A Claridge’s in London or a pub, a Cirro’s in Paris or a bistro — alehouse, coffee-house, bodega, caravansary — by any name each is a sanctuary, a temple for talk, and for the observance of the warming rites of comradeship. Around this samovar, over those crystal goblets or beside that skin of wine, not much is said that, morning after, will stir a sleepy world to thoughtfulness. What music there was is vanished with the vanished hours, what words were uttered are dead with the fallen dust and are as prudently whisked away. The Old Days, the Lost Days — in the half-closed eyes of memory (and
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