midnight
`` The Hearer of Truth '' had been out several months now , and had not sold a thousand copies ; and so it was to be doubted if Thyrsis would ever get another dollar from that . Also , he had heard from the translator of `` The Genius '' , and had agreed to accept twenty-five dollars as an `` honorarium '' for the production of his play in Germany -- this princely sum to be paid when the play came out during the following winter . Meantime , of course , he was driving away at his new work . Domestic duties took up most of his morning ; but he would get away into the woods in the afternoons , and in the evenings , when the family was asleep , he would work until far after midnight . He was bringing out basketfuls of books from the library of the university ; and he lived another life in these -- sharing , in a hundred different forms , the agony of the War . He was not writing yet ; he was filling up his soul with the thing , making it a reservoir of impressions . Some times it would seem that the reservoir was nearly full , and he would be seized with a hunger to be at work ; he would go about possessed by it -- absent-minded , restless , nervous when he was spoken to .