adorned with the masterpieces of Greece, crowded with women in gemmed
embroideries and men in white tunics hemmed with broad purple; he saw
the Generals with their barbaric officers--Bulgarians, Persians, Arabs,
Slavs--the long line of savage-looking prisoners in their chains, and
the golden breastplates of the standard-bearers. He saw the immense silk
_velum_ floating in the azure air over that rippling sea of men, those
hundreds of thousands who swarmed on the marble steps of the Hippodrome.
He saw the Emperor in his high-pillared box, on his circular throne of
dull gold, surrounded by slaves fanning him with jewel-coloured plumes,
and fenced round with golden swords.

And opposite him, on the other side of the Stadium, the Empress, mantled
in a stiff pontifical robe, laden with heavy embroidered stuffs,
her little head framed like a portrait in a square crown of gold and
diamonds, whence chains of emeralds hung down to her breast; motionless
as an idol, impassive as a gilded mummy.

He saw the crowd of gorgeous women, grouped like Eastern flowers around
her: he saw one woman. He saw one form as fresh as a lily of the valley,
all white amidst that hard metallic splendour; frail as a dewy anemone,
slender as the moist narcissus. He saw one face like the chalice of a
rose, and amidst all those fiery jewels two large eyes as soft as dark
violets. And the sumptuous Court, the plumes, the swords, the standards,
the hot, vari-coloured crowd melted away and disappeared, so that when
the Emperor rose and made the sign of the Cross over his people, first
to the right, and then to the left, and thirdly over the half-circle
behind him, and the singers of Saint Sofia and the Church of the Holy
Apostles mingled their bass chant with the shrill trebles of the chorus
of the Hippodrome, to the sound of silver organs, he thought that the
great hymn of praise was rising to her and to her alone; and that men