The first fall of snow is not only an event but it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up to find yourself in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, then where is it to be found?
The very stealth, the eerie quietness, of the thing makes it more magical. Ifall the snow fell at once in one shattering crash, awakening us in the middle of the night the event would be robbed of its wonder. But it flutters down, soundless, hour after hour while we are asleep. Outside the closed curtains of the bedroom a vast transfbrmation scene is takiag place, just as if a myriad elves and brownies were at work, and we turn and yawn and stretch and know nothing about it. And then, what an extraordinary change it is! It is as if the house continent. Even the inside, which has not been touched, seems different, every room appearing smaller and cosier, just as if some power were trying to turn it into a woodcutter’s hut or a snug logcabin. Outside, where the garden was yesterday, there is now a white and glistening level, and the village beyond is no longer your own familiar cluster of roofs but a village in an old German fairy-tale.
You would not be surprised to learn that all the people there, the speetacled postmistress, the cobbler, the retired school master, and the rest, had suffered a change too and had become queer elvish beings, purveyors of invisible caps and magic shoes. You yourselves do not feel quite the same people you were yesterday. How could you not when so much has been changed? There is a curious stir, a little shiver of excite-ment, troubling the house, not unlike the feeling there is abroad when a journey has to be made. The children, of course, are all excitement but even the adults hang about and talk to one another longer than usual before setting down to the day’s work. Nobody can resist the windows. It is like being on board a ship.
第一场雪不仅是一件大事，而且它是一个神奇的事件。你上床睡觉时是一个世界，醒来时发现你在一个完全不同的世界，如果这不是魔法，那么它在哪里可以找到？
很隐形的，怪异的平静，让它有更神奇的事。如果所有的雪在一瞬间崩溃，觉醒在半夜的事件将被有抢劫的奇迹。但它飘下来，无声的，在我们熟睡时。卧室外的一个巨大震动现场封闭窗帘地方，就好像有无数小精灵仙童在工作，我们打呵欠，伸展，什么都不知道。然后，它是一个多么巨大的变化！这是因为如果在大陆的房子里。甚至在里面，并没有被感动，似乎有所不同，每个房间显得更小更舒适了，就像一些力量试图把它变成一个樵夫的小屋或一个舒适的木屋。外面，昨天的花园，现在有一个闪亮的，远处的村庄不再是你自己熟悉的屋顶，而像在一个古老的德国童话村。
你会不会感到惊讶，那里所有的人，邮局局长，鞋匠，退休的校长，和休息，也经历了一场变化，变得古怪精灵般的人物，提供隐身帽和魔术鞋。你自己也觉得不是同样的人，你是昨天。你怎么能不做这么多改变了吗？有一个奇怪的骚动，一点颤抖的激动顺序，令人不安的房子，没有不同的感觉在外出旅行时要做。当然，孩子，是非常兴奋，甚至成年人在跟另一位比平时更长的时间之前，开始一天的工作。无人能抗拒窗子。这像是在船上。
