He didn’t even feel the cold of the snow as he crunched his way up the hill. His brown quilted jacket was warm, and the smell of the fir trees was wonderful. He passed through a side gate, across the small courtyard where some of the monks were sparring, and went into the kitchen. He poured the water into a large kettle suspended over a fire. Then he returned the buckets to the pantry, bowed to the head cook, and walked back through the courtyard.
He stepped outside and climbed the few steps up to a pagoda set on a small knoll. There were many such vistas in the Tiger Taming Monastery, but this was his favorite. The Himalayan peaks rose in the distance above a broad plain. To his left a rocky crag climbed toward the sunset. To his right a waterfall cascaded between groves of giant cedars.
He sat on a bench in the pagoda and watched the sun set. At first it was a fiery red ball above the Himalayas. Soon it fell behind the snowy peaks, leaving the sky a diaphanous sheet of scarlet, then rose, then orange.
He left before darkness fell, padding back through the snow into a long wooden building. He inhaled the incense smoldering by a statue of Buddha, then climbed the staircase and went into his cell, a ten-by-ten cubicle that smelled of pine, and sat down on his kang. He lit his kerosene lamp, took Roderick Random from under his sleeping mat, and started to read.