“Well, you may have three hours. Go,” Death replied.

So the soldier went away home, lay down on his bed, and became very ill.

And when Death was standing very near him, she said, “Now, discharged soldier, say goodbye quickly⁠—you have only three minutes left to live in the bright world.”

So the soldier stretched himself out, took his nosebag from under his head, opened it, and asked: “What is this?”

Death answered: “A nosebag.”

“Well, if it is a nosebag, then jump into it!”

And Death instantly jumped straight into the bag. And the soldier, ill as he was, jumped up from his bed, buckled the nosebag together firmly, very tightly, threw it on his shoulder, and went into the Bryánski Woods, the slumbrous forest. And he went there, and he hung this bag on the bitter aspen, on the very top twig, and he went back home.