the end of the night

“The end of the night” is Ferdinand’s imagined destination beyond the fear and repeated rejection that govern his existence. In a passage where Lola brings him home only to send him back out, the phrase gives his homelessness a bleak direction: whatever frightens people may be waiting at the far end of the darkness they are so determined to avoid.

The Phrase in Context

Ferdinand tells Lola that without a few dollars he will have nowhere to sleep. She invites him home, promising money before he goes wherever he pleases, but he recognizes that she wants to put him out again as soon as possible. In the cold car ride, the city becomes an ambush of towering stone, asphalt, and rain. Against this threatening urban setting, he repeats words of encouragement to himself and imagines a destination beyond the night.

Meaning and Narrative Function

The phrase converts expulsion into a grim kind of forward motion. Ferdinand takes comfort in the thought that being turned away everywhere must eventually bring him somewhere; yet the destination he imagines is not safety. It is the place those who fear the night are trying not to reach. The thought offers consolation while preserving the menace at its center: endurance may carry him onward, but it does not promise refuge or release.

Recurrence of the Night Motif

Here, night is both a literal prospect—Ferdinand has no assured place to sleep—and an image for a condition from which he cannot readily escape. The city’s immense stone silence and the rain-dark streets make that condition feel enclosing, while the imagined end gives it a direction without making it less threatening. The phrase’s force lies in that tension: a rejected man keeps moving, but the journey’s endpoint remains bound to fear.