Sanine by Mikhail Artsybashev

Soloveitchik stood at the door for some time, looking up to the starless sky and rubbing his thin fingers.

The wind whistled round the gloomy tin-roofed sheds, bending the treetops that were huddled together like a troop of ghosts. Overhead, as if driven by some resistless force, the clouds raced onward, ever onward. They formed black masses against the horizon, some being piled up to insuperable heights. It was as though, far away in the distance, they were awaited by countless armies that, with sable banners all unfurled, had gone forth in their dreadful might to some wild conflict of the elements. From time to time the restless wind seemed to bring with it the clamour of the distant fray.