eight in
the morning
Havana floated into their waking vision , a city of white marble set in lustrous green , profound indigo , against the rosy veil of a morning sun . * * * * * The fortunate chance that took them to the Inglaterra Hotel -- the disdain of its runner was more persuasive than the clamor of all the others who had boarded the steamer -- found them a room , they soon discovered , in what was at once the most desirable and the most unlikely place . They might have the chamber until Tuesday , Lee was told , in an English inflected with the tonal gravity of Spain . It was hardly past eight in the morning , an awkward hour to arrive newly at a city , he thought , as they were carried up in the elevator . The details of the floor , the hall , they crossed , engaged his interest ; not alone for the height of the ceiling , which was excessive , but because of the palms , the pointed Moorish arches filled with green painted wood lattices ; the totality of an effect different from anything else he had seen . Their room , with the lift of the ceiling emphasized by the confined space , was more engaging still : tall slatted doors opened on an iron railed balcony , the bath-room was like a tunnel on end , and the floor an expanse of polished mosaic in a pattern of yellow and grey . Lee walked out on the balcony ; directly below and across a narrow paved street was a floridly impressive building obviously for the purpose of varied assemblages , and on his left a park was laid in concrete walks , royal palms on towering smooth dull trunks , unfamiliar trees with a graceful dense foliage , and innumerable stacked iron chairs about the marble statue of a man with a pointing hand .