They had come back to the flat for supper, and
afterward, as soon as the family had left them alone, had settled
themselves in the bay window to watch the New Year in.
The little dining-room was dark, but for the indistinct blur of
light that came in through the window--a light that was a mingling
of the afterglow, the new-risen moon, and the faint haze that the
city threw off into the sky from its street lamps and electrics.
From where they sat they could look down, almost as from a tower,
into the city's streets. Here a corner came into view; further on
a great puff of green foliage--palms and pines side by side--over-
looked a wall. Here a street was visible for almost its entire
length, like a stream of asphalt flowing down the pitch of the
hill, dammed on either side by rows upon rows of houses; while
further on the vague confusion of roofs and facades opened out
around a patch of green lawn, the garden of some larger residence.
As they looked and watched, the afterglow caught window after
window, till all that quarter of the city seemed to stare up at
them from a thousand ruddy eyes. The windows seemed infinite in
number, the streets endless in their complications: yet everything
was deserted. At this hour the streets were empty, and would
remain so until daylight. Not a soul was stirring; no face looked
from any of those myriads of glowing windows; no footfall
disturbed the silence of those asphalt streets. There, almost
within call behind those windows, shut off from those empty
streets, a thousand human lives were teeming, each the centre of
its own circle of thoughts and words and actions; and yet the
solitude was profound, the desolation complete.
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