ten minutes past ten
During the night , which we spent in the third-class railway carriage , the seats being very hard , I took her in my arms in order that she might sleep . That was the past , and now I had just died on the narrow couch of a Paris lodginghouse , and my wife was crouching on the floor , crying bitterly . The white light before my left eye was growing dim , but I remembered the room perfectly . On the left there was a chest of drawers , on the right a mantelpiece surmounted by a damaged clock without a pendulum , the hands of which marked ten minutes past ten . The window overlooked the Rue Dauphine , a long , dark street . All Paris seemed to pass below , and the noise was so great that the window shook . We knew nobody in the city ; we had hurried our departure , but I was not expected at the office till the following Monday .