"Stop," I cried, "let the young gentleman get out; here we are! This is the town of Zaszyversk...." 'The man did not understand at once, he opened his eyes wide and thought it was a joke, or that I had lost my reason. I had to explain the situation to him.... At last he understood.' The ex-Ispravnik laughed dryly. 'Will you believe me or not?' he continued. 'Look here, I swear by the cross'--he crossed himself spaciously, bowing to the images of the saints--that fellow's eyes became glassy... his jaws chattered as in a fever. It was a business! 'And I, a tough old official, I put my hands to my forehead. You should have seen how the gentleman's pride disappeared in a moment; he became soft as wax and so humble... pliable as silk he was! '"I adjure you by the wounds of Christ," he cried, stretching out his hands to me, "let the love of God come into your heart! I have not been condemned to death, there is nothing very serious against me, I have been too overbearing, that is all." '"Oh," I said, "well, you see, pride is a great sin." 'And whether you will believe me or won't'--he crossed himself again--' the man wept like a child when I told him I would take him to the nearest Yakut yurta, at a distance of thirty versts from the town of Zaszyversk, and I swear to you for the third time it was with joy that he wept... although he was not much better off in that yurta....' It is easy to imagine how eagerly we received the news of the arrival of a man who had actually been living somewhere at the end of the world under conditions which had completely isolated him for three whole years; yet it was said that he was returning into this world sound in body and mind. We inhabitants of our own special town were not living in the most enviable of circumstances either, but we all knew that they were infinitely happier than they might have been. A passionate desire seized us to look upon that life out there in its unveiled nakedness, its horrible cruelty. This curiosity meant more than narrow selfishness; it had a special reason. The fact that a human being had been able to survive in that far-distant world, bore witness to the strength and resistance of the human spirit; the iron will and energy of the one doubled and steeled the strength of all the others. What we had heard so far of those who were battling with their fate at the end of the world had not been too comforting. Therefore the question whether and how one could live and suffer there, was a vital one for us.