- end_line
- 9017
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8942
- text
- CHAPTER XLVI.
A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT IN LONDON
“No time to lose,” said Harry, “come along.”
He called a cab: in an undertone mentioned the number of a house in
some street to the driver; we jumped in, and were off.
As we rattled over the boisterous pavements, past splendid squares,
churches, and shops, our cabman turning corners like a skater on the
ice, and all the roar of London in my ears, and no end to the walls of
brick and mortar; I thought New York a hamlet, and Liverpool a
coal-hole, and myself somebody else: so unreal seemed every thing about
me. My head was spinning round like a top, and my eyes ached with much
gazing; particularly about the corners, owing to my darting them so
rapidly, first this side, and then that, so as not to miss any thing;
though, in truth, I missed much.
“Stop,” cried Harry, after a long while, putting his head out of the
window, all at once—“stop! do you hear, you deaf man? you have passed
the house—No. 40 I told you—that’s it—the high steps there, with the
purple light!”
The cabman being paid, Harry adjusting his whiskers and mustache, and
bidding me assume a lounging look, pushed his hat a little to one side,
and then locking arms, we sauntered into the house; myself feeling not
a little abashed; it was so long since I had been in any courtly
society.
It was some semi-public place of opulent entertainment; and far
surpassed any thing of the kind I had ever seen before.
The floor was tesselated with snow-white, and russet-hued marbles; and
echoed to the tread, as if all the Paris catacombs were underneath. I
started with misgivings at that hollow, boding sound, which seemed
sighing with a subterraneous despair, through all the magnificent
spectacle around me; mocking it, where most it glared.
The walls were painted so as to deceive the eye with interminable
colonnades; and groups of columns of the finest Scagliola work of
variegated marbles—emerald-green and gold, St. Pons veined with silver,
Sienna with porphyry—supported a resplendent fresco ceiling, arched
like a bower, and thickly clustering with mimic grapes. Through all the
East of this foliage, you spied in a crimson dawn, Guide’s ever
youthful Apollo, driving forth the horses of the sun. From sculptured
stalactites of vine-boughs, here and there pendent hung galaxies of gas
lights, whose vivid glare was softened by pale, cream-colored,
porcelain spheres, shedding over the place a serene, silver flood; as
if every porcelain sphere were a moon; and this superb apartment was
the moon-lit garden of Portia at Belmont; and the gentle lovers,
Lorenzo and Jessica, lurked somewhere among the vines.
At numerous Moorish looking tables, supported by Caryatides of turbaned
slaves, sat knots of gentlemanly men, with cut decanters and
taper-waisted glasses, journals and cigars, before them.
To and fro ran obsequious waiters, with spotless napkins thrown over
their arms, and making a profound salaam, and hemming deferentially,
whenever they uttered a word.
At the further end of this brilliant apartment, was a rich mahogany
turret-like structure, partly built into the wall, and communicating
with rooms in the rear. Behind, was a very handsome florid old man,
with snow-white hair and whiskers, and in a snow-white jacket—he looked
like an almond tree in blossom—who seemed to be standing, a polite
sentry over the scene before him; and it was he, who mostly ordered
about the waiters; and with a silent salute, received the silver of the
guests.
Our entrance excited little or no notice; for every body present seemed
exceedingly animated about concerns of their own; and a large group was
gathered around one tall, military looking gentleman, who was reading
some India war-news from the Times, and commenting on it, in a very
loud voice, condemning, in toto, the entire campaign.
- title
- Chunk 1