“Frost” is a delicate portrait of a small town winter party.
The title refers to bitter cold weather the town experiences on the day of the party: “28 degrees of frost.” (Which to an American reader translates, I think, to 4 degrees fahrenheit.)
Some of the towns’ leaders wonder if the festival should be canceled; in the end, they stick to their plans. The leaders have the benefit of a pavilion where they are protected from the worst of the cold; the regular folk, however, must brave the elements. Toward the end of the day, a policeman, almost dead with cold, enters the pavilion to bring a report to the town elders. His appearance arouses their sympathy and he is given a warming drink. Not only that, the band is sent home to warm up, and granted a measure of vodka.
I really loved this story; though it is simple, it speaks to the complicated reality of small town life, of privilege and privation, of pleasure and pain. The decision to stick with the plan to hold the party, even despite the cold, seems like an act of hubris on the part of the town’s elders. But then, for all the bitter cold, the townspeople enjoy themselves, ice skating and listening to music and carousing in the cold. So the decision to hold the party turns out not to be merely an act of vanity. And as town’s elders talk, we learn that while they may be comfortable at this moment, they have suffered. They have survived harsh times.
The act of simple charity at the end of the story is unusually kind. A young policeman enters the pavilion, his nose bright red, his face covered in frost. Something about his stiff, frozen appearance leads the elders to wonder what other suffering he has felt in his life. They urge a drink on him and watch in silence as he tries to drink it respectfully. And in that moment, “they all fancied that the pain was leaving the young policeman’s heart and that his soul was thawing.”
How beautiful!
This tale struck me as Joycean; it would feel right at home alongside the stories in “Dubliners.” There is a kind of Irish talkiness, and a sense of busy activity, to “Frost,” like the best stories in “Dubliners.” It’s a wonderful story, and wonderfully short–a whole world conjured up in just a few pages.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
Another really beautiful and subtle portrait of village life is the story “Choristers.” In both that story and “Frost,” a performance of sorts is planned, and in both cases there is an aspect of coercion: The little people must perform for the pleasure of richer, more powerful people. But the dynamics of power and resentment are just threads in very rich tapestries.
A Chekhov Circus 