(From here until the Epilogue, the story is told in the third person, but limited to Ethan's perspective.)
There is deep snow on the ground, and the sky is full of stars, and the lights seeping from the windows of the church basement are yellow.
"Young Ethan Frome" is rapidly clicking along the street toward it.
There is no breeze, and the cold air is hardly seems cold, as if there was no atmosphere.
Ethan thinks, "It's like being in an exhausted receiver" (1.3).
("Exhausted receiver" is a term in physics used to describe something that once received air, but such air has been let out (or exhausted), creating a vacuum. Think of a bicycle pump.)
Several years earlier Ethan had studied physics in college for about a year, and remembered things about it now and again.…show more content… Ethan arrives at the church and looks around.
He sees Corbury Road.
Kids love to sled down the hill nearby, though on this night there is no sledding, probably because all the youngsters are in the church basement at the dance.
Now Ethan is peeping in the window of the church basement.
The scene looks hot, especially in contrast to the still cold of the night.
The dance is over. The music has stopped, and the attendees begin leaving.
But wait….
A dark haired man hops and skips onto the dance floor, and claps his hands.
The music begins anew.
The man takes the hand of pretty, young lass.
She and the man begin to dance while the band plays a "Virginia
