half past three in the morning
I arrived at my cousin 's in the evening . It was freezing hard enough to split the stones . During dinner , in the large room whose side-boards , walls , and ceiling were covered with stuffed birds , with wings extended or perched on branches to which they were nailed , -- hawks , herons , owls , nightjars , buzzards , tiercels , vultures , falcons , -- my cousin who , dressed in a sealskin jacket , himself resembled some strange animal from a cold country , told me what preparations he had made for that same night . We were to start at half past three in the morning , so as to arrive at the place which he had chosen for our watching-place at about half past four . On that spot a hut had been built of lumps of ice , so as to shelter us somewhat from the trying wind which precedes daybreak , a wind so cold as to tear the flesh like a saw , cut it like the blade of a knife , prick it like a poisoned sting , twist it like a pair of pincers , and burn it like fire . My cousin rubbed his hands : `` I have never known such a frost , '' he said ; `` it is already twelve degrees below zero at six o'clock in the evening . '' I threw myself on to my bed immediately after we had finished our meal , and went to sleep by the light of a bright fire burning in the grate .