New York : 7th Avenue

Iron In The Soul, p.33
There was nothing in the whole world but this heat, these stones, nothing at all .. save dreams. He turned into Seventh Avenue. The human tide flowed over him, its waves crested with a fine spray of bright, dead eyes. The sidewalk vibrated. Incandescent colours spattered him as he passed; steam rose from the crowd as from a damp sheet laid out in the sun. Eyes and grins everywhere : not to grin is a sin : eyes vague or definite, flickering or slow moving, but all of them dead. he did his best to go on pretending that these were real men: no, impossible! Everything was falling apart in his hands; his feelings of happiness ebbed. These eyes were like the eyes of portraits. Do they know that Paris has fallen? Do they give a thought to it?