six o'clock
It has undergone great vicissitudes during twenty years ; but most of these features remain in spite of new and larger parties , new and bitter political hatreds , new ideas of domestic life , and new fashions in dress and cookery . In considering an account of the life of Giovanni Saracinesca from the time when , in 1865 , he was thirty years of age , down to the present day , it is therefore just that he should be judged with a knowledge of some of these peculiarities of his class . He is not a Roman of the people like Giovanni Cardegna , the great tenor , and few of his ideas have any connection with those of the singer ; but he has , in common with him , that singular simplicity of character which he derives from his Roman descent upon the male side , and in which will be found the key to many of his actions both good and bad -- a simplicity which loves peace , but can not always refrain from sudden violence , which loves and hates strongly and to some purpose . The hour was six o'clock , and the rooms of the Embassy were as full as they were likely to be that day . There would doubtless have been more people had the weather been fine ; but it was raining heavily , and below , in the vast court that formed the centre of the palace , the lamps of fifty carriages gleamed through the water and the darkness , and the coachmen , of all dimensions and characters , sat beneath their huge umbrellas and growled to each other , envying the lot of the footmen who were congregated in the ante-chamber up-stairs around the great bronze braziers . But in the reception-rooms there was much light and warmth ; there were bright fires and softly shaded lamps ; velvet-footed servants stealing softly among the guests , with immense burdens of tea and cake ; men of more or less celebrity chatting about politics in corners ; women of more or less beauty gossiping over their tea , or flirting , or wishing they had somebody to flirt with ; people of many nations and ideas , with a goodly leaven of Romans . They all seemed endeavouring to get away from the men and women of their own nationality , in order to amuse themselves with the difficulties of conversation in languages not their own .