In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that
looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river
there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was
clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and
down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The
trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we
saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred
by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and
white except for the leaves.

Primeiro parágrafo do livro "A farewell to arms", de Ernest Hemingway.