ABSTRACT
An icy wind shook the stars that night; it was mid-March, but in the northwest the night air was still biting cold. A man approached the village along the hilly path that ran past the tavern; it was Pak Hun. He stumbled along, as if quite drunk. The previous evening, the night school where he had found some satisfaction teaching for the past four months had been shut down by a man from party headquarters. There had been no warning at all. Hun had gone to school at the usual hour, only to find a young man he had never seen before standing at the lectern. It may have been the feeling of emptiness caused by that loss that made him drink so heavily tonight. To the right of the path was a sloping expanse of newly cleared land, to the left a pine forest. In summer the narrow path was almost entirely overrun with mugwort and wild strawberry vines.
