The
walls were decorated with garlands and festoons of flowers, the flaming
candelabras among which found their reflection in the tall Venetian
mirrors that rose in their golden frames from the floor to the ceilings;
and in the corners of the rooms were niches, here furnished with
orange-trees, and there with heavy silk curtains, behind which were
grottoes adorned with shells, in the midst of which were fountains where
splashed waters rendered fragrant by oil of roses and other essences.
And ever-new surprises, new grottoes and groves in those rich halls
offered themselves to the eyes of the beholders. Now one suddenly found
himself in a quiet boudoir lighted only by a solitary lamp, where the
most artistic engravings and the rarest drawings were spread out upon
a table; then again one entered a hall sparkling with a thousand lights
and resounding with music, where the gayly-dressed crowd undulated in
mazy waves; then again grottoes opened here and there, or one stepped
out through the open doors into the garden where one could enjoy the
balsamic coolness of the evening in walks brilliantly lighted with
colored lamps, or listen to the music of performers concealed in the
shrubbery, or, again, fleeing from the throng and the lights, seek a
resting-place upon some grassy bank or under some myrtle-bush, whether
for solitary musing or for encircling in sweet and silent familiarity
the waist of some chosen fair one who understanding the stolen glance,
had strayed here unnoticed.
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