He turned around once and studied his own tracks. It made him think of hare prints, but hares don’t turn around, he thought. Their trajectories are erratic, they throw themselves this way and that. I walk straight ahead. I have always done so. Once he reached the boulder and the birch tree with the split trunks occasioned by its great age, he paused a second time. The snow whirled in the wind and he loosened the straps of his hat and lowered the ear-flaps. He looked around: a sparse forest with patches of lichen and brush. It was so reassuring and familiar – nonetheless an unease tingled inside him. It was in exactly this area that he had once intended to subdivide a couple of lots. He tried to imagine a development with two or three houses and was glad he had changed his mind at the last minute. I made the right decision in the end, he concluded, and felt satisfied for the first time that morning. He walked on. To walk oneself warm, he thought. To walk straight but look to the side.
