A Time To Be Born | The Wicked Pavilion

What Dennis Orphen was writing was this:

It must be that the Julien was all that these people really liked about each other for now when they chance across each other in the street they look through each other, unrecognizing, or cross the street quickly with the vague feeling that here was someone identified with unhappy memories—as if the other was responsible for the fall of the Julien. Curious, too, that everyone connected with the café looks so small on the street. The arrogance and dignity of the old waiters is now wrapped up in a bundle under their arms when you catch a glimpse of one of them, shriveled and bent, scuttling down a subway kiosk; the men of affairs who had spent hours sipping their brandy and liqueurs, reading their papers with lordly ease, are suddenly old and harassed-looking, home and family harness collaring them for good, their café egos stowed away in vest pocket pillboxes like morphine grains.

The Café Julien was gone and a reign was over. Those who had been bound by it fell apart like straws when the baling cord is cut and remembered each other's name and face as part of a dream that would never come back.

For more excerpts of Dawn Powell's work, explore her work.