about six in the evening
These thoughts filled his last hour of waiting -- his train at last was ready . He was the first to get into it , and he was so childish that he only began to breathe again when the train shook , and through the carriage window he could see the outlines of the town fading into the gray sky under the heavy downpour of the night . He thought he must have died if he had spent the night in it . At the very hour -- about six in the evening -- a letter from Hassler came for Christophe at his hotel . Christophe 's visit stirred many things in him . The whole afternoon he had been thinking of it bitterly , and not without sympathy for the poor boy who had come to him with such eager affection to be received so coldly . He was sorry for that reception and a little angry with himself .