Journey To The End Of The Night - pg. 124

It is hard to take a reasonable view of people and things in the tropics because of the aura of colour which envelopes them. Things and colours are in a haze. A little sardine tin lying open at noon in the middle of the road throws off so many different reflections that in one's eyes it takes on the importance of an accident. You've got to be careful. It's not only the human beings who are hysterical down in those parts; things get involved in it too. Life doesn't become even barely tolerable until nightfall and even then the darkness is seized almost at once by swarm of mosquitoes, - not one or two or several score, but billions of them. To pull through under such conditions becomes a veritable feat of self-preservation. A carnival by day, a cauldron at night, it's the war again in petto.