After the bar, we all went to a house in Montmartre belonging to one of his friends. He gave me a glass of water with some ecstasy sprinkled in. For about ten minutes I felt jubilant, and then, all of a sudden, the joy went away, drying out like hot laundry in the sun. I felt a sense of clarity—but it was worse than that; it was the feeling of being intensely sober. Everyone’s faces were clearer than I had ever seen them. Their eyes were red, bloated, and puffy, framed by lines like deep ridges. I pitied them. I found them pathetic.
