midnight
As the strokes followed each other , his heart beat like a fulling-hammer , giving a succession of quick blows , and pausing to repeat the rhythmic tattoo more loudly and painfully than before . Ten -- eleven -- twelve -- there was no mistake . The day was over . It was midnight , and no one had come . The room swam with him . Then , as in a vision of horror , he saw himself standing there , as he had stood many times before , listening for the last stroke , and suddenly awaking from the dream to the crushing disappointment of the reality . For one brief and terrible moment his whole memory was restored to him and he knew that his madness was only madness , and nothing more , and that it seized him in the same way , week by week , through the months and the years , leaving him thus on the stroke of twelve each Wednesday night , a broken , miserable , self-deceived man .