In this he follows his hero from the
promenade to the evening party, with an account of which The Night is
mainly occupied, so far as it goes. There are many lively pictures in
it, with light sketches of expression and attitude; but on the whole
it has not so many distinctly quotable passages as the other parts
of the poem. The perfunctory devotion of the cavalier and the lady
continues throughout, and the same ironical reverence depicts them
alighting from their carriage, arriving in the presence of the
hostess, sharing in the gossip of the guests, supping, and sitting
down at those games of chance with which every fashionable house was
provided and at which the lady loses or doubles her pin-money. In
Milan long trains were then the mode, and any woman might wear them,
but only patricians were allowed to have them carried by servants;
the rich plebeian must drag her costly skirts in the dust; and the
nobility of our hero's lady is honored by the flunkeys who lift her
train as she enters the house. The hostess, seated on a sofa, receives
her guests with a few murmured greetings, and then abandons herself to
the arduous task of arranging the various partners at cards. When the
cavalier serves his lady at supper, he takes his handkerchief from his
pocket and spreads it on her lap; such usages and the differences of
costume distinguished an evening party at Milan then from the like joy
in our time and country.
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