midnight
The house was suffocating ; people 's very hair grew heavy on their perspiring heads . For three hours back the breath of the multitude had filled and heated the atmosphere with a scent of crowded humanity . Under the swaying glare of the gas the dust clouds in mid-air had grown constantly denser as they hung motionless beneath the chandelier . The whole house seemed to be oscillating , to be lapsing toward dizziness in its fatigue and excitement , full , as it was , of those drowsy midnight desires which flutter in the recesses of the bed of passion . And Nana , in front of this languorous public , these fifteen hundred human beings thronged and smothered in the exhaustion and nervous exasperation which belong to the close of a spectacle , Nana still triumphed by right of her marble flesh and that sexual nature of hers , which was strong enough to destroy the whole crowd of her adorers and yet sustain no injury . The piece drew to a close . In answer to Vulcan 's triumphant summons all the Olympians defiled before the lovers with ohs and ahs of stupefaction and gaiety .