twenty minutes past eleven
He was determined that he would listen to no further promptings , that he would cast no further glance upon glowing , dissolute Paris , and he reached the station just in time to climb into a car . The train started and he journeyed on , leaning out of his compartment and offering his face to the cool night breeze in order that it might calm and carry off the evil fever that had possessed him . The night was moonless , but studded with such pure and such glowing stars that the country could be seen spreading far away beneath a soft bluish radiance . Already at twenty minutes past eleven Marianne found herself on the little bridge crossing the Yeuse , midway between Chantebled , the pavilion where she and her husband lived , and the station of Janville . The children were fast asleep ; she had left them in the charge of Zoe , the servant , who sat knitting beside a lamp , the light of which could be seen from afar , showing like a bright spark amid the black line of the woods . Whenever Mathieu returned home by the seven o'clock train , as was his wont , Marianne came to meet him at the bridge . Occasionally she brought her two eldest boys , the twins , with her , though their little legs moved but slowly on the return journey when , in retracing their steps , a thousand yards or more , they had to climb a rather steep hillside .