It was not his first winter there—he had arrived in the North eight years ago. But he still did not understand the cold. Where did it come from? Who sent it and why? And when it went away, where did it go? Where was it kept? And also, how did the cold manage to get inside him, into his flesh and bones? However much he wrapped up, the cold always found a way to seep in, and sometimes it seemed that, while it began outside—near the trees on the hills, perhaps—it ended up occupying his entire body until it made him tremble. As if it were trying to shake apart his skeleton, to dismember him, to
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