GOOD EVENING

The shutter of the phone center rolls down, just as those to its right and left roll up. These latter establishments the evening, possibly the night, belongs to them. From the sinuous bicolored frieze bedecking the big window of one of them it looks like a fancy place for an aperitif and long talks about anything and everything, whilst dozing patrons in nearby armchairs lament under their breath the lack of peace and quiet – an army of white-collars and proper-skirts press to get on the tram which screeches its way off this scene and on to the traffic light at the crossroads, half in dusk, half in twilight, the same ad coating both its sides, but stimulating colors and responses different on each of them, so that those who will finally go to Mexico this summer were probably all walking on the still dusky side of the avenue.