four in the morning
He spent the whole night thus ; from time to time the landlady would enter in her underclothes and ask Manuel something or offer some bit of advice which , for the most part , he did not understand . That night Manuel thought and suffered as perhaps he never thought and suffered at any other time ; he meditated upon the usefulness of life and upon death with a perspicacity that he had never possessed . However hard he might try , he could not stem the flood of thoughts that merged one with the other . At four in the morning the whole house was in silence , when there was heard the rattle of a latchkey in the stairway door , followed by footsteps in the corridor and then the querulous tinkling of the music-box upon the vestibule-table , playing the Mandolinata . Manuel awoke with a start , as from a dream ; he could not make out where the music was coming from ; he even imagined that he had lost his head . The little organ , after several hitches and asthmatic sobs , abandoned the Mandolinata and began to roll off in double time the duet between Bettina and Pippo from _ La Mascotte _ : _ Will you forget me , gentle swain , Dressed in this lordly finery ? _ Manuel left the bedroom and asked , through the darkness : `` Who is it ? ''