midnight
`` I have nothing to do , '' said Barlasch , `` I will cook a careful dinner . All that I have saved in money I can not carry away ; all that was stored beneath the floor must be left there . It is often so in war . '' He had told Desiree that they would have to walk twelve miles across the snow-clad marshes bordering the frozen Vistula , between midnight and dawn . It needed no telling that they could carry little with them . `` You will have to make a new beginning in life , '' he said curtly , `` with the clothes upon your back . How many times have I done it -- the Saints alone know !