A general murmuring had arisen and, as I stood there facing them, feeling a little light-headed but still surging with euphoria, the doorman who had let me in, along with one of the burlier of the dinner-suited guests, approached and set about removing me, taking one arm each and frogmarching me to the exit. I turned wildly, calling out to Ewa, shouting that they were making a mistake, that I was wrong. Ewa stood and watched, her expression frozen, her hand still at her mouth, and I lost sight of her as I was escorted round the corner.
They threw me out into the night. I vomited copiously on the steps, spitefully hoping that every guest would have to tread through it, wove my way to the subway and rode ingloriously back to my room in Queens.
He turns down the corners of his mouth slowly, pressing his dry, paper-grey lips firmly together. His face has lost all its colour. He is beginning to look like an old faded photograph of someone long dead. He has not had a shave for several days and whiskers are growing defiantly on his hollowed-out cheeks.