There were Hermine Kleefeld, and Herr Albin⁠—who carried about a great flowered box of chocolates, and offered them to all the guests, he himself eating none, but with a benevolent, paternal air smoking gold-tipped cigarettes; there were the thick-lipped youth who belonged to the Half-Lung Club, the thin and ivory-coloured Fräulein Levi, an ash-blond young man who answered to the name of Rasmussen and carried his hands breast-high, with the wrists relaxed, like a pair of flippers; Frau Salomon from Amsterdam, a woman of full bodily habit, in a red frock, who had attached herself to the group of young folk; the tall, thin-haired young man who could play out of the

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