noon
Still , a man ca n't die twice and must die once . If only it would come soon ! ' And he again drew in his head , closed his eyes , and became unconscious , fully convinced that now he was certainly and finally dying . It was not till noon that day that peasants dug Vasili Andreevich and Nikita out of the snow with their shovels , not more than seventy yards from the road and less than half a mile from the village . The snow had hidden the sledge , but the shafts and the kerchief tied to them were still visible . Mukhorty , buried up to his belly in snow , with the breeching and drugget hanging down , stood all white , his dead head pressed against his frozen throat : icicles hung from his nostrils , his eyes were covered with hoar-frost as though filled with tears , and he had grown so thin in that one night that he was nothing but skin and bone . Vasili Andreevich was stiff as a frozen carcass , and when they rolled him off Nikita his legs remained apart and his arms stretched out as they had been .