Winter comes so swiftly in the mountains that the leaves are frozen green on the trees, the grass in the meadows. The foliage never turns color or falls, but hibernates in clear ice casings until the spring thaw restores their interrupted life again. So the winter landscape is tinkling green, dazzling with flakes of light, crisp through the snow. The many rock-lipped streams freeze clear as well, and the fish are suspended in place like spangles of precious metal until spring. I walked to the small cluster of administrative buildings, a clutch of cottages and shops connected by a tangle of gravel paths and baffled from sight like an embarrassment by several echelons of yew hedges. I passed through these under boughs of cherry trees, the scarlet cherries still on the branches, glowing like embers through the ice that outlined every leaf and twig in shining white thread, and I saw myself endlessly multiplied in all that pure ice, even on the yew branches, their deep green almost black, and webs of gossamer ice in the recesses of the hedges. A dark, bulbous, top-heavy figure loomed in and out of them as I passed, arms anxiously swinging.

I never have been able to find out how the administrators get their posts, or why they all seem so unqualified and unhelpful. I walked in among the dozen or so buildings with smoke in my face, blown down toward the ground from the chimneys of the cottages to my left. One of the administrators, a white old woman in a shawl, was spinning in a doorway, muttering around a short clay pipe to a sharply-dressed aide who avidly took down her dictation. The woman eyed me as I passed, without slowing her spinning or her smoky speaking. I glanced at her, then at once dropped my eyes to the thick ankles slotted into shoes so tight they seemed painted on. While her look was cryptic, her aide, who was red, shot me a glance of unmistakable disapproval. I was tempted to fling a handful of snow at them, but after all I might need to persuade them of my good will later, so I belatedly turned, as I had already passed nearly altogether out of sight of them, and made a sort of half wave half salute, along with what I felt was a strained and unappealing smile. Some smiles break a face and some smiles tear across.