three o'clock in the morning
I can see it still -- the great hall , ablaze with glowing frescoes , beautiful Venetian candelabras , gilded furniture , red and yellow damask and velvet , and then the throng of handsome men in many uniforms and beautiful women with rows of pearls falling from their naked throats . `` I had dressed myself as a Bacchante in a white tunic embroidered in gold , with bracelets on my bare arms , a tiger-skin band over my forehead , and a cluster of grapes in my hair . `` I danced every dance , I remember , most of them with my middle-aged lover , and I suppose no one seemed so gay and happy and heedless . At three o'clock in the morning I returned home in my father 's carriage . At six I had entered a convent . `` Nobody in the outer world ever knew what had become of me , and neither did I know what happened at home after I left it . The rule of the convent was very strict .