About midnight
Once more a few flutterings made me look up : an owl went sailing across . I had only a glimpse of him , but several times felt the cool wafture of his silent wings . The mother birds did not move again ; they saw that he was looking for mice , not children . About midnight I came wide awake , roused by a revelry , whose noises were yet not loud . Neither were they distant ; they were close to me , but attenuate . My eyes were so dazzled , however , that for a while I could see nothing ; at last they came to themselves . I was lying on my withered leaves in the corner of a splendid hall .