Keep the light policy
Guests notice the lamps and settle into them within minutes; the cue is environmental and needs no announcement. The overhead switch stays off unless something is spilled, and then only briefly.
Serve simple warm things late rather than complicated things early. The candle hour’s rules hold: the phone face down, the pace slow, the ending unhurried.
Let the evening end well
Offer the last tea, open the window briefly for the room, and see the guests to the door with the small lamp. Endings made deliberately leave everyone rested rather than emptied.
Then the flat resets: two candles out, the blanket folded, one line in the notebook if the eyes are still open. The quiet hour was never solitary; it was simply quiet, which suits company perfectly.
Published by the Velilume journal.