She was imposing and devoted--quite insufferable.

Durtal, on edge with irritation, found it all he could do not to dismiss her to the kitchen, and finally buried his nose in a book that he might not have to answer her, might not see her.
This day, provoked by his silence, Madame Mesurat lifted the window curtain, and for the sake of saying something, exclaimed,-- "Good heavens! What weather! Impossible!" And in fact the sky offered no hope of consolation.

It was all in tears.
The rain fell in uninterrupted streams, unwinding endless skeins of water.

The Cathedral was standing in a pool of mud lashed into leaping drops by the falling torrent, and the two spires looked drawn together, almost close, linked by loose threads of water.

This indeed was the prevailing impression--a briny atmosphere full of strings holding the sky and earth together as if tacked with long stitches, but they would not hold; a gust of wind snapped all these endless threads, which were whirled in every direction.
"My arrangement to meet the Abbe Plomb to go over the Cathedral is evidently at an end," said Durtal to himself.