More nicotine-stained prose

From Luc Sante:

If a cigarette is a stalwart companion in solitude, in company it is an ally. As if you could supply your own soundtrack or interlinear commentary, cigarettes color or intensify or counterpoint the message conveyed by your words, face, and body. Simmering anger is immeasurably more effective when accompanied by wreaths of smoke that seem to emerge from the smoker's ears, hair, eyes. The transit of hand to mouth and out again, repeated metronomically, can under the right circumstances ratchet up the tension in a room to a point of explosion. The cigarette that is held no more than an inch from the face even when it is removed from the mouth can act as a mask, a veil, or a fan.