midnight
The retribution that had gone forth against him had struck his moral , as a thunderbolt might have stricken his physical being . His soul strove in agony within him , as he thought on the awful fatality which had set the dead mother in judgment on the degraded son -- which had directed the hand of the senator unwittingly to select the corpse of the outraged parent as the object for the infidel buffoonery of the reckless child , at the very close of his impious career . His past life rose before him , for the first time , like a foul vision , like a nightmare of horror , impurity , and crime . He staggered up the room , groping his way along the wall , as if the darkness of midnight had closed round his eyes , and crouched down by the open window . Beneath him rose the evil and ominous voices from the street ; around him spread the pitiless array of his masters ; before him appeared the denouncing vision of the corpse . He would have remained but a short time unmolested in his place of refuge , but for an event which now diverted from him the attention of Vetranio and his guests . Drinking furiously to drown all recollection of the catastrophe they had just witnessed , three of the revellers had already suffered the worst consequences of an excess , which their weakened frames were ill-fitted to bear .