midnight
There were also on the mantelpiece two china vases , painted with flowers , between an elaborate clock , with fearful ornamentation . Rodolphe put the vases in a cupboard , and when the landlord came to wind up the clock , begged him to do nothing of the kind . `` I am willing to leave the clock on the mantel shelf , '' said he , `` but only as an object of art . It points to midnight -- a good hour ; let it stick to it . The day it marks five minutes past I will move . A clock , '' continued Rodolphe , who had never been able to submit to the imperious tyranny of the dial , `` is a domestic foe who implacably reckons up to your existence hour by hour and minute by minute , and says to you every moment , ` Here is a fraction of your life gone . ' I could not sleep in peace in a room in which there was one of these instruments of torture , in the vicinity of which carelessness and reverie are impossible .