Minus twenty-two

Minus twenty-two at the summit station and minus nine in the valley at eight this morning. Cold like that arrives without wind and without cloud, which is the only reason it is bearable.

Everything behaves differently. Snow stops being slippery and starts being slow, the way sand is slow. Skis run badly. Metal takes skin. The river above the second bridge, which does not usually freeze, had gone still and white at the edges and was making a low knocking sound where the ice met the current.

In the house the practical business of a very cold day is mostly about water and doors. The pipes on the north face are lagged and heated and are still checked twice. The doors are opened as little as possible, and the ones that must be opened have a second door behind them — an arrangement that looks like architecture and is in fact just experience.

The cold clarifies the air to a degree that has to be seen to be credited. From the terrace at four in the afternoon you could pick out individual seracs on the Bossons, eight kilometres away and thirteen hundred metres up. On an ordinary day they are a texture. Today they were objects, with edges and shadows.

Nobody skied much. Everybody looked a great deal. Théo made a consommé that took eleven hours and disappeared in forty minutes, and the fires were built up higher than Sylvie strictly approves of.

It broke overnight. By morning it was minus four and felt tropical.