four o'clock in the morning
And the great central chandelier does not begin to descend into the body of the house , to have its lights flapped out by the handkerchiefs of the revellers amid a last frantic rondo , till some four hours after midnight . But in provincial Ravenna , a Pope 's city under the rule of a Cardinal Legate , there is -- or was in the days when the Pope held sway there -- no Veglione . Its place was supplied , as far as `` the society '' of the city was concerned , by a ball at the `` Circolo dei Nobili . '' It was not , therefore , till four o'clock in the morning , or perhaps even a little later , that the lights would be extinguished on the night in question at the `` Circolo dei Nobili , '' and Carnival would , in truth , be over , and the tired holiday-makers would go home to their beds . A few hours more remained , and the revelry was at its height , and the dancers danced as knowing that their minutes were numbered . There had been a ball on the previous night at the Palazzo of the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare . But the scene at the Circolo was a much more brilliant , animated , and varied one than that of the night before at the Castelmare palace .