In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

36 ARRAYS
which we order cocktails is a tonic which it is difficult to resist" (197).
At the same time, bars are seen as appealing to human needs which are
so basic that their satisfaction equals psychic regression. This may explain
why the "roadside inn" in the poem about Babe Ruth is "cozy,"
and why the customers of the speakeasies are called "suckers." Finallydespite
such associations with elementary desires-bars entice their patrons
with sophisticated lighting and with the artificial colors of the
cocktails. The virtuous and perverted hero of Marcel Jouhandeau's novel
Monsieur Codeau Intime happily identifies the atmosphere of his favorite
bar with the temptations of hell:
In the middle of the night, he sat down in an atmosphere more brilliant
than noon on a summer's day in Provence. Fruits and flowers hung
from the ceiling, gleaming even on his short hair. His black gloves,
which he never took off, made all the bare hands of the men and
women around him stand out, holding their creme de menthe or blue
absinthe in fine glasses ... Sitting at a narrow table at the back of the
room, between a steaming glass of punch and a scented candle, did Mr.
Godeau read? Did he appear to read? Did he enter more profoundly
into himself? Did he exalt, in this artificial light, his difference? Did he
clasp God in his arms? (32-33)
Just as bars are typically mentioned along with a variety of other
pleasure spaces, cocktails, by definition, consist of a variety of liquors.
Even the inhabitants of the utterly corrupt South American republic that
Ramon del Valle-Inclan invents in Tirano Banderas appreciate cocktails
as a mark of sophistication: "The editor of El Criterio Espaiiol, at a
nearby table, sipped the cool drink of pineapple, soda, and kir that had
made the bar of the Metropol room famous" (54). This implicit complexity
turns into individuality, since individual cocktails belong to a
whole system of drinks. The waiters' trays are always full: "Above the
brilliance of the pavement, the cries of street vendors. The zigzag of
Nubian shoe shine boys. Clinking trays, which the waiters of American
bars carry above their heads" (58). Likewise, the shelves of American
bars are filled with bottles of different colors. It is the bartenders' art to
generate a potentially infinite list of cocktails by combining the finite
number of different liquors which those bottles contain. The world of
pleasures in general and the world of American bars in particular func-