one o'clock in the morning
No , not even at the last did he attain his due . People feared him because he revolutionised everything , revolutionised it down to the very roots ; the truth being that he had grasped the one essential fact that law and order must be driven , like nails , into the people 's very vitals . '' Mice squeaked under the floor , and on the further side of the Oka an owl screeched , while amid the pitch-black heavens I could see a number of blotches intermittently lightening to an elusive red and blurring the faint glitter of the stars . `` It was one o'clock in the morning when my father died , '' Gubin continued . `` And upon myself , who was seventeen and had just finished my course at the municipal school of Riazan , there devolved , naturally enough , all the enmity that my father had incurred during his lifetime . ` He is just like his sire , ' folk said . Also , I was alone , absolutely alone , in the world , since my mother had lost her reason two years before my father 's death , and passed away in a frenzy .