“He must have died! May the Kingdom of Heaven be his!” thought Nikíta.

He turned his head, dug with his hand through the snow about him and opened his eyes. It was daylight; the wind was whistling as before between the shafts, and the snow was falling in the same way, except that it was no longer driving against the frame of the sledge but silently covered both sledge and horse deeper and deeper, and neither the horse’s movements nor his breathing were any longer to be heard.

“He must have frozen too,” thought Nikíta of Mukhórty, and indeed those hoof knocks against the sledge, which had awakened Nikíta, were the last efforts the already numbed Mukhórty had made to keep on his feet before dying.

“O Lord God, it seems Thou art calling me too!” said Nikíta. “Thy Holy Will be done. But it’s uncanny.⁠ ⁠… Still, a man can’t die twice and must die once. If only it would come soon!”