midnight
The few persons present had gathered in a group and were talking sadly about the great misfortune which had assailed the Emperor . The universal grief displayed so hypocritically , as Seitz thought , angered him , and he gazed at them with such a sullen , threatening look that no one ventured to approach him . Sometimes he stared into his wine , sometimes into vacancy , sometimes at the vaulted ceiling above . He harshly rebuffed the landlord and the waiter who tried to accost him , but when the peasant 's prediction was fulfilled and the thunderstorm of the preceding night was followed at midnight by one equally severe , he arose and left the hostelry . The rain tempted him into the open air . The taproom was so sultry , so terribly sultry . The moisture of the heavens would refresh him .