A fine and interminable rain now poured down from the sky which had become an ashy grey.
"It's past two o'clock," cried Madame Lorilleux.

"We can't stop here for ever." Mademoiselle Remanjou, having suggested going into the country all the same, even though they went no farther than the moat of the fortifications, the others scouted the idea: the roads would be in a nice state, one would not even be able to sit down on the grass; besides, it did not seem to be all over yet, there might perhaps be another downpour.

Coupeau, who had been watching a workman, completely soaked, yet quietly walking along in the rain, murmured: "If that animal My-Boots is waiting for us on the Route de Saint-Denis, he won't catch a sunstroke." That made some of them laugh; but the general ill-humor increased.
It was becoming ludicrous.

They must decide on something unless they planned to sit there, staring at each other, until time for dinner.

So for the next quarter of an hour, while the persistent rain continued, they tried to think of what to do.