about two o'clock in the
afternoon
By one of those ingenious combinations , so common in barbarous countries , these lamps served also to burn perfumes . Plates of blue crystal , let in between the openings of the arabesque , and illumined by the interior light , shone with so limpid an azure , that the golden lamps seemed starred with transparent sapphires . Light clouds , of whitish vapor rose incessantly from these lamps , and spread all around their balmy odor . Daylight was only admitted to this room -LRB- it was about two o'clock in the afternoon -RRB- through a little greenhouse , on the other side of a door of plate-glass , made to slide into the thickness of the wall , by means of a groove . A Chinese shade was arranged so as to hide or replace this glass at pleasure . Some dwarf palm tress , plantains , and other Indian productions , with thick leaves of a metallic green , arranged in clusters in this conservatory , formed , as it were , the background to two large variegated bushes of exotic flowers , which were separated by a narrow path , paved with yellow and blue Japanese tiles , running to the foot of the glass . The daylight , already much dimmed by the leaves through which it passed , took a hue of singular mildness as it mingled with the azure lustre of the perfumed lamps , and the crimson brightness of the fire in the tall chimney of oriental porphyry .