midnight
He could not touch his dinner , and Herr and Frau Ellrich 's voices , against all the laws of acoustics , seemed to come from the far distance , and several minutes elapsed before the sounds reached his ears , although he sat close to the speakers . The waiters and hotel guests looked odd , and seemed to swim in a kind of rosy twilight . In the sky there seemed to be three times as many stars as usual . When the Ellrichs had withdrawn he went toward midnight alone into the fir woods , and heard unknown birds sing , caught strange and magic harmonies in the rustling of the branches , and felt as if he walked on air . He went to bed in the gray of early dawn , after writing from his overflowing heart the following letter to his friend Haber in Berlin : `` MY DEAREST PAUL : I am happy as I never thought of being happy . I love an unspeakably beautiful sweet brown maiden , and I really think she loves me too . Do not ask me to describe her .