On one of these was scrawled, in big, irregular, blue-painted letters: "_A bas Coignet_." Great clouds began to loom into view over the house-tops, rounded, toppling masses of grey, lit up with sullen orange against the pale limpid blue of the sky.

I stood and looked at all these objects.

I had come out here to think--thoughts had deserted me.

I could only look.
The clouds moved imperceptibly, fatefully onward, a streak of lightning tore them apart.

They whirled like tortured smoke and grew suddenly black.