four o'clock
`` It will be a loan for a few months at most , '' he thought . `` I shall repay him , very likely before the end of the year . It is a simple matter , and he will be glad to do so much for me . '' As it was not yet four o'clock , and he had nothing to do , absolutely nothing , he went to sit in the public gardens ; and he remained a long time on a bench , without an idea in his brain , his eyes fixed on the ground , crushed by weariness amounting to distress . And yet this was how he had been living all these days since his return home , without suffering so acutely from the vacuity of his existence and from inaction . How had he spent his time from rising in the morning till bed-time ? He had loafed on the pier at high tide , loafed in the streets , loafed in the cafes , loafed at Marowsko 's , loafed everywhere .