By noon
the air is thick with a coagulated mist; the temperature meanwhile has
risen, and a little snow falls at intervals. The valleys are filled
with a curious opaque blue, from which the peaks rise, phantom-like
and pallid, into the grey air, scarcely distinguishable from their
background. The pine-forests on the mountain-sides are of darkest
indigo. There is an indescribable stillness and a sense of incubation.
The wind has fallen. Later on, the snow-flakes flutter silently and
sparely through the lifeless air. The most distant landscape is quite
blotted out. After sunset the clouds have settled down upon the hills,
and the snow comes in thick, impenetrable fleeces. At night our hair
crackles and sparkles when we brush it. Next morning there is a foot
and a half of finely powdered snow, and still the snow is falling.
Strangely loom the chalets through the semi-solid whiteness. Yet the
air is now dry and singularly soothing. The pines are heavy with their
wadded coverings; now and again one shakes himself in silence, and his
burden falls in a white cloud, to leave a black-green patch upon the
hillside, whitening again as the imperturbable fall continues. The
stakes by the roadside are almost buried. No sound is audible. Nothing
is seen but the snow-plough, a long raft of planks with a heavy stone
at its stem and a sharp prow, drawn by four strong horses, and driven
by a young man erect upon the stem.
So we live through two days and nights, and on the third a north wind
blows.
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