Dripping with sweat, despite the snow that surrounded me, I felt as if I were within warm and protective entrails. My body seemed to have memories of prenatal darkness. My brain, dulled by the lack of air, feebly suggested to me that it might have been sensible to go back down into the izba to recover my breath…

It was at that moment that my head pierced the crusty surface of the snow! I closed my eyes; the light was blinding.

Infinite calm reigned over the sun-drenched plain: the serenity of nature at rest after the turmoil of the night. Now the blue distances of the taiga were clearly revealed: it seemed to be asleep in the sweet air. And above the glittering expanse, white columns of smoke arose from invisible chimneys.

The first men appeared, emerging from the snow, and stood up. With dazed looks they took in the glittering desert now spread out where the village had been. Laughing, we hugged one another, pointing at the smoke – it was really comic to picture somebody cooking a meal under six feet of snow! A dog bounded out of the tunnel and seemed to be equally bemused by the unaccustomed spectacle… I saw Klestov, the old believer, appearing. He turned toward the east, crossed himself slowly, then greeted everyone with an air of exaggerated dignity.

Little by little the village rediscovered its familiar sounds. The few men of Svetlaya, helped by all the rest of us, began to dig corridors linking the izbas with one another and opened up the path to the well.

We knew that this abundance of snow in our country of dry cold had been brought by winds that blew from the misty void of the ocean. We also knew that the storm had been the very first sign of spring. The sunlight of this mild spell would soon beat down the snow, would reduce it to heavy piles below our windows. And the cold weather would begin again, even more extreme, as if to take revenge on this brief interval of light abandon. But spring would come! We were sure of it now. A spring as brilliant and sudden as the light that had blinded us as we emerged from our tunnels.