While I would’ve gone on anyway and reached this gem of writing, I am grateful to Bud Parr of Chekov’s Mistress and Metaxucafe for the attitude change that enabled me to enjoy it:
But when he had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner of the room he began to taste the joy of his loneliness. The mirth, which in the beginning of the evening had seemed to him false and trivial, was like a soothing air to him, passing gaily by his senses, hiding from other eyes the feverish agitation of his blood while through the circling of the dancers and amid the music and laughter her glance travelled to his corner, flattering, taunting, searching, exciting his heart. (p. 68)
I am not even sure that there is a real woman here he sees. It can be, and yet it can be his fantasies, or still, a metaphorical lover that pulls at his mind. But oh, the writing! Not fancy words but strung together in a feeling we have felt before. The "soothing air" that moves the mood can have been done by drink, or merely by self-comfort within the soul. Alone sometimes is refuge.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology