Some recline on their couches with closed eyes, as if the heat made the labour of using their organs of vision too much for them; others, in the midst of a conversation, suddenly leave a sentence unfinished, apparently incapacitated by lassitude from giving expression to the simplest ideas.

Every sight in the apartment that attracts the eye, every sound that gains the ear, expresses a luxurious repose.

No brilliant light mars the pervading softness of the atmosphere; no violent colour materialises the light, ethereal hues of the dresses; no sudden noises interrupt the fitful and plaintive notes of the lute, jar with the soft twittering of the birds in the aviaries, or drown the still, regular melody of the ladies' voices.

All objects, animate and inanimate, are in harmony with each other.

It is a scene of spiritualised indolence--a picture of dreamy beatitude in the inmost sanctuary of unruffled repose.
Amid this assemblage of beauty and nobility, the members of which were rather to be generally noticed than particularly observed, there was, however, one individual who, both by the solitary occupation he had chosen and his accidental position in the room, was personally remarkable among the listless patricians around him.
His couch was placed nearer the window than that of any other occupant of the chamber.