five o'clock in the evening
`` I 've been half an hour cleaning myself from the touch of her and the smell that she breathed on me in spite of me and in spite of herself . Ah , lucky for me that I 'm as done up as a wretched cart-horse ! '' He turns over on his belly , clenches his fists , and slumbers , with his face buried in the ground and his dubious dream of passion and corruption . A Box of Matches IT is five o'clock in the evening . Three men are seen moving in the bottom of the gloomy trench . Around their extinguished fire in the dirty excavation they are frightful to see , black and sinister . Rain and negligence have put their fire out , and the four cooks are looking at the corpses of brands that are shrouded in ashes and the stumps of wood whence the flame has flown .