Over six inches of snow and construction, convoys, maneuvers, transport, communications, target practice—all the daily grindings and gnashings of machinery stopped as though bewitched: the roof garrison became a horde stupefied by hibernation, little groups burrowing into the warm holes of their stoves and igloos. The orders slept, unopened, on the captain’s desk.

Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, loc. 205