He was fascinated by what he saw and heard.  He wondered whether De Quincey also had seen the same spectacle, and had concealed his impressions out of reverence for the average reader.  Here there were no simple joys of honest toilets, but wonderful orgies, that drew out his heart to horrible music.  At first the violence of sound and sight had overwhelmed him; the lights flaring in the night wind, the array of naphtha lamps, the black shadows, the roar of voices.  The dance about the piano-organ had been the first sign of an inner meaning, and the face of the dark girl as she came round and round to the flame had been amazing in its utter furious abandon.  And what songs they were singing all around him, and what terrible words rang out, only to excite peals of laughter.  In the public-houses the workmen’s wives, the wives of small tradesmen, decently dressed in black, were drinking their faces to a flaming red, and urging their husbands to drink more.  Beautiful young women, flushed and laughing, put their arms round the men’s necks and kissed them, and then held up the glass to their lips.  In the dark corners, at the openings of side streets, the children were talking together, instructing each other, whispering what they had seen; a boy of fifteen was plying a girl of twelve with whisky, and presently they crept away.  Lucian passed them as they turned to go, and both looked at him.  The boy laughed, and the girl smiled quietly.  It was above all in the faces around him that he saw the most astounding things, the Bacchic fury unveiled and unashamed.  To his eyes it seemed as if these revelers recognized him as a fellow, and smiled up in his face, aware that he was in the secret.  Every instinct of religion, of civilization even, was swept away; they gazed at one another and at him, absolved of all scruples, children of the earth and nothing more.  Now and then a couple detached themselves from the swarm, and went away into the darkness, answering the jeers and laughter of their friends as they vanished.

On the edge of the pavement, not far from where he was standing, Lucian noticed a tall and lovely young woman who seemed to be alone.  She was in the full light of a naphtha flame, and her bronze hair and flushed cheeks shone illuminate as she viewed the orgy.  She had dark brown eyes, and a strange look as of an old picture in her face; and her eyes brightened with an urgent gleam.  He saw the revelers nudging each other and glancing at her, and two or three young men went up and asked her to come for a walk.  She shook her head and said “No thank you” again and again, and seemed as if she were looking for somebody in the crowd.

“I’m expecting a friend,” she said at last to a man who proposed a drink and a walk afterwards; and Lucian wondered what kind of friend would ultimately appear.  Suddenly she turned to him as he was about to pass on, and said in a low voice: 

“I’ll go for a walk with you if you like; you just go on, and I’ll follow in a minute.”