The alarm clock placed by his pillow, undaunted by the humming of the fan, was marking off time with a dull tocking. The clock was a sardonic embellishment to his daily life, for he had never once used to it wake him. His consciousness flowed on, day and night, like a murmuring brook; he was long used at night to maintaining himself transparent like crystal within it, and the alarm clock was the friend, the Sancho Panza, that turned the custom into a comedy on his behalf. The cheap sound of its mechanism was a splendid source of comfort: it made a farce of any continuity in him.