three o'clock in the morning
Neither affected to be cast in the mould of one of Corneille 's heroes , and the thought of immolating their child on the altar of a barbaric idea would have filled them with horror ; but the transfiguration of their petted boy suddenly become a hero , touched them with a tenderness never before felt . In spite of their anxiety , Maxime 's enthusiasm intoxicated them , and it made them ungrateful toward their former life , that peaceful affectionate existence , with its long monotonous days . Maxime was amusingly contemptuous of it , calling it absurd after one had seen what was going on `` out there . '' `` Out there '' one was glad to sleep three hours on the hard ground , or once in a month of Sundays on a wisp of straw , glad to turn out at three o'clock in the morning and warm up by marching thirty kilometres with a knapsack on one 's back , sweating freely for eight or ten hours at a time ... . Glad above all to get in touch with the enemy , and rest a little lying down under a bank , while one peppered the boches ... . This young Cyrano declared that fighting rested you after a march , and when he described an engagement you would have said that he was at a concert or a `` movie . '' The rhythm of the shells , the noise when they left the gun and when they burst , reminded him of the passage with cymbals in the divine scherzo of the Ninth Symphony .