Sometimes he plunged up to the waist or
neck in the drifts, and expected at the next step to be buried alive.
One night, having tasted to the full those two tortures, cold and
hunger--of which, as he says, we complain so frequently without
knowing what they mean--he ventured to ask for shelter at a little hut
near a hamlet where there were only two women. They gave him warm
food: he dried his drenched clothes, and stretched himself out to
sleep on the bench near the kitchen stove. He was roused by voices,
then shaken roughly and asked for his passport: there were three men
in the room. With amazing presence of mind he demanded by what right
they asked for his passport: were any of them officials? No, but they
insisted on knowing who he was and where he was going, and seeing his
pass. He told them the same story that he had told the women, and
finally exhibited the local pass, which was now quite worthless, and
would not have deceived a government functionary for a moment: they
were satisfied with the sight of the stamp. They excused themselves,
saying that the women had taken fright and given the alarm, thinking
that, as sometimes happened, they were housing an escaped convict.
This adventure taught him a severe lesson of prudence. He often passed
fifteen or twenty nights under the snow in the forest, without seeking
food or shelter, hearing the wolves howl at a distance.
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