Silence is simply the absence of sound, as darkness is the absence of light, and so it follows that nothing can really be quieter than quiet. But anyone who’s been walking on a snowy afternoon will agree that something more seems to be going on when snow drapes its muffling blanket over the landscape. Somehow the snow absorbs the background sounds of life that we’d never have noticed on a village street if they weren’t missing. The hush becomes a presence in its own right, uncanny, dreamlike.