seven in the morning
Your Excellency may have thought , on the morning when I first sought to speak with you , that my purpose was to ask for my promotion , when , in fact , I was thinking only of the glory and usefulness of your ministry and of the public good . It is all-important , I think , to correct that impression . Then followed the usual epistolary formulas . It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the sacrifice of his ideas ; he burned everything , the toil of years . Fatigued by the pressure of thought , overcome by mental suffering , he fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair . He was wakened by a curious sensation , and found his hands covered with his wife 's tears and saw her kneeling before him . Celestine had read the resignation .