The little boy, when he heard that they were going to see the ice break up, wanted to come with them. Rosa lifted him up. 'No, you cannot come,' she said. 'It is too far away for you. I shall tell you about it when I come back.' The child gravely put his hands to her face. 'No, you will never tell me,' he said. Eline tried to hold back the girl, and told her that it was too far away for her as well. 'Nay, I want to go far away,' said Rosa. She put on an old cloak, and a pair of scabby furred gloves that belonged to her father, and went out with Peter.
As they came out of the house they saw that the snow was gone from the fields, but that all the same the world was lighter than before, for the air was filled with blurred, resplendent clarity. It almost blinded them. They strove to get up their eyelids against it. To all sides they heard the sound of dripping and running water. The walking was heavy, the melting snow made the road slippery. Peter set of at a quick pace, and then had to wait impatiently for the girl, who in her old shoes slid and stumbled on the path. She caught up with him, warm with the exertion, and giddy, like himself, with the air and the light.
He stood still. 'Listen,' he said, 'that is the lark.'Isak Dinesen, 'Peter and Rosa' from Winter's Tales.
Claude Monet: The Thaw at Vétheuil. 1880. Oil on canvas. 60 x 100 cm. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
