All I Could Never Be

Page 52, sentence 5.

But in a party at Londonderry House the uproar of the common world was muffled, and even such sounds as sometimes echoed from outside must have been reassuring to those who desired the continuance of the status quo; they must have found solid comfort in the rich baritone of the linkman's voice, echoing out into the violet darkness of Park Lane, primrose-spangled with the street-lamps: 'Her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland's car ... His Highness the Aga Khan's car ...' and then, perhaps on a less exultant note: 'Taxi for Mr. Ramsay MacDonald.'

Beverley Nichols
All I Could Never Be

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P.S.: The following description is too good to not quote, even though it's on page 276 and not page 52.

Berlin was a strident city, a screaming city, dressed to kill, over-doped, over-drunk, over-sexed, beflagged from end to end in scarlet and black, tarted up from tip to toe with swastikas, its monuments ablaze with light, a tight, synthetic smile stretched over its ugly face. Berlin, in short, was a whore of a city.

From pages 278 and 279, here's another good description, this time of Berlin during the 1936 Olympics.

A few weeks before, Dr. Goebbels had committed one of the most revolting of all his crimes; he had deliberately put into reverse the machinery which had been previously used for 'cleaning up' Berlin. Before the flood of visitors began to arrive for the Olympic Games, it was the Nazi boast that they had turned Berlin into the most moral city in the world. The scores of shady clubs which had pandered to every form of perversion had been closed; the obscene magazines with their even more obscene advertisements had been banned; all the prostitutes had been bundled into munition factories. And then, as the rich tourists began to arrive, whispers reached Dr. Goebbels that they were finding Berlin rather dull. There was nowhere to go at nights, there were no obliging ladies to fill in one's spare time, above all, none of those amusing curiosities of which one had heard so much. Did it mean that Germany could no longer afford such luxuries? Was the Third Reich bankrupt?

Goebbels acted quickly. He cracked his whip, and out of the prisons and the concentration camps crept the tragic personnel of the underworld, with orders to make merry for the benefit of the foreigner. Once again the Monocle opened its doors to the women in dinner jackets, smoking their cigars, slapping each other on the back, calling old friends by masculine names. At first they were nervy, wincing whenever the door opened, in case the police were coming to drag them back again. For some of them had scars and bruises which no amount of liquid powder would conceal. But as the days went on, and the foreigners joined them, they felt safer; they played their part with a will, knowing that they were watched. Perhaps if they acted well enough, Dr. Goebbels might be pleased, and let them stay.

Once again, in dingy garrets, the female impersonators got out their women's clothes, donned their wigs, and sallied out to the Sphinx; once again the mirrors of the Jockey Club reflected the haunted faces of boys dabbing powder on their chins. It was of all situations the most macabre, this marriage of propaganda and pederasty.