It was a strange evening. Two
different weathers seemed to have met over the Polchester streets. First
there was the deep serene beauty of the May day, pale blue faintly fading
into the palest yellow, the world lying like an enchanted spirit asleep
within a glass bell, reflecting the light from the shining surface that
enfolded it. In this light houses, grass, cobbles lay as though stained by
a painter's brush, bright colours like the dazzling pigment of a wooden
toy, glittering under the shining sky.
This was a normal enough evening for the Polchester May, but across it,
shivering it into fragments, broke a stormy and blustering wind, a wind
that belonged to stormy January days, cold and violent, with the hint of
rain in its murmuring voice. It tore through the town, sometimes carrying
hurried and, as it seemed, terrified clouds with it; for a while the May
light would be hidden, the air would be chill, a few drops like flashes of
glass would fall, gleaming against the bright colours--then suddenly the
sky would be again unchallenged blue, there would be no cloud on the
horizon, only the pavements would glitter as though reflecting a glassy
dome.
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