[科幻] 寒冬夜行人（中英文版）

原本是《涉江》中的一个小故事，后来摘出来单独成篇。
中文版发表于《光明日报》2015年6月5日第14版
英文版由刘宇昆翻译，发表于Clarkesworld，2015年第11期
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李云松（图书管理员，寒冬夜行人）
发布于20xx-04-06
缅怀一个人有许多种方式，没有人说得出哪一种方法最好——恐怕连逝者本人也说不出。
我现在想要讲的，或许是你们从未听说过的最奇怪的一种。
我的父亲是一名图书管理员。许多年前，当我还小的时候，他经常把我带到他上班的地方，让我跟那些散发灰尘气味的旧书架作伴。或许因为这样的耳濡目染，我对那些纸质书从小培养出一种亲近感，哪怕没有别的娱乐，也能捧着一本大部头津津有味地看上一整天。随着年纪渐长，我发现图书馆外面的世界远比书本要复杂，复杂到有些难于适应。我成了一个性格孤僻的书呆子，不喜欢社交，也没有什么朋友。大学毕业后，我回到故乡小镇，去父亲工作过的图书馆里上班。那感觉是如此自然而然，就好像一本书按照书脊上的编号，找到架子上属于自己的那个位置。
图书馆的工作很清闲，在电子化阅读的时代，热衷于泡图书馆的人已经寥寥无几。我像一个守墓人一样，照看这些无人问津的书本，偶尔接待一下前来扫墓的人，却不用与他们多说一句话。阳光安静地从一排排书架中间滑过，周而复始，日子就这样一天一天过去。我每天来到这安静得像坟墓一样的地方，随便从架子上抽一两本书来读。如果说有一种梦想中的天堂生活的话，那么或许就应该是这个样子。
博尔赫斯曾说过：“上帝在克莱门蒂诺图书馆的四十万藏书中某一卷某一页的某一个字母里。我的父母、我的父母的父母找过那个字母；我自己也找过，把眼睛都找瞎了。”我不信上帝，但有时候也觉得自己像是在寻找什么。
一个秋雨绵绵的午后，图书馆收到了一批赠书。我翻开一本，看见扉页上一枚小小的红色藏书印，便知道又有某一位嗜书如命的老先生去世了。子女们将他积攒一生的藏书摊放在楼下，值钱的被书贩子挑走，剩下的论斤卖或者送人，也有一部分会被捐赠给图书馆。这样的事情每年都会发生。我将这些书整理登记，编撰条目，贴上索书号与条形码，擦拭灰尘，一层层码放整齐等待上架。
我一口气干了两个小时，感觉到头晕眼花，决定停下来休息一下。烧水泡茶的间隙，我随手从书堆最上面捡起一本薄薄的小书，翻开一看，是一本诗集。
我读了起来，从第一首诗的第一行第一个字开始，我就依稀感觉到，自己像是找到了一直在找的东西。在淅淅沥沥的雨声中，我细细咀嚼那些诗句，像饿了太久的人手捧琼浆玉液，舍不得一口气咽下。
那些诗来自一位我从未听说过的诗人，关于她的介绍只印了寥寥两行，连张照片都没有。只知道她用笔名写作，真实姓名不详，死于二十年前，年仅三十一岁。我掏出手机查询这位诗人的相关信息和其他作品，却一无所获，仿佛从来不曾存在这样一个人。一瞬间我感觉到有几分毛骨悚然。一位生活在信息时代的诗人，居然没有在网络上留下任何蛛丝马迹，像个幽灵般来去匆匆，这简直是不可思议的事情。
在诗集中间，我发现了一张图书馆的索书单。纸张很薄，微微泛黄，但依旧保存完好。索书单上写有书的名字和一个借书证号，笔迹工整有力。我将相关信息输入电脑中查询，发现借书人曾经是这座图书馆的常客，却有好几个月没来了。诡异的是，借书人的借还记录中并没有这本诗集，因为在此之前图书馆里根本就没有这本书。
为什么图书馆的索书单会夹在老人的私人藏书中，又为什么会在绕了一大圈后回到这里？单子上的借书人是谁，与老人是什么关系？又或者他们其实是同一个人，只是用了不同名字？
我将读完的诗集与其他赠书一起按照编码顺序上架。第二天，我又鬼使神差般走到那一排架子前面。诗集仍在那里，孤零零一本夹在其他书中间，像一个躲在阁楼上的神秘女子。我将它抽出来，从第一页开始重读。虽然是几十年前的诗，但从那些丰富暧昧的意象中间，我分明感觉到将这个时代绝大多数人都卷携其中的巨大悲痛，像寂寥的呼喊，从残垣断壁的缝隙间流淌而过，绵绵无绝期。
写诗的人究竟是谁，长什么样子，曾住何处，过着怎样一种生活？除了我、过世的老人、与那位同样神秘的借书人之外，她还有其他读者吗？
我找不到答案，只能反复地读，像鱼潜入水底。诗人和她的诗变成我黑而幽深的梦境，隐藏住所有秘密。
三个月后，当第一场冬雪悄然落下时，我竟然见到了那位借书人。他大约四十多岁，中等身材，面庞清瘦，衣着朴素。当我在借书证上看到那串熟悉的数字时，激动得差一点叫出声来。但图书馆巨大的寂静提醒了我，让我咽下了呼喊。
我用监控设备偷偷观察他的行动，看他像个幽灵般在走廊与楼梯间穿行。我看着他走进空无一人的旧报刊区，从架子上找出装订在一起的报纸，小心地摊放在桌上，一页一页慢慢浏览。我不明白，这些报纸大多数都有电子版，只要去电子数据库中检索，随便哪一天哪一版的信息都能找到，为什么还要这样大费周折地跑到图书馆来翻阅？或许他仅仅是在重温那种手指翻开旧报纸的感觉？
突然间，监控器里的借书人抬起头来环顾四周，盯着摄像头的方向看了一眼，然后巧妙地挪动坐姿，让身体挡住面前的报纸。几秒钟之后，他把报纸翻到下一页，像是什么都没发生过。但在那短短一瞬间，我确定他干了什么不可告人的事情。也许是偷拍照，但对着已经电子化的报纸原件拍照又有什么意义呢？
闭馆之前，借书人来到我桌前，将那本薄薄的诗集轻轻放下。我刷了条码，却不着急立刻递还给他。那一瞬间，对谜团的好奇心占了上风，我决定打破沉默，冒险与陌生人说话。
“你喜欢这些诗吗？”我问。
借书人显得很是吃惊，好像图书管理员在他眼中一直是个隐形人，现在却突然凭空出现一样。
“还……可以。”他谨慎地回答。
“我觉得很美。”我说，“仅仅说美也不太准确，它们是非常有力量的，好像能够重新赋予沉睡千百年的废墟以秩序。”
我讲了我如何看到这些诗，讲了博尔赫斯对于上帝的比喻，讲了我为何对那位神秘的诗人念念不忘，甚至讲了我为何会当上一个图书管理员。
我的话在借书人脸上激荡起一丝涟漪，像雨点落入池塘中。
等我讲完后，他从桌上的小纸盒里抓起一张索书单放在我面前，说：“请留下你的联系方式。”
我写了自己的姓名和电话号码。写好之后，他并不多看一眼就将纸条夹入诗集中，说一声：“我会联系你。”便大步向着门外走去。
我又等了一个多星期。一个暴风雪肆虐的傍晚，电话铃声突然响起。我按下接听键，听筒那边传来借书人低沉的嗓音。
“今晚有一个聚会，我们想邀请你参加。”
“今晚？”我下意识抬头望了一眼窗外密不透风的雪片。“我们？”
他说出一个地址和一个时间，又说一句：“希望你能来。”就把电话挂掉了。
最后那句话对我似乎有着难以言喻的魔力——已经很多年没有听到别人对我说“希望”这个词了。我简单收拾了一下，撑伞走出图书馆大门。
雪下得纷纷扬扬密不透风，街上几乎没有行人，也没有几辆车。这座小镇里没有管道车也没有地铁，交通依旧维持着几十年前的格局。我踩着齐踝深的积雪，步行走到附近的公交车站。车来了，上面乘客很少。我坐了七八站地，又下车走了一段路，来到借书人告诉我的地址，是一间看上去有年头的酒吧。
我推开厚重的木门，掀开棉布门帘，暖烘烘的空气迎面扑来，有一股似曾相识的气味。我看见酒吧里已经坐了大约十几个人，像开会一样围成松散的圆圈。圈子中央竟然有一只古老的蜂窝煤炉子，上面架着铝制水壶，正咝咝地冒出白汽。
借书人拎起水壶，泡了一杯热茶递给我，我惊奇地注意到他冷冰冰的脸上居然有一丝笑意。他把我一一介绍给其他人，我很快看出坐在这里的人们大多和我一样不善交际，但每个人的眼神都是真诚友好的，仿佛已经把我当做自己人看待。这让我变得没有一开始那么紧张了。
我找了一把椅子坐下。借书人（他显然是今晚聚会的主持人）站起来，用低沉的嗓音说道：
“各位晚上好，欢迎新朋友的加入。今天是一个特别的日子，看见大家冒着风雪而来我很高兴。”
人们安静下来，手捧热茶静静地听他说话。
“今晚我们相聚在一起，是为了悼念一位诗人。”他说道，“二十年前，正是这样一个风雪交加的寒夜里，她永远离开了这个世界。”
“今晚坐在这里的，都是她的读者。我们深爱她的作品，却对她的生平经历所知甚少。据说她性格内向，深居简出，几乎不用电脑不上网，也少有照片和影像资料留下。她的诗在生前没有引起广泛关注，只零星发表于几个小众文学刊物，偶尔有刊物的编辑向她索要照片或者约做访谈，大多没有得到回音。”
“这其中，只有一位编辑因为喜欢她的诗歌，多年来一直坚持与她通信。她们在手写的信件中谈论诗歌与生活，谈论清贫与卑微，谈论时代给予每个人的恐惧和希望。这是一段质朴的友谊，只靠书信中的三言两语维系。终其一生她们都没有真正见过面。”
“诗人离世之前，将自己全部已发表和未发表的手稿一起寄给编辑。编辑读完这些诗后，决定编一本诗集以悼念亡友。然而她深深知道，为了宣传诗集，必须将诗人的生平包装成一个人们喜闻乐见的故事，必须放大她的神秘和孤僻，挖掘她的家庭关系和教育背景，她贫苦而饥饿的生活，她隐秘的情感经历，她悲惨的死亡现场。必须让所有读诗或不读诗的人都能够为英年早逝的女诗人掬一把同情泪，让他们一同诅咒这个冷漠浮华的时代对一位天才的戕害，让他们在她身上看到另一个自己。唯有这样，诗集才能卖得出去，才能大红大紫，流芳百世。”
“但这恰恰是诗人所不喜欢的。”
“最终编辑决定用另外一种方式来悼念诗人。她自费编印诗集，寄给她认识的朋友，那些有可能会愿意读这些诗的人，那些穷作家、翻译家、教师、编辑、青年学生、图书管理员。她在信中写道，如果有人想要更多诗集转送他人，她愿意免费邮寄。但与此同时，关于诗人的生平，她所知甚少，也无可奉告。”
“年复一年，喜爱这些诗的读者渐渐自发形成了类似我们这样的俱乐部。我们阅读并传播她的作品，从一个人的书架到另一个人的书架，从一座图书馆到另一座图书馆。但我们不去博取徒有其表的关注，不编造催人泪下的故事，不制造流行的幻象。我们只希望读者通过诗歌理解和欣赏她，而不去兜售添油加醋的评论、传记、照片和访谈。我们甚至以消灭那样的东西为己任——如果有人在哪里看到与她有关的文字或影像记录，我们就想方设法偷偷将其抹去。网络上的信息可以删除，数据库可以小心地篡改，胶片和磁带可以剪掉再粘好，印在纸上的内容可以裁下来销毁。”
“很少有人注意到我们的所作所为。相比起制造新闻，减少关注的工作进行得悄无声息。但完全不为人知也是不可能做到的。总会有好奇的人刨根问底，希望挖掘诗歌背后的故事，像透过谜面去猜谜底。对此，我们无权阻拦，只想说出我们的看法：对于那些所谓的秘密，我们并不知道，也不想知道。在我们看来，诗歌本身已说出一切。”
借书人说完这些话，翻开手中的诗集，摊放在我面前。我看到书页中间夹着一张泛黄的纸片，像是从旧报纸上剪下来的一小块。
“这是在你工作的图书馆里找到的一张照片，我剪下来带走了。很抱歉损坏了图书馆财物。我现在把它交还给你，应该怎样处理，请你看着办吧。”
我低头看着那张纸片，上面有一张模糊不清的合影。十几二十张苍白的脸像是暴露在阳光下，显得面目不清。诗的作者就在其中吗？是哪一张脸呢？我找得到吗？
谜底早已在谜面之中。
我用指尖捻起那张纸片，走到煤炉子旁边，将它扔了进去。火苗舔着纸片，发出橘红色的光焰，转眼间便将它烧成一小撮黑色的纸灰。
我看着借书人，他微笑着，向我伸出一只手。我握住他大而温暖的手掌，想起自己很久没有跟陌生人握手了，一瞬间竟然双眼湿润。
“现在，让我们来读一首诗吧。”他提议道。
我们各自在椅子上坐下，翻开诗集第一页，从第一首诗第一行的第一个字开始读起。声音缓缓飘起，穿过天花板，逆着纷纷扬扬的鹅毛大雪扶摇直上，回到高处不胜寒的漆黑天宇中去。
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If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Li Yunsong (librarian, traveler on a winter’s night)
posted on 20xx-04-06
Many are the ways of commemorating the dead, and no one can say which is best—not even the dead.
The method I’m about to tell you is perhaps the strangest of them all.
*
My father was a librarian. Years ago, when I was a little child, he used to bring me to work and let me loose among the dusty tomes on old shelves. The experience forged an emotional bond between me and paper books. I could spend a whole day with my head buried in a book, careless of the absence of other entertainments. As I grew up, I discovered that the world outside the library was far more complicated, and I had a hard time adjusting. Socially awkward and having few friends, I returned to my hometown after college and started working at my father’s old library. It felt natural, like a book finding the exact place on the shelves assigned to it by the numbers on its spine.
There wasn’t much to do at work. In an age when most reading was done electronically, the library had few patrons. Like a graveyard attendant, I took care of the forgotten books and saw the occasional visitor, but there was little expectation of real conversation. The sunlight glided tranquilly between the shelves, day after day. Every day, I entered this sanctuary, quiet as a tomb, and pulled a book or two randomly off the shelves to read.
This was pretty much my version of heaven.
Borges once wrote, “God is in one of the letters on one of the pages of one of the four hundred thousand volumes in the Clementine. My parents and my parents’ parents searched for that letter; I myself have gone blind searching for it.” I didn’t believe in God, but sometimes I felt that I was searching for something as well.
*
One rainy autumn afternoon, the library received a donation of books. I opened one and saw a small red collector’s seal on the title page, which told me that another old man who had treasured books had died. His children had piled his collection, gathered over a lifetime, in front of his apartment building. Those which were worth something had been picked out by used book dealers, leaving the rest to be sold by the kilogram to a paper mill, to be gifted, or to be donated to the library. This sort of thing happened every year. I sorted the books, recorded and catalogued them, stuck on call numbers and barcodes, wiped off the dust, and stacked them neatly so that they could be shelved.
This took me two hours; I was exhausted, dizzy, and needed a break. While the teakettle was boiling, I picked up a slim volume off the top of the stack. It was a chapbook of poetry.
I started to read. From the first character in the first line of the first poem, I felt that I had found what I had always sought. Accompanied by the faint pitter-patter of rain outside, I chewed over the verses carefully, as delighted as a starving man who had finally been given manna.
The poet was unfamiliar to me, and there was only a short paragraph that passed for her biography. There wasn’t even a photograph. She wrote under a pen name, and her real name was unknown. She had died twenty years ago at the age of thirty-one. I pulled out my phone to look her up, but the Internet gave me nothing, as though she had never existed.
I felt a tingling up my spine. How could a poet who had lived in the information age leave no trace on the Web? It was inconceivable.
In the middle of the chapbook I found a library book request form. The sheet was thin, yellowed, but still well preserved. The borrower had filled out the form with the title of the poetry book as well as his library card number in a neat, forceful hand. I inputted the information into the computer system and found that the borrower had been a regular patron, though he hadn’t come for a few months. The borrower’s records in the database did not contain this book—which made sense, as the library had never had a copy of it.
Why would a book request form from my library be found in the private collection of an old man, and how did it get back here to me? Who was the borrower listed on the form, and what was his relationship to the old man? Or perhaps they were the same person using different names?
I finished the poems in the chapbook and shelved it as well as the other donated books. The next day, for some reason, I found myself in front of the shelf with the chapbook. It was still there, a slim volume squeezed between other books like a mysterious woman hiding in the attic. I pulled it out and re-read it from the first page. Though the poems were decades old, I could clearly sense from the rich, ambivalent images the massive waves of sorrow that had swept up most people in this age, like a lonely cry slipping through the cracks and seams of broken walls and fallen ruins, flowing without end.
Who was the poet? What did she look like and where did she live? What was her life like? Other than me, the dead collector, and the mysterious borrower, had she had other readers?
I had no answers. All I could do was to read the poems over and over again, like a fish diving deeper. The poet and her poems turned into the dark abyss of my dreams, concealing all secrets.
*
Three months later, as the first snow of winter fell, I met the borrower.
He was in his forties, of medium height, possessing a lean, angular face, and dressed plainly. When I saw the familiar string of numbers on his library card, I got so excited that I almost cried out. But the looming silence of the library reminded me to swallow the cry.
Using the library’s surveillance cameras, I observed him passing through the stacks and up and down the stairs like a ghost. I saw him walk into the room where old newspapers and magazines were kept, the only patron in that space. He retrieved a stack of bound newspapers and carefully laid it out on the desk, where he proceeded to flip through it slowly, page by page. I was puzzled. These newspapers were electronically stored and indexed, and all he had to do was to perform a simple search in the database. Why did he bother to come into the library to flip through them like this? Perhaps he was nostalgic for the sensation of bare fingers against old paper?
Suddenly, the borrower on my closed-circuit TV screen lifted his face and glanced around, staring in the direction of the camera for a second. Then he shifted his position so that his body blocked my view. A few seconds later, he moved away and flipped the newspaper to the next page.
I was certain that he had done something he did not want others to find out during that brief moment. Maybe he took a photograph. But considering all these papers had been digitized, what was the point of sneaking a picture?
Before closing time, the borrower approached me and set down that thin chapbook. I scanned the barcode but held on to the book. My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to break my habitual silence and risk speaking with a stranger.
“Do you like these poems?” I asked.
He was surprised. It was as if I had been invisible, but now appeared out of thin air.
“They’re . . . all right.” His tone was cautious.
“I think they’re lovely,” I said. “No, that’s not quite right. They’re powerful, as though they could return order and form to ruins that had been slumbering for thousands of years.”
I told him how I had come across these poems, and repeated to him the quote from Borges. I spoke to him about how I couldn’t forget the mysterious poet, and even recounted for him how I had become the librarian here.
Ripples of emotion spread across his face, as though my words had been drops of rain falling into a pond.
After I was done talking, he picked a book request form from the box on the desk and handed it to me. “Please give me your contact info.”
I wrote down my name and phone number. Without glancing at the form, he picked it up and placed it between the pages of the chapbook. “I will be in touch.” He strode toward the exit.
*
I waited more than a week. On a stormy evening, my phone rang. I answered it, and the borrower’s low, sonorous voice filled my ears.
“There’s a gathering tonight we’d like to invite you to.”
“Tonight?” I looked up at the dense, swirling snow outside the window. “We?”
He gave me an address and a time. Then he added, “I hope you can make it.” He hung up.
His last words were irresistible—it had been many years since anyone had said “hope” to me. I checked myself in the mirror and left the library, opening my umbrella as I did so.
The snow was so thick that it seemed solid. There were very few pedestrians or cars out on the road. My town was too small to have a subway or tube transport system, and transportation was no different from how it had been twenty, thirty years earlier. I made my way through ankle-deep snow to the bus stop, and the bus also had very few passengers. I rode for eight or so stops, got off, and walked some more until I reached the address the borrower had given me: it was a bar that had seen better years.
I pushed open the thick wooden door and swept aside the cotton curtain. Warm air infused with an aroma that I was sure I knew enveloped my face. About fifteen people were seated in the bar in a loose circle, and there was an old fashioned coal stove—the kind that took honeycomb briquettes—in the middle of the circle. On top of the stove sat an aluminum kettle hissing with white steam.
The borrower picked up the kettle and poured me a cup of hot tea. I was surprised to see that there was a hint of a smile on his cold, expressionless face. He introduced me to the others, and it didn’t take me long to realize that most of them were as socially awkward as me, but I could see friendliness and candor in their eyes. They already thought of me as one of them. I relaxed.
I found an empty chair and sat down. The borrower stood up like a host and said, “Good evening, everybody. Let’s welcome our new friend. Today is a special day, and I’m delighted to see all of you make it on a snowy night like this.”
The crowd quieted, holding hot cups of tea and listening.
“Tonight, we gather to remember a poet,” he continued. “Twenty years ago, a cold, stormy winter’s night just like this one, she departed our world.
“Everyone here tonight is a reader of her work. We love her poems but know almost nothing about her life. It is said that she was an introvert who lived like a hermit. She didn’t use the computer or the Web, and left behind almost no photographs or videos. Her poems received little attention during her lifetime, and were published only in a few obscure literary journals. When the editors of these journals asked for an author photo or an interview, she never responded.
“But one editor, who loved her work, managed to maintain a correspondence with her. Through handwritten letters, the two of them discussed life and poetry, poverty and humility, the terrors and hopes of our age. This was a simple, pure friendship, sustained only through the written word. They never met each other in life.
“Right before the poet died, she sent all her published and unpublished poems to the editor. After reading through them, the editor decided to publish a collection as a way to commemorate her dead friend. But she knew that the only way to make a collection of poetry popular was to package up the poet’s life into a story that was already popular with the crowd. The story had to exaggerate the poet’s mystery and solitude, dig up the scars of her family life and childhood, show her poverty and hunger, disclose her hidden life of love, and present her death scene with pathos. It had to be a story that would make everyone—whether they read poetry or not—shed tears of sympathy for a young woman poet who died too young, drive the crowd to curse our cold, commercial age for persecuting genius, allow each and every member of the audience to project themselves onto her. This was the only way to sell a collection of poetry, to grow her fame, to make her name last through the ages.
“But this was also exactly what the poet would have hated.
“And so the editor chose another way to commemorate her friend. She paid to print and bind copies of the chapbook and mailed them to her friends, anyone who was willing to read the poems, the penniless writers, translators, teachers, editors, students, librarians. She wrote in the note accompanying the chapbook that if anyone wanted more copies to gift to others, she would mail them for free. And since she knew so little about the poet’s life, she couldn’t satisfy their curiosity.
“Year after year, readers who loved her work formed clubs like this one. We read and pass on her work, from one private shelf to another, from one library to another library. But we are not interested in superficial attention; we do not fabricate tear-jerking tales about her life; we do not manufacture illusions that would be popular. We only wish for readers to admire her through her poetry, and we disdain insincere blurbs, biographies, photographs, or interviews. In fact, we make it our mission to eliminate any material of that sort. If one of us discovers an image or biographical record of her somewhere, we do our best to delete it. Documents on the Web can be deleted, databases can be carefully edited, tapes and rolls of film can be cut and then pasted back together, and anything printed could be torn out and burned.
“Very few people have noticed our actions. Compared to making news, reducing attention was work that could be carried out quietly. Of course, it was impossible to accomplish what we did without anyone noticing. There will always be the curious who wanted to know the stories behind the poems, who needed to pierce the riddle. We have no right to stop them, but we will say: we do not know any secrets, and we do not want to know any. For us, the poems themselves are enough.”
The borrower finished speaking. He opened the chapbook in his hand and placed it in front of me. I saw a yellowed piece of paper between the pages, like a piece cut from an old newspaper.
“I cut this out of the newspapers collected in your library. I’m sorry that I damaged your property. Now I return this to you so that you can decide what to do with it.”
I looked at the piece of paper. There was a blurry photograph on it. Almost twenty pale faces, exposed to the sun, stared at me. Was one of them the poet? Which one? How would I know?
The answer to the riddle was its plain text.
I picked up the piece of paper with the tips of my fingers and brought it to the stove, tossing it in. The flame licked the paper, burst into an orange flare, and in a blink the paper had turned into a curl of ash.
I looked at the borrower, who smiled at me, extending a hand. I held his large and warm hand. I realized that it had been a long time since I last held a stranger’s hand. My eyes grew wet.
“How about we read a poem together?” he said.
We sat down in our chairs and flipped open the chapbooks to the first page. We read from the first character in the first line of the first poem. Our voices floated up, passed through the ceiling, rose against the falling drifts of snow, until they had returned to the eternal, cold, dark abyss.
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