The Family at Gilje

It was a clear, cold afternoon in the mountain region. The air lay blue with the frost, with light rose tints over all the sharp crests, ravines, and peaks, which, like a series of gigantic drifts, tower above tower, floated up towards the horizon. Below, hills and wooded mountain slopes shut the region in with white walls, constantly narrower and narrower, nearer and nearer, always more contracting.

The snow was late this year, but in return, now that the Christmas season had come, lay so heavy on fir and spruce that it bent down both needles and twigs. The groves of birches stood up to their waists in snow; the small clusters of tile-roofed houses of the district were half buried, with snow-drifts pressing down over the roofs. The entrances to the farmyards were deeply dug paths, from which the gate and fence posts stuck up here and there like the masts of sunken boats.

The snow-plough had recently gone through the highway, and on the steep red-tiled roof of the captain’s house men were busy shovelling down the great frozen snow-drifts, which hung threatening over the ends of the roof.