empty ice bucket

[Ascobic]

Quoted from West with the night by B. Markham

"At some bar — I cannot remember which, any more than Blix or Alcock could if they were asked — there began an historic session of comradely tippling and verbose good-fellowship which dissolved Time and reduced Space to an anteroom. On the table between those good companions the whole of history was dissected and its mouldy carcass borne away in an empty ice bucket. International problems were solved in a word, and the direction of Fate foreseen through the crystal windows of two upturned goblets. It was a glorious adventure, but the only part I had in it came close on the dawn."

It seems this passage has lots of tricky metaphors and I guess they immersed wine bottle in that ice bucket to cool it rapidly.
Please someone enlighten me meaning of metaphors here.

 

[emsr2d2]

Quoted from "West With The Night" by B. Markham

"At some bar — I cannot remember which, any more than Blix or Alcock could if they were asked — there began an historic session of comradely tippling and verbose good-fellowship which dissolved Time and reduced Space to an anteroom. On the table between those good companions the whole of history was dissected and its mouldy carcass borne away in an empty ice bucket. International problems were solved in a word, and the direction of Fate foreseen through the crystal windows of two upturned goblets. It was a glorious adventure, but the only part I had in it came close on the dawn."

It seems this passage has lots of tricky metaphors and I guess they immersed a/the wine bottle in that ice bucket to cool it rapidly.
Please, someone enlighten me as to the meaning of the metaphors here.

No. There is no bottle. The writer has compared the whole of history to the contents of an imaginary wine bottle. Once the people meeting had finished dissecting all of history, that imaginary, now empty, bottle was taken away. In the real world, a wine bottle is kept in an ice bucket to keep the contents cold and once the wine is finished someone (a waiter, for example) removes the empty bottle inside the wine bucket, which is now empty of ice. During the course of drinking the wine, the ice gradually melts so, as far as ice is concerned, it's empty. Of course, it probably now contains water!

Note my corrections above. Make sure you capitalise book/film titles correctly. Sometimes the smaller words such as "the" aren't capitalised but if you capitalise every word in a title, you'll never be wrong. Put titles either in quotation marks or in italics.

 

[Ascobic]

No. There is no bottle. The writer has compared the whole of history to the contents of an imaginary wine bottle. Once the people meeting had finished dissecting all of history, that imaginary, now empty, bottle was taken away. In the real world, a wine bottle is kept in an ice bucket to keep the contents cold and once the wine is finished someone (a waiter, for example) removes the empty bottle inside the wine bucket, which is now empty of ice. During the course of drinking the wine, the ice gradually melts so, as far as ice is concerned, it's empty. Of course, it probably now contains water!

Note my corrections above. Make sure you capitalise book/film titles correctly. Sometimes the smaller words such as "the" aren't capitalised but if you capitalise every word in a title, you'll never be wrong. Put titles either in quotation marks or in italics.

Thank your for your so clear explanation!

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank your for your so very clear explanation!

See above. While it is possible to use "so" as a replacement for "very" in some circumstances, it doesn't work here.
If you can't decide if "so" works, try putting "that ..." after it as a sort of qualifier.

Your explanation was so clear that I now understand the text.
It was so difficult to understand the text that I had to ask a question on this forum.