midday
This was one reason why he had not gone away like every one else ; the other , that he had been unwilling to write home for an increase of allowance . Sometimes , when the day was hot , he envied his friends refreshing themselves by wood , mountain or sea ; but , in the main , he worked briskly at Czerny 's FINGERFERTIGKEIT , and with such perseverance that ultimately his fingers stumbled from fatigue . With the beginning of August , the heat grew oppressive ; all day long , the sun beat , fierce and unremittent , on this city of the plains , and the baked pavements were warm to the feet . Business slackened , and the midday rest in shops and offices was extended beyond its usual limit . Conservatorium and Gewandhaus , at first given over to relays of charwomen , their brooms and buckets , soon lay dead and deserted , too ; and if , in the evening , Maurice passed the former building , he would see the janitor sitting at leisure in the middle of the pavement , smoking his long black cigar . The old trees in the PROMENADE , and the young striplings that followed the river in the LAMPESTRASSE , drooped their brown leaves thick with dust ; the familiar smell of roasting coffee , which haunted most house - and stair-ways , was intensified ; and out of drains and rivers rose nauseous and penetrating odours , from which there was no escape . Every three or four days , when the atmosphere of the town had reached a pitch of unsavouriness which it seemed impossible to surpass , sudden storms swept up , tropical in their violence : blasts of thunder cracked like splitting beams ; lightning darted along the narrow streets ; rain fell in white , sizzling sheets .