The hole, a broken star on the ice, was the only interruption on the white plain merging into the white sky. No wind, no life, no sound.
A pair of hands came out of the water and groped for the edges of the angular hole. It took the searching fingers some time to climb up the thick inner walls of the opening, which resembled the cliffs of a miniature cañon, and find their way to the surface. Having reached over the edge, they hooked into the snow and pulled. A head emerged. The swimmer opened his eyes and looked ahead at the even, horizonless expanse. His long white hair and beard were threaded with straw-tinted strands. Nothing in him revealed agitation. If he was out of breath, the vapor of his exhalations was invisible in the uncolored background.
About a dozen chafed, bearded men in furs and oilskins looked at him from the deck of a schooner caught in the ice a few hundred feet away. One of them yelled something that reached him as an indistinct murmur. Laughs. The swimmer blew off a drop hanging from the tip of his nose. Against the rich, detailed reality of that exhalation (and the snow crunching under his elbows and the water lapping on the edge of the hole), the faint sounds from the boat seemed to be leaking from a dream. Ignoring the muffled cries from the crew and still holding on to the edge, he turned from the ship and faced, once again, the white void. His hands were the only living things he could see.
He pulled himself out of the hole, picked up the hatchet he had used to break the ice, and paused, naked, squinting at the bright, sunless sky. He looked like an old, strong Christ.
After wiping his brow with the back of his hand, he bent over and got his rifle. Only then did his colossal proportions, which the blank vastness had concealed, become apparent. The rifle seemed no larger than a toy carbine in his hand, and although he was holding it by the muzzle, the butt did not touch the ground. With the rifle as a measure, the hatchet over his shoulder revealed itself to be a full-fledged ax. He was as large as he could possibly be while still remaining human.
The naked man stared at the footprints he had left on his way to his ice bath and then followed them back to the ship.