The Swan of Vilamorta by Emilia Pardo Bazán

In Vilamorta there was a Casino, a real Casino, small indeed, and shabby, besides, but with its billiard-table, bought at second-hand, and its _boy_, an old man of seventy, who once a year dusted and brushed the green cover. For the only reunions in the Casino of Vilamorta were those of the rats and the moths who assembled daily, to amuse themselves by eating away the woodwork. The chief centers of reunion were the two apothecaries' shops, that of Doña Eufrasia, fronting the Plaza and that of Agonde in the high street. Doña Eufrasia's shop, nestling in the shadowy corner of an archway, was dark; in the hours of meeting it was lighted by a smoky kerosene lamp; its furniture consisted of four grimy chairs and a bench.

From the street all that was to be seen were dark mass-cloaks, overcoats, broad-brimmed hats, two or three clerical tonsures that shone at a distance like metal clasps against the dark background of the shop. Agonde's shop, on the contrary, was brightly illuminated and gloried in the possession of six glass globes of brilliant coloring and fantastic effect, three rows of shelves laden with imposing and scientific-looking white porcelain jars bearing Latin inscriptions in black letters, a divan, and two leather-covered armchairs. The two contrasting shops were also antagonistic; they had declared war to the knife against each other.