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Il est dix heures, le lézard dort enfin.

Il est dix heures, le lézard dort enfin.
It is ten o'clock, the lizard is finally sleeping.
From Lesson 278:Negative adverbs with infinitives (ne pas, ne plus)·French

Questions & Answers about Il est dix heures, le lézard dort enfin.

If I wanted to change the second half to "the lizard prefers not to sleep", how would I apply the negative infinitive rule?
You would say le lézard préfère ne pas dormir. Because dormir is an infinitive (an unconjugated verb), both parts of the negative (ne and pas) must stay together right in front of it.
Why do we use Il est for the time instead of C'est?
When telling time in French, you always use the impersonal phrase il est. While we say "It is" in English, using c'est dix heures is grammatically incorrect in French.
Why is enfin placed after the verb dort?
In French, short or common adverbs like enfin (finally) usually go immediately after the conjugated verb. Unlike in English where we can say "is finally sleeping," French keeps the subject (le lézard) and its verb (dort) tightly together.
Wait, isn't dormir an -ir verb? Why is the conjugated form dort instead of "dormit"?
Dormir is an irregular -ir verb. Instead of keeping the full stem like regular verbs, it drops the "m" in its singular forms, giving us je dors, tu dors, and il dort.

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