"Possibly I was misled by the darkness. It made the name seem so appropriate. But it was not exactly night. There was a window near me, and I could see there was a kind of yellow smoke over everything. But there was music in the street, and children appeared to be running and shouting. Other things gave me the impression the time had been intended for morning, but that something had come in the way. It was a terrible place, much like to that dark third circle in Hell, where Dante and Virgilio saw the uncouth monster Cerberus. "But let us forget it! Why should such a place be remembered or spoken of? I was there for no great length of time: long enough only for the picture-cleaner, in whose workshop I was, to remove the obscurations of four hundred years, and safeguard me with a glass from new deposits. For I understood him to say that I should be just as bad as ever in a very short space of time, in this beastly sooty hole, but for such protection. "And yet this place was not entirely bad, nor in darkness at all times, for at intervals a phenomenon would occur which I supposed to be a peculiarity of the climate, causing the lady of the house to say, 'There--the sun's coming out. I shall get my Things on. Are you going to stay for ever in the house, and get fustier and fustier, or are you going to have a turn on the Embankment? You might answer me, instead of smoking, Reginald!' But I noticed that this phenomenon, whatever its cause, never seemed to attain fruition, the lady always saying she knew how it would be--they had lost all the daylight. I only repeat her words. I observed another thing worthy of remark, that it very seldom held up. I am again repeating a phrase that was to me only a sound. I have no idea what 'it' was, nor what it held up, nor why. I am only certain that the performance was a rare one, however frequently it was promised. But the gentleman who restored me seemed to have confidence in its occurrence, conditionally on his taking his umbrella. Otherwise, he said, it was cocksure to come down cats and dogs, and they would be in for a cab, and he only had half a crown.