One year, a century ago, spring was late in Denmark. During the last
days of March, the Sound was ice-bound, and blind, from the Danish to
the Swedish coast. The snow in the fields and on the roads thawed a
little in the day, only to freeze again at night; the earth and the air
were equally without hope or mercy.
Then one night, after a week of raw and clammy fog, it began to rain.
The hard, inexorable sky over the dead landscape broke, dissolved into
streaming life and became one with the ground. On all sides the
incessant whisper of falling water re-echoed; it increased and grew into
a song. The world stirred beneath it; things drew breath in the dark.
Once more it was announced to the hills and valleys, to the woods and
the chained brooks: “You are to live.”
— Isak Dinesen, opening of “Peter and Rosa,” from Winter’s Tales
descensus Averno facilis est