should we not?"

"Yes, especially with more rapidity, but you would have suffered much
from the frost and snow."

"What matter! Winter is the friend of Russia."

"Yes, Nadia, but what a constitution anyone must have to endure
such friendship! I have often seen the temperature in the Siberian
steppes fall to more than forty degrees below freezing point!
I have felt, notwithstanding my reindeer coat, my heart
growing chill, my limbs stiffening, my feet freezing in triple
woolen socks; I have seen my sleigh horses covered with a
coating of ice, their breath congealed at their nostrils.
I have seen the brandy in my flask change into hard stone,
on which not even my knife could make an impression.
But my sleigh flew like the wind. Not an obstacle on the plain,
white and level farther than the eye could reach! No rivers
to stop one! Hard ice everywhere, the route open, the road sure!
But at the price of what suffering, Nadia, those alone could say,
who have never returned, but whose bodies have been covered up
by the snow storm."

"However, you have returned, brother," said Nadia.

"Yes, but I am a Siberian, and, when quite a child, I used to follow
my father to the chase, and so became inured to these hardships.
But when you said to me, Nadia, that winter would not have stopped you,
that you would have gone alone, ready to struggle against the frightful
Siberian climate, I seemed to see you lost in the snow and falling,