midnight
The world of ambassadors moved over polished floors in drawing rooms lined with mirrors , round oval tables covered with velvet and gold-fringed cloths . There were dresses with trains , deep mysteries , anguish hidden beneath smiles . Then came the society of the duchesses ; all were pale ; all got up at four o'clock ; the women , poor angels , wore English point on their petticoats ; and the men , unappreciated geniuses under a frivolous outward seeming , rode horses to death at pleasure parties , spent the summer season at Baden , and towards the forties married heiresses . In the private rooms of restaurants , where one sups after midnight by the light of wax candles , laughed the motley crowd of men of letters and actresses . They were prodigal as kings , full of ideal , ambitious , fantastic frenzy . This was an existence outside that of all others , between heaven and earth , in the midst of storms , having something of the sublime . For the rest of the world it was lost , with no particular place and as if non-existent .