midnight
For I was the arena of that morbid wakefulness which brought with it an over-crowded mental consciousness of existence far beyond my own physical vision , as though I had been appointed night-watchman for the whole round world , with a searching eye on all its multitudinous activities and aberrations . I seemed able to catch its breathing as it slept its cosmic sleep . I seemed to brood with lunar aloofness above its teeming plains , depressed by its enormous dimensions , confused by its incomprehensible tangle and clutter of criss-cross destinies . Its uncountable midnight voices seemed to merge into a vague sigh , so pensively remote , so inexpressibly tragic , that when I stood in my doorway and caught the sound of a harebrained young Romeo go whistling down past the Players ' Club his shrill re-piping of a Broadway roof-song seemed more than discordant ; it seemed desecration . The fool was happy , when the whole world was sitting with its fists clenched , awaiting some undefined doom . It was long past midnight , I remembered as I closed the door . For it must have been , an hour and more since I had looked out and seen the twelve ruby flashes from the topmost peak of the Metropolitan Tower signaling its dolorous message that another day had gone .