Nine o’clock
A pupil of Schopenhauer . At the hut on the Grands-Mulets . `` Tartarin , I must speak to you . '' Nine o'clock was ringing from the belfry at Chamonix of a cold night shivering with the north wind and rain ; the black streets , the darkened houses -LRB- except , here and there , the façades and courtyards of hotels where the gas was still burning -RRB- made the surroundings still more gloomy under the vague reflection of the snow of the mountains , white as a planet on the night of the sky . At the Hôtel Baltet , one of the best and most frequented inns of this Alpine village , the numerous travellers and boarders had disappeared one by one , weary with the excursions of the day , until no one was left in the grand salon but one English traveller playing silently at backgammon with his wife , his innumerable daughters , in brown-holland aprons with bibs , engaged in copying notices of an approaching evangelical service , and a young Swede sitting before the fireplace , in which was a good fire of blazing logs . The latter was pale , hollow-cheeked , and gazed at the flame with a gloomy air as he drank his grog of kirsch and seltzer . From time to time some belated traveller crossed the salon , with soaked gaiters and streaming mackintosh , looked at the great barometer hanging to the wall , tapped it , consulted the mercury as to the weather of the following day , and went off to bed in consternation .