midnight
Quietly she said a Pater Noster , but she did not kneel to say it . As she had stood motionless , self-possessed before her living father , so now she stood before him dead ; only without resentment , reconciled by death . Then she went into the kitchen to prepare a supper by the time the neighbours should come for the night to pray and to watch the dead . It kept all hands busy , and by midnight the room was so full of watchers that she could hardly provide enough to eat and to drink . For the richer a peasant is , the more neighbours come to the watching and praying by the corpse . Wally looked on with silent aversion . Here lay a dead man -- and so they ate and drank like so many flies !