The driver faces him, trying to get inside, but Tatte doesn’t even notice, his eyes are on the carriage, on her and Emmy
Everything is the same. And everything is different.
There’s the mud. The minute she climbs out of the carriage, her boots are covered in a sticky layer. The new day is just beginning, and in the dim morning light, she looks up and down the street. It’s not that they have stopped in a puddle. It’s just that there are no cobblestones, and it is winter, and this is how it always is, or was. Funny that she does not remember it.
“Boots can be cleaned,” she calls behind her to Emmy, as her daughter steps down from the carriage.
Then there is the cold. In Prague, the air is softer, damper. Here it is sharp like jagged ice. Just across from the village, fields shine white with frost; it looks like they have arrived in another world. Maybe they have traveled as far as the moon. She holds her arms around herself for warmth and drinks in the scene, greedy eyes, greedy heart.
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