The storm had subsided ... but its last flutterings could still be felt.
It was early; there were no people in the streets; in many places
fragments of chimneys, tiles, boards of fences which had been rent
asunder, the broken boughs of trees, lay strewn upon the ground....
"What happened at sea last night?" I involuntarily thought at the sight
of the traces left behind by the storm. I started to go to the port, but
my feet bore me in another direction, as though in obedience to an
irresistible attraction. Before ten minutes had passed I found myself in
a quarter of the town which I had never yet visited. I was walking, not
fast, but without stopping, step by step, with a strange sensation at my
heart; I was expecting something remarkable, impossible, and, at the
same time, I was convinced that that impossible thing would come to
pass.