four o'clock
I tolerated this for a little while , and then refused to be dragged around any longer as a cloak for Alma 's pleasures . Telling myself that if I continued to share my husband 's habits of life , for any reason or under any pretext , I should become like him , and my soul would rot inch by inch , I resolved to be clean in my own eyes and to resist the contaminations of his company . As a consequence , he became more and more reckless , and Alma made no efforts to restrain him , so that it came to pass at last that they went together to a scandalous entertainment which was for a while the talk of the society papers throughout Europe . I know no more of this entertainment than I afterwards learned from those sources -- that it was given by a notorious woman , who was not shut out of society because she was `` the good friend '' of a King ; that she did the honours with clever imitative elegance ; that her salon that night was crowded with such male guests as one might see at the court of a queen -- princes , dukes , marquises , counts , English noblemen and members of parliament , as well as some reputable women of my own and other countries ; that the tables were laid for supper at four o'clock with every delicacy of the season and wines of the rarest vintage ; that after supper dancing was resumed with increased animation ; and that the dazzling and improper spectacle terminated with a _ Chaîne diabolique _ at seven in the morning , when the sun was streaming through the windows and the bells of the surrounding churches were ringing for early mass . I had myself risen early that morning to go to communion at the Madeleine , and never shall I forget the effect of cleansing produced upon me by the sacred sacrament . From the moment when -- the priest standing at the foot of the altar -- the choir sang the _ Kyrie eleison _ , down to the solemn silence of the elevation , I had a sense of being washed from all the taint of the contaminating days since my marriage . The music was Perosi 's , I remember , and the voices in the _ Gloria in excelsis _ , which I used to sing myself , seemed to carry up the cry of my sorrowful heart to the very feet of the Virgin whose gracious figure hung above me .