midnight
The crescent terraces , visible through a shallow canyon of buildings to the left , were a blaze of colored lights with the dark figures of people thronging them . The mingled hum of instruments was in the night air ; sometimes the snap of an aerial ; and the steady , clicking whir of the night escalators on the city street levels and inclines . It seemed hours that we waited . The green flash of the second hour past midnight bathed the city in its split-second lurid glare . Elza had fallen asleep , beside us on the feathered hassock of our balcony corner . But Georg and I were fully alert -- waiting for this unknown friend . Georg had smoked innumerable arrant-leaf cylinders .