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den, nearly snow- sounding steps joined in with some
others; a huge tired animal seemed to be setting up for
the night, sighing, turning slowly one way and another,
and breaking the bushes. I raised my eyebrows. ‘Snezhik,
who’s there?’
‘Don’t’ be frightened, it’s the river wrapping up in ice’.
On the steep bank a sense of wonder came over me;
the water in the river turned deep and dark with a skim
of ice on the surface that looked like a skim of boiling
milk. The flowing river crushed thin ice, made it folded
to go further as small pieces, rustling and navigating the
ice edge of the river banks. Small ice pieces were assem-
bling with large ice fields like in a puzzle. They some-
times erected and thus froze, shimmering in the sun-
light. The river covering now resembled a wounded skin
of a monstrous fish whose scales stirred glittering in the
sunlight with changing colours. I was stunned to see all
that beauty and power. Just before my eyes the flow of
water was getting narrower, encased in ice growing from
the banks. The river had not subsided yet; it sighed and
thrust ice aside, the ice crunching. I was standing there
in an ecstasy of joy when I heard Snezhik say, ‘How’s
that? Enjoying it?’
‘Yes, greately. Never seen anything like that’, I ex-
claimed, delighted.
‘Right. Remember your words: cold, dark. Actually,
people are strange creatures. They live a pipsqueak life,
likely to be over before they turn a hundred. And they
don’t even bother to glance at the sun rising or a river

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