midnight
Save , indeed , when the groans of that much-tortured violoncello woke me in the morning to an unwelcome consciousness of the vicinity of Signor Milanesi , I should scarcely have remembered that I was not the only inhabitant of the third story . Now , however , that I spent all my evenings in my own quiet room , I became , by imperceptible degrees , interested in the unseen inhabitant of the adjoining apartment . Sometimes , when the house was so still that the very turning of the page sounded unnaturally loud , and the mere falling of a cinder startled me , I heard her in her chamber , singing softly to herself . Every night I saw the light from her window streaming out over the balcony and touching the evergreens with a midnight glow . Often and often , when it was so late that even I had given up study and gone to bed , I heard her reading aloud , or pacing to and fro to the measure of her own recitations . Listen as I would , I could only make out that these recitations were poetical fragments -- I could only distinguish a certain chanted metre , the chiming of an occasional rhyme , the rising and falling of a voice more than commonly melodious . This vague interest gave place by-and-by to active curiosity .