midday
He seemed to suffer intense and constant agony from the poison which he vowed was in the air . He asked why people were allowed to rub matches all the time under his nose , to choke him with their vile fumes . The physicians watched Coupeau with care and interest . The phantoms which had hitherto haunted him by night now appeared before him at midday . He saw spiders ' webs hanging from the wall as large as the sails of a man-of-war . Then these webs changed to nets , whose meshes were constantly contracting only to enlarge again . These nets held black balls , and they , too , swelled and shrank .