eight o'clock
After recent events , their relations with each other had grown somewhat cold ; there could no longer be mutual sympathy or intimacy between them . Fix 's manner had not changed ; but Passepartout was very reserved , and ready to strangle his former friend on the slightest provocation . Snow began to fall an hour after they started , a fine snow , however , which happily could not obstruct the train ; nothing could be seen from the windows but a vast , white sheet , against which the smoke of the locomotive had a greyish aspect . At eight o'clock a steward entered the car and announced that the time for going to bed had arrived ; and in a few minutes the car was transformed into a dormitory . The backs of the seats were thrown back , bedsteads carefully packed were rolled out by an ingenious system , berths were suddenly improvised , and each traveller had soon at his disposition a comfortable bed , protected from curious eyes by thick curtains . The sheets were clean and the pillows soft . It only remained to go to bed and sleep which everybody did -- while the train sped on across the State of California .