about four o’clock
His vision grew dark , his fingers could no longer hold the pencil , but he was still able to add , in unsteady letters , into which passed the tortured tenderness , the wild disorder of his poor heart : `` The unknown child , to be born in 1874 . What will it be ? '' Then he swooned , and Martine and Ramond with difficulty carried him back to bed . The third attack came on about four o'clock . In this last access of suffocation Pascal 's countenance expressed excruciating suffering . Death was to be very painful ; he must endure to the end his martyrdom , as a man and a scientist . His wandering gaze still seemed to seek the clock , to ascertain the hour .