You will be relieved to learn that the scaffolding we told you about is finally coming down; but to reveal what, exactly? A new apartment palace, a refurbished monument to gilded living? Well, perhaps for some, but as we watch the men arrive in their trucks to disassemble the steel beams and wooden planks, we are not as pleased as you might have expected. We remember a November evening many years ago, when we took cover from the rain under a similar structure (albeit far away from this one) and considered the trajectory of our life. How it seemed that this miserable month would never end! Sickness, frustration and — most of all — tedium and indifference! 

December, it seems, is better: true, the streets will be even darker, the air that much colder on our face, but we nevertheless feel less restless walking the night. Nothing’s changed, of course, but everything that just days earlier poured down over us with such misery has been swept up into a low, frozen sky, where it will now be released as snow — beautiful snow! — from which we will never want or need shelter.