midnight
That he had remained faithful to his wife in spite of this adoration was evidence of her great beauty of character . She was , indeed , his safeguard and his hourly monitor while she lived . For him she had sacrificed all her friends in the East . She came to the mountains without a murmur , she bore with him , cheered him , upheld him in a hundred ways -- and when she died his world went black as midnight . It was as if in the midst of a monster , interminable cavern his one starlike light had gone out in his hand . For days he beat his head against the wall , crying defiant curses against his God ; but in the end he sank into voiceless despair . Then it was , as he lay prone and passive , that he began to hear mysterious whisperings and tappings on the walls of his cavern of despond .