five
o'clock
And he recalled the dreadful standing motionless for an hour , book in hand , while the knees felt like wax and the head grew heavier than a cannon-ball . The very smell of the cooking came back to him -- the daily _ Sauerkraut _ , the watery chocolate on Sundays , the flavour of the stringy meat served twice a week at _ Mittagessen _ ; and he smiled to think again of the half-rations that was the punishment for speaking English . The very odour of the milk-bowls , -- the hot sweet aroma that rose from the soaking peasant-bread at the six-o'clock breakfast , -- came back to him pungently , and he saw the huge _ Speisesaal _ with the hundred boys in their school uniform , all eating sleepily in silence , gulping down the coarse bread and scalding milk in terror of the bell that would presently cut them short -- and , at the far end where the masters sat , he saw the narrow slit windows with the vistas of enticing field and forest beyond . And this , in turn , made him think of the great barnlike room on the top floor where all slept together in wooden cots , and he heard in memory the clamour of the cruel bell that woke them on winter mornings at five o'clock and summoned them to the stone-flagged _ Waschkammer _ , where boys and masters alike , after scanty and icy washing , dressed in complete silence . From this his mind passed swiftly , with vivid picture-thoughts , to other things , and with a passing shiver he remembered how the loneliness of never being alone had eaten into him , and how everything -- work , meals , sleep , walks , leisure -- was done with his `` division '' of twenty other boys and under the eyes of at least two masters . The only solitude possible was by asking for half an hour 's practice in the cell-like music rooms , and Harris smiled to himself as he recalled the zeal of his violin studies . Then , as the train puffed laboriously through the great pine forests that cover these mountains with a giant carpet of velvet , he found the pleasanter layers of memory giving up their dead , and he recalled with admiration the kindness of the masters , whom all addressed as Brother , and marvelled afresh at their devotion in burying themselves for years in such a place , only to leave it , in most cases , for the still rougher life of missionaries in the wild places of the world .