From that time on, the children merely sat and looked. As far as the eye
could reach in the twilight there was nothing but snow, whose minute
crystals began to scintillate in a strange manner as if they had
absorbed the light of day and were emitting it again now.
Night fell with the rapidity usual in high altitudes. Soon it was dark
all about, only the snow continued to glimmer faintly. Not only had it
stopped snowing but the clouds began to grow thin and to part, for the
children saw the gleam of a star. As the snow really emitted light, as
it were, and the clouds no longer hung down from the sky, they could see
from their cave how the snowy hillocks round about were sharply outlined
against the dark sky. The cave was warmer than it had been at any other
place during the day, and so the children rested, clinging closely to
each other and even forgot to be afraid of the darkness. Soon the stars
multiplied, they gleamed forth now here, now there, until it seemed that
there was not a single cloud left in the whole sky.
This was the moment when people in the valleys are accustomed to light
their candles. At first, only one is kindled, in order to make light in
the room; or, possibly, only a pine-splinter; or the fire is burning in
the hearth, and all windows of human habitations grow bright and shed
lustre into the snowy night; but all the more tonight, Christmas
evening, when many more lights were kindled, in order to shine full upon
the presents for the children which lay upon the tables or hung on the
trees--innumerable candles were lit; for in nearly every house, every
cot, every room, there were children for whom the Christ-child had
brought presents which had to be shown by the light of candles.
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