Once every day, at least, I set out for a walk, a scarf over my hair, my head bent into the wind. I never went far – I was afraid of getting lost – and I felt that I looked like a miserable cat as I skirted the muddy tracks on the road outside the farm. I had never lived in the country before, and it seemed crazy to just walk around with nothing special to look at. The sky was always gray and low, as if you could touch it. I seemed made of felt. The sky at home was never like that; at least, it didn't press down on you. Herr Enrich said this was the Salzburg autumn sky, and that the clouds were low because they were holding snow. It was frightening, in a way, to think that behind all that felt there were tireless whirlpools of snow, moving and silent.One afternoon when I was tramping aimlessly around the yard, I heard somebody singing. I couldn't tell if the singer was a man or a woman, and I couldn't make out the words of the song. But the voice was the nicest I had ever heard. I stood still with my hands pulled up into my sleeves, because of the cold, and I looked up to the top of the house, where the voice was coming from. I wondered if it was the radio in someone's room, but then the singer stopped and sang the same phrase four or five times. The kitchenmaids were sitting on a bench in the yard, plucking chickens for supper and listened, too, very still, and the yard was like one of those fairy tales when everyone is suddenly frozen for a thousand years. But then the voice stopped completely, and we became ourselves again, the girls working and giggling, and me trudging about on my eternal walks.
Marvis Gallant, « Autumn Day »
