midnight
This is my last trip . '' As night approached , cars and cabs were running with increasing irregularity , many of the employees having abandoned their posts to take leave of their families and make the train . All the life of Paris was concentrating itself in a half-dozen human rivers emptying in the stations . Desnoyers and Argensola met in a boulevard cafe toward midnight . Both were exhausted by the day 's emotions and under that nervous depression which follows noisy and violent spectacles . They needed to rest . War was a fact , and now that it was a certainty , they felt no anxiety to get further news .