Drawing by Djuna Barnes, originally published in the New York Morning Telegraph Sunday Magazine, accompanying her article, “How the Villagers Amuse Themselves.” The original story reads in part:
“With manicure set in his hip pocket and his nails shining like a Venetian tumbler from much surreptitious buffing on his moist palm, the villager walks across the tiled floor of the cafe. From his shoulders hangs a long Mephistophelian cape; this he unclasps slowly with long, white, convalescent hands. The cape slips back—ah, dear Lord, what have we done to receive so much beauty per flash! On his gaunt form is naught but a leopard skin, a little talcum, a string of beads, a garter of winking, seductive sapphires. A dawn of myrrh, a dusk of Hindu-colored grease-paint.”
Date: 26 November 1916
Source: Poe’s Mother: Selected Drawings of Djuna Barnes, ed. Douglas Messerli (ISBN 1-55713-143-0), p. 101
