'That man,--he was a good sort,' one of those present said to me, noticing the impression which the sight of Bałdyga made on me. 'He was always steady and industrious; people who were hard up used to go to him and he would help them. But there never was anyone so obstinate as Kurp: he believed to the last that he would go back to the Narev.[11] Yet before the end came it was plain that he knew he would never get there.' Meanwhile the petrified body had been laid in the coffin, and placed upon the small one-horse Yakut sledge. Then the tailor's wife--a person versed in religious practices,--undertook the office of priest for such time as we could give her, and began to sing 'Ave Maria,' while we joined in with voices broken with emotion. After this we proceeded to the cemetery. We walked quickly; the frost was invigorating, and made us hasten our steps. At last we reached the cemetery. We each threw a handful of frozen earth on to the coffin.... A few deft strokes of the spade ... and in a moment only a small freshly turned mound of earth remained to bear witness to Bałdyga's yet recent existence in this world. This witness would not last long, however,--scarcely a few months. The spring would come, and, thawed by the sun, the mound on the grave would sink and become even with the rest of the ground, and grass and weeds would grow upon it. After a year or two the witnesses of the funeral would die, or be dispersed throughout the wide world, and if even the mother who bore him were to search for him, she would no longer find a trace on the earth. But, indeed, none would seek for the dead man, nor even a dog ask for him. Bałdyga had known this; we knew it too: and we dispersed to our houses in silence. The day following the funeral the frost was yet more severe. There was not a single building to be seen on the opposite side of the fairly narrow street in which I lived, for a thick mist of snow crystals overspread the earth, like a cloud. The sun could not penetrate this mist, and although there was not a living soul in the street, the air was so highly condensed through the extreme cold that I continually heard the metallic sound of creaking snow, the sharp reports of the walls and ground cracking in the frost, or the moaning song of a Yakut. Evidently those Yakut frosts were beginning, which reduce the most terrible Arctic cold to insignificance. They fill human beings with unspeakable dread. Every living thing feels its utter helplessness, and although it cowers down and shrinks into itself for protection, knows quite well--like the cur worried by fierce mastiffs,--that all is in vain, for sooner or later the inexorable foe is bound to be victorious.