midnight
The priesthood , eager for bed , had shut up shop . No prayers to the Virgin , no Benediction , nothing in this cathedral ! At such an hour , kneeling in the dark , you feel as if the Mother were more immediately present , nearer , more intimately your own ; but these moments of confidence , when it is easier to tell Her all your trivial woes , were unknown at Notre Dame . No one was worn out by midnight prayer in that church ! But though he could not go in , Durtal could prowl round and about it . And then , scarcely seen by the light of the poverty-stricken lamps standing here and there on the square , the cathedral assumed strange aspects . The portals yawned as caverns full of blackness , and the outer shape of the body of the building , from the towers to the apse , with its abutments and buttresses merely guessed at in the dark , stood up like a cliff worn away by invisible waves .