midnight
It appeared , then , that I too was a sensualist , in my temperate and fastidious way . Now , reader , during the last two pages I have been giving you honey fresh from flowers , but you must not live entirely on food so luscious ; taste then a little gall -- just a drop , by way of change . At a somewhat late hour I returned to my lodgings : having temporarily forgotten that man had any such coarse cares as those of eating and drinking , I went to bed fasting . I had been excited and in action all day , and had tasted no food since eight that morning ; besides , for a fortnight past , I had known no rest either of body or mind ; the last few hours had been a sweet delirium , it would not subside now , and till long after midnight , broke with troubled ecstacy the rest I so much needed . At last I dozed , but not for long ; it was yet quite dark when I awoke , and my waking was like that of Job when a spirit passed before his face , and like him , `` the hair of my flesh stood up . '' I might continue the parallel , for in truth , though I saw nothing , yet `` a thing was secretly brought unto me , and mine ear received a little thereof ; there was silence , and I heard a voice , '' saying -- `` In the midst of life we are in death . '' That sound , and the sensation of chill anguish accompanying it , many would have regarded as supernatural ; but I recognized it at once as the effect of reaction .