It was clear that the luxurious
inhabitants of Ravenna recognised no duties of sufficient importance,
and no pleasures of sufficient attraction, to necessitate the exposure
of their susceptible bodies to the noontide heat.
To give the reader some idea of the manner in which the indolent
patricians of the Court loitered away their noon, and to satisfy, at the
same time, the exigencies attaching to the conduct of this story, it is
requisite to quit the lounging-places of the plebeians in the streets
for the couches of the nobles in the Emperor's palace.
Passing through the massive entrance gates, crossing the vast hall of
the Imperial abode, with its statues, its marbles, and its guards in
attendance, and thence ascending the noble staircase, the first object
that might on this occasion have attracted the observer, when he gained
the approaches to the private apartments, was a door at an extremity of
the corridor, richly carved and standing half open. At this spot were
grouped some fifteen or twenty individuals, who conversed by signs, and
maintained in all their movements the most decorous and complete
silence.
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