six o’clock in the morning
Those moments of pure enthusiasm and perfect happiness he never could know again , even after he had nibbled at the savory food of success and had experienced the feverish desire for glory . Delicious hours they were , and sacred , too , such as can only be compared to the divine intoxication of first love . Amedee worked courageously during the winter months that followed his father 's death . He arose at six o'clock in the morning , lighted his lamp and the little stove which heated his room , and , walking up and down , leaning over his page , the poet would vigorously begin his struggle with fancies , ideas , and words . At nine o'clock he would go out and breakfast at a neighboring creamery ; after which he would go to his office . There , his tiresome papers once written , he had two or three hours of leisure , which he employed in reading and taking notes from the volumes borrowed by him every morning at a reading-room on the Rue Rorer-Collard ; for he had already learned that one leaves college almost ignorant , having , at best , only learned how to study . He left the office at nightfall and reached his room through the Boulevard des Invalides , and Montparnasse , which at this time was still planted with venerable elms ; sometimes the lamplighter would be ahead of him , making the large gas-jets shoot out under the leafless old trees .