"The stranger led me slowly up the stairway and past great celestial
spheres which filled the higher hallways, conducting me to a room at one
corner of the great structure. The room was a singular and unique
apartment. It consisted of a large central space, furnished with the
usual ivory chairs, and a broad, massive center table, also of ivory,
curiously inlaid with particles of the omnipresent _phosphori_, which
gave out a liquid light and imparted indescribable chasteness and beauty
to the carved ornaments upon them. The floor was dark, a leaden color,
lustrous, however, like black glass, and made up in mosaic. Around the
room were alcoves lit by lamps of the phosphori, and in each alcove a
globe of a blue metal upon which were painted sketches like charts or
maps. A chandelier of this blue metal was pendant from the ceiling, and
in its cup-like extremities, arranged in vertical tiers, were round
balls of the phosphori, glowing softly.
"Wide windows, unprotected by glass or sashes, just embrasures framed in
white stone which everywhere prevails in Mars, looked out upon the
marvellous City, which thus seemed a lake of glowing fires, over which,
rising and refluent waves of light constantly chased each other to its
dark borders, where the surrounding plain country met the City's edges.
But throughout the distance I could trace lines of light marking
highways or roads leading interminably away until quite extinguished at
the optical limits of my vision.
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