Nick’s

Nick’s Bar, New York City

“And then suddenly the jazz stops. The bull has been run through; the oldest cock is dead. It’s over. You’ve drunk your whisky while you were yelling without even noticing that you were drinking it. An impassive waiter brings you another. You remain dazed for a moment, you shake yourself, you say to the girl next to you, ‘Not bad…’ She doesn’t answer, and it begins again.

You won’t make love that night, you won’t feel sorry for yourself, you didn’t even succeed in getting drunk or shed blood, and you will have been swept away by a blind frenzy, by this convulsive crescendo, which is like an angry, futile search for pleasure. You’ll leave the place a little worn out, a little drunk, but in a sort of beat-down calm, as after great heaves of emotional storms.

Jazz is America’s national entertainment.”

Nick’s Bar, New York City, Jean Paul Sartre © 2013 by NYREV, Inc., © Éditions Gallimard