“The earth at the doctor’s feet, inside the trench and in the ruts of the forest road, was hard with ground frost and heaped with small dry willow leaves, curled up in little scrolls. The autumn smelled of these brown, bitter leaves and of many other things. Greedily he breathed in the mixed peppery smell of frostbitten apples, bitter dry twigs, sweetish damp earth, and the blue September mist that smoked like the fumes of a recently extinguished fire.”
