Equally unflattering, "the...antics of creatures inhabiting the windowsills and balconies" of Veracruz, in particular the deceitful parrots:

"A long gray cat huddled watchfully in the window of his own house, staring at his enemy the parrot, that interloper with the human voice who had deceived him again and again with an invitation to come and get food."

#AmReading SHIP OF FOOLS by #KatherineAnnePorter

"The passengers, emerging from the mildewed dimness of the customs sheds, blinking their eyes against the blinding sunlight, all had the look of invalids crawling into hospital on their last legs."

The ordeal of transiting through Veracruz over, the ship sets sail on the high seas bound for Bremerhaven. Now for the ordeals on board.

#AmReading SHIP OF FOOLS by #KatherineAnnePorter

Young American painter David Scott catches a glimpse of his cabin mate's bright red silk pajama coat & flinches:

"Profusion of color in anything was offensive to David; it offended more than his eye—he distrusted it on moral grounds & nowhere more so than in dress..his favorite though not original theory was that persons who 'expressed themselves' by wearing color were merely attempting to supply its inner lack in their own natures, adding a façade that fooled nobody."

#AmReading SHIP OF FOOLS

"'𝐼𝑐ℎ 𝑏𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑙𝑎,'" she hummed, imitating Marlene Dietrich's broadest lowest style ... "I loved her best when she was being comic in her wonderful bull-contralto. How much nicer she was when she wasn't being the romantic heroine in the movies."

#AmReading SHIP OF FOOLS by #KatherineAnnePorter

https://youtu.be/cgI5GBgfD1A