About five in the afternoon
The Rhine was so swollen that the streets in the lower part of the town sloping to the river were under water , and the people going about in boats . But I was tired of the house ; the heated rooms stifled me . I was weary of Frau Mittendorf 's society , and thoroughly dissatisfied with my own . About five in the afternoon I went to the window and looked out . I perceived a strip of pale , watery blue through a rift in the storm-laden clouds , and I chose to see that , and that only , ignoring the wind-lashed trees of the allee ; the leaves , wet , and sodden and sere , hurrying panic-stricken before the gale , ignoring , too , the low wail promising a coming hurricane , which sighed and soughed beneath the wind 's shrill scream . There was a temporary calm , and I bethought myself that I would go to church -- not to the Protestant church attended by the English clique -- heaven forbid ! but to my favorite haunt , the Jesuiten Kirche .