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, never to rise again." "How many times have you crossed the steppe in winter ?" asked the young Livonian.
"Three times, Nadia, when I was going to Omsk." "And what were you going to do at Omsk ?" "See my mother, who was expecting me." "And I am going to Irkutsk, where my father expects me.

I am taking him my mother's last words.