Panama [antikvár]

night falls suddenly in the tropics. The sun dives straight for the horizon, with none of the oblique angling of temperate climates. In the brief tropical twilight, darkness seems to materialize out of the very air, as if it leaked from the transparent nothingness between things; as if, Henry Adams thought, it were a colorless, coagulant fluid, undetectable by any sense but sight, kept at bay somehow by the oppressive force of the sun. In the darkness he could no longer see much of anything. He had lingered too long at the window, watching the shadows lengthen by visible degrees, watching the cobbled relief of the jungle canopy below grow deeper and deeper and then disappear completely. No stars; no moon. He turned from the window and walked carefully to his right, advancing tentatively, hands extended to catch the wall. He hurried, thinking one of Hay's stewards would be along soon to light the lamps. When he found the wall he floated his hands on its smooth, even surface: native mahogany, he had judged it that afternoon. The photograph he wanted had been at eye level for a man of normal height. Adams reached up, running his hands across the wall in slow, wide arcs. When he located the wooden frame he lifted it quickly off its hook. Even when he brought the picture close to his face he could make out