Quotation from: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Written by: Oscar Wilde


As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.
The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself
into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly
down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of
the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain.
He followed into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons.
A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him,
wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat
them listlessly. They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness
of the moon had entered into them. A long line of boys carrying crates
of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him,
threading their way through the huge, jade-green piles of vegetables.
Under the portico, with its grey, sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop
of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over.
Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in the piazza.
The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones,
shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep
on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about
picking up seeds.

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