One custom that we have imported from the West is that the New Year marks the beginning of the season for parties.

My sister dresses me in one of her European dresses, then she parts my hair on one side and waxes it thoroughly before opening her makeup box. In just one hour I have become unrecognizable even to myself. My face is as white as over-soaped linen, my eyelids are darker than a moth’s wings, and the fluttering false eyelashes make me look winsomely tearful.

On the square in front of the town hall the garlands are vying for attention with the stars. Carriages and cars glide over the snow and spew out “gentlemen” fingering gold-handled canes, and women in furs, their hair curled and cigarettes at the end of ivory filters held nonchalantly between their lips.

A wood of fir trees sparkling in the snow lies between the Imperial Hotel and the rest of the world. A path swept clear at the beginning of the evening zigzags between the shadows and the wavering torchlight. The hotel porters in their red capes are sharply silhouetted against the glassy clarity of the windows.

A revolving door projects me into a huge room, where red lacquered columns reach up towards a domed ceiling hung with crystal chandeliers like bouquets of fireworks. Mountains, forests and seas undulate around the walls, and the sun contemplates the moon as storks fly off towards the clouds.

My sister drags me over to a table and orders me a café au lait, a fashionable sort of drink to have in a place like this. The band accompanies a singer in a sequined dress that gleams as her body moves like a charmed snake, while her milky-white throat produces a moody, plaintive voice.