ten o'clock
Then the two others stood watching him as he went towards the Boccanera mansion , whose old , monumental entrance , full of gloom , was still wide open . For a moment they saw his tall , rugged figure erect against that gloom . Then in he plunged , he and his little basket , bearing Destiny . IT was ten o'clock when Pierre and Narcisse , after dining at the Caffe di Roma , where they had long lingered chatting , at last walked down the Corso towards the Palazzo Buongiovanni . They had the greatest difficulty to reach its entrance , for carriages were coming up in serried files , and the inquisitive crowd of on-lookers , who pressed even into the roadway , in spite of the injunctions of the police , was growing so compact that even the horses could no longer approach . The ten lofty windows on the first floor of the long monumental facade shone with an intense white radiance , the radiance of electric lamps , which illumined the street like sunshine , spreading over the equipages aground in that human sea , whose billows of eager , excited faces rolled to and fro amidst an extraordinary tumult . And in all this there was not merely the usual curiosity to see uniforms go by and ladies in rich attire alight from their carriages , for Pierre soon gathered from what he heard that the crowd had come to witness the arrival of the King and Queen , who had promised to appear at the ball given by Prince Buongiovanni , in celebration of the betrothal of his daughter Celia to Lieutenant Attilio Sacco , the son of one of his Majesty 's ministers .