During the morning the mist thickened again. Everything was gray, even the winter-green spruces growing on the ridge beyond the lake were gray, and everything was saturated with dampness. The fine drizzle in the air, the droplets collecting under the branches and falling to the ground with tiny, almost imperceptible, thuds, the moisture in the soil of the meadow that had once been a marsh, the squelch it gave when you stepped on it, your shoes sinking in, the mud oozing over them.
