midnight
Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying still -- excited from head to foot -- what could I do better than dress ? The gates were locked , soldiers set before them : was there , then , no admission to the park ? The other day , in walking past , I had seen , without then attending to the circumstance , a gap in the paling -- one stake broken down : I now saw this gap again in recollection -- saw it very plainly -- the narrow , irregular aperture visible between the stems of the lindens , planted orderly as a colonnade . A man could not have made his way through that aperture , nor could a stout woman , perhaps not Madame Beck ; but I thought I might : I fancied I should like to try , and once within , at this hour the whole park would be mine -- the moonlight , midnight park ! How soundly the dormitory slept ! What deep slumbers ! What quiet breathing !