usually the case at a cocktail party. Someone asks Recktall Brown which is the most beautiful piece of art in his collection. Brown throws a hand up in a gesture of quandary and smacks Basil Valentine square in the face. As Valentine holds a handkerchief to his bleeding nose, and beckons his listeners to follow him into another room. What follows...