midnight
` I 'm not well , ' repeated Aratov , and , disengaging himself from Kupfer 's detaining hands , he started homewards . Only at that instant it became clear to him that he had come to Kupfer with the sole object of talking of Clara ... ` Unhappy Clara , poor frantic Clara ... ' On reaching home , however , he quickly regained his composure to a certain degree . The circumstances accompanying Clara 's death had at first given him a violent shock ... but later on this performance ` with the poison inside her , ' as Kupfer had expressed it , struck him as a kind of monstrous pose , a piece of bravado , and he was already trying not to think about it , fearing to arouse a feeling in himself , not unlike repugnance . And at dinner , as he sat facing Platosha , he suddenly recalled her midnight appearance , recalled that abbreviated dressing-jacket , the cap with the high ribbon -- and why a ribbon on a nightcap ? -- all the ludicrous apparition which , like the scene-shifter 's whistle in a transformation scene , had dissolved all his visions into dust ! He even forced Platosha to repeat her description of how she had heard his scream , had been alarmed , had jumped up , could not for a minute find either his door or her own , and so on . In the evening he played a game of cards with her , and went off to his room rather depressed , but again fairly composed .