In which Levin ventures to the bustling, frost-freshened Zoological Gardens, where the skaters and the shining birches form a backdrop to a tender and trembling encounter with Kitty, whose presence transforms the winter scene into a place of radiant hope and quiet inner turmoil. As they skate together, the delicate interplay of smiles, glances, and restrained words reveals the slender threads of affection and uncertainty that bind them, setting a gentle tone of expectation and fragile intimacy.