AtDDtA1: The Falling Darkness

[mhayes at asiaaccess.net.th]

When I read the paragraph below, I thought it was refering to some
Impressionist painting. I am probably totally wrong, but I have got some
memory of a painting of a guy in a bowler hat, with a camera and folded
tripod under his arm, running with this half naked woman. Kinda Touluse
Lautrec? Or perhaps I'm just making up stuff and adding it into
Manet's 'Luncheon on the Grass'?
Mike H

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"The duo appeared to be making for a nearby patch of woods, now and
then casting apprehensive looks upward at the enormous gasbag of the
descending Inconvenience, quite as if it were some giant eyeball,
perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a
spirit of constructive censure. But by the time Lindsay could remove
the optical instrument from the moist hands of Miles Blundell [...]
the indecorous couple had vanished among the foliage, as presently
would this sector of the Republic into the falling darkness." (AtD,
Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 13)

I'd say that last clause is something of a concealed weapon casually
revealed.  Made the back of my neck prickle.  On its face it just means
it's getting dark, but the way it's written, and the way it's dropped
on the ground like a glove or a rose or a letter, give it a more
sinister weight.