It was a night illumined by a superb full moon, one of those matchless Roman nights when the city slumbers in Elysian radiance, steeped in a dream of the Infinite, under the vast vault of heaven.

And they took the most agreeable route, going down the Corso proper and then turning into the Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
Prada had grown somewhat calmer, but remained full of irony.

To divert his mind, no doubt, he talked on in the most voluble manner, reverting to the women of Rome and to that _fete_ which he had at first found splendid, but at which he now began to rail.
"Oh! of course they have very fine gowns," said he, speaking of the women; "but gowns which don't fit them, gowns which are sent them from Paris, and which, of course, they can't try on.

It's just the same with their jewels; they still have diamonds and pearls, in particular, which are very fine, but they are so wretchedly, so heavily mounted that they look frightful.

And if you only knew how ignorant and frivolous these women are, despite all their conceit! Everything is on the surface with them, even religion: there's nothing beneath.