Outside, as twilight descended through the salty air, girls played hopscotch on the brick walk.
Just before 11.20am an eerie twilight descended on the city, although, for many, broken cloud obscured the view of the vanishing sun.
After introductory remarks and words of encouragement and support, the 64 delegates and J8 staff were treated to heartthrob Dima Bilan's MTV concert in the main palace courtyard, culminating in a spectacular fireworks display as twilight descended just after midnight.
Although twilight sparkles as dusk descends, it often isn't enough to illuminate outside dining.
He reminds the editor now, addressing him directly (behind him, twilight has descended in the garden), that in his student days he once wrote a much praised essay on the coded language of the disenfranchised.
Twilight was descending on Madison Square Park, and the audience — couples on first dates, toddlers with parents, klatches of co-workers in office clothes — hardly seemed impatient for the concert's close.
Certainly there was no indication that twilight was descending on Oleg V. Deripaska, 35, one of Russia's richest men, over a 90-minute late-afternoon lunch in his private headquarters earlier this week.
Sometimes, when twilight is descending, I go find a bench by the sea and watch the young people peacock up and down the promenade.
It's as though twilight is about to descend.
But the edge is moving nearer now inside the fading sun And calling, calling out to them my brothers, one by one But only dusty silence sounds the ashes float away As the twilight ends and the night descends 'til the dawning of the day.
