ten minutes to nine
The spot was indeed a perfect desert , there were neither promenaders nor passers-by , nor was there even the shadow of a prowler in the pillared forest of the colonnade , which was as empty as the wild primeval forests of the world 's infancy . And what a solemn desert it was , full of the silence of haughty desolation . Never had so vast and black a presentment of slumber , so instinct with the sovereign nobility of death , appeared to Pierre . At ten minutes to nine he at last made up his mind and went towards the bronze portal . Only one of the folding doors was now open at the end of the right-hand porticus , where the increasing density of the gloom steeped everything in night . Pierre remembered the instructions which Monsignor Nani had given him ; at each door that he reached he was to ask for Signor Squadra without adding a word , and thereupon each door would open and he would have nothing to do but to let himself be guided on . No one but the prelate now knew that he was there , since Benedetta , the only being to whom he had confided the secret , was dead .