their corner with the greatest difficulty, and then wending their way
towards the adjoining gallery through a sea of serried skirts, a billowy
expanse of necks and shoulders whence ascended the passion which makes
life, the odour alike of love and of death.

With its eight windows overlooking the Corso, their panes uncurtained and
throwing a blaze of light upon the houses across the road, the picture
gallery, sixty-five feet in length and more than thirty in breadth,
spread out with incomparable splendour. The illumination was dazzling.
Clusters of electric lamps had changed seven pairs of huge marble
candelabra into gigantic /torcheres/, akin to constellations; and all
along the cornice up above, other lamps set in bright-hued floral glasses
formed a marvellous garland of flaming flowers: tulips, paeonies, and
roses. The antique red velvet worked with gold, which draped the walls,
glowed like a furnace fire. About the doors and windows there were
hangings of old lace broidered with flowers in coloured silk whose hues
had the very intensity of life. But the sight of sights beneath the
sumptuous panelled ceiling adorned with golden roses, the unique
spectacle of a richness not to be equalled, was the collection of
masterpieces such as no museum could excel. There were works of Raffaelle
and Titian, Rembrandt and Rubens, Velasquez and Ribera, famous works
which in this unexpected illumination suddenly showed forth, triumphant
with youth regained, as if awakened to the immortal life of genius. And,
as their Majesties would not arrive before midnight, the ball had just
been opened, and flights of soft-hued gowns were whirling in a waltz past
all the pompous throng, the glittering jewels and decorations, the
gold-broidered uniforms and the pearl-broidered robes, whilst silk and
satin and velvet spread and overflowed upon every side.

"It is prodigious, really!" declared Prada with his excited air; "let us