Yes, the description of the weather at the beginning of the
fourth section of this great short story is rather curious. Yet, if we read it in the context of
the rest of this section, we can draw some parallels between Gurov's situation and the weather.
The key description to focus on is the way that the temperature is drastically different
depending on where you are in the atmosphere:
"You see it is only above freezing close to the ground,
the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere is quite
different."
This presents the theme or
concept of duality. Just as on the ground, the temperature can be freezing, yet higher in the
atmosphere it can be a lot warmer, so Gurov himself leads a life that is characterised by two
different realities. His public life is the frozen, snowcovered city in which he walks with his
daughter--marked by marriage to a woman that he does not love and the superficiality of
relationships. However, his private life can be compared to the warmth that is not visible but
hidden above the snow-covered scene below:
He led a double life--one in public, in the sight of all
whom it concerned, full of conventional truth and conventional deception, exactly like the lives
of his friends and acquaintances, and another which flowed in secret. And, owing to some strange,
possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting,
essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that
composed the kernel of his life, went on in
secret...
Thus this quote shows that
the warmer, higher levels of the atmosphere that are hidden from sight find their parallel in the
meaningfulness of Gurov's hidden life and relationship. The snow and frozen landscape of what is
seen by everybody is paralleled by the sterility, cold and emotionally withdrawn nature of his
public life.
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