noon
The incessant colloquy between him and the sea gave him a vague sense of prostration , as if the sublime language were beyond his restricted powers , so eager to grasp the meaning of the incomprehensible . But this period of visions , of abstractions , of pure contemplativeness was of short duration . By degrees , he began to resume his attitude of self-consciousness , to recover the sensation of his personality , to return to his original frame of mind . One day at the hour of high noon , the vast and terrible silence when all life seems suspended , a sudden glimpse into his own heart revealed shuddering abysses , inextinguishable desires , ineffaceable memories , accumulations of suffering and regret -- all the wretchedness he had gone through , all the inevitable scars of his vices , all the results of his passions . He seemed to be witnessing the shipwreck of his whole life . A thousand voices cried to him for succour , imploring aid , cursing death -- voices that he knew , that he had listened to in days gone by . But they cried and implored and cursed in vain , feeling that they were perishing , choked by the hungry waves ; then the voices grew faint , broken , irrecognisable -- and died away into silence .