liquid alchemy

image: "The Absinthe Devil" by John Coulter

"there was very little left and one cup of it took the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in cafes, of all the chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month, of the great slow horses of the outer boulevards, of book shops, and kiosks, and of galleries, of the Parc Montsouris, of the Stade Buffalo, and of. . .Foyet's old hotel, and of being able to relax and read in the evening; of all the things he had enjoyed and forgotten and that came back to him when he tasted that opaque, bitter, tongue-numbing, brain-warming, stomach-warming, idea-changing liquid alchemy."

E. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls