smoke

Wrapped in furs until only my nose and eyes were visible, I was walking along the Nevski Prospekt in St. Petersburg one winter’s evening, and almost involuntarily turned into the Dominique, that fashionable restaurant which, garish in its blaze of electricity, is situated in the most frequented part of the long, broad thoroughfare. It was the dining-hour, and the place, heated by high, grotesquely-ornamented...

The city itself, climbing a hillside almost at the water’s edge, was painted pale pink at sunset, and even the old Vesuvius, from the top of which a thin column of black smoke seemed a little less gloomy than usual. Because of heaven, the sky was a mass of golden and raspberry-colored, and this was reflected in the calm waters of the bay until the whole world turned into a real radiance. The evening...

We were standing together in the small shabby bedroom of the boarding-house wherein I lived in Granville Gardens, facing the recreation ground close to Shepherd’s Bush Railway Station. The stifling July day was at an end, and the narrow room was lit by the soft hazy glow of the fast-fading London sunset. Through the open window came the shouts of children at play upon the „green” opposite, mingled...