The winter .  
The snow lay in deep layers, blue by day and night, lilac in the brief of sunrise and sunset. The pale, powerless sun seemed far away and strange during the three short hours that it showed over the horizon. The rest of the time it was night. The northern lights flashed like quivering arrows across the sky, in their and awful . The frost lay like a veil over the earth, all in a dazzling whiteness in which was every shade of colour under the sun. , purples, softest yellows, tenderest greens, and and pinks flashed and quivered fiercely under the morning rays, in the . Over all hung the of the trackless desert, the stillness that death!
 
Marina's eyes had changed—they were no longer dark, , full of ; they were wonderfully bright and clear. Her had widened, her body had increased, adding a new grace to her . She seldom went out, sitting for the most part in her room, which resembled a forest-chapel where men prayed to the gods. In the daytime she did her simple houskeeping—chopped wood, heated the stove, cooked meat and fish, helped Demid to skin the beasts he had , and to weed their plot of land. During the long evenings she and wove clothes for the coming babe. As she sewed she thought of the child, and sung and smiled softly.
 
An overwhelming joy Marina when she thought of her approaching motherhood. Her heart beat faster and her happiness increased. Her own possible sufferings held no place in her thoughts.
 
In the lilac glow of dawn, when a round moon, solemn and immense, glowed in the south-western sky, Demid took his rifle and Finnish knife, and went on his sl............