“I entreat you!” I said.  “You mustn’t be afraid!  You know it’s poor-spirited, it’s cowardly!”

Nadenka gave way at last, and from her face I saw that she gave way in mortal dread.  I sat her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put my arm round her and with her cast myself down the precipice.

The sledge flew like a bullet.  The air cleft by our flight beat in our faces, roared, whistled in our ears, tore at us, nipped us cruelly in its anger, tried to tear our heads off our shoulders.  We had hardly strength to breathe from the pressure of the wind.  It seemed as though the devil himself had caught us in his claws and was dragging us with a roar to hell.  Surrounding objects melted into one long furiously racing streak . . . another moment and it seemed we should perish.

“I love you, Nadya!” I said in a low voice.

The sledge began moving more and more slowly, the roar of the wind and the whirr of the runners was no longer so terrible, it was easier to breathe, and at last we were at the bottom.  Nadenka was more dead than alive.  She was pale and scarcely breathing. . . .  I helped her to get up.

“Nothing would induce me to go again,” she said, looking at me with wide eyes full of horror.  “Nothing in the world!  I almost died!”

A little later she recovered herself and looked enquiringly into my eyes, wondering had I really uttered those four words or had she fancied them in the roar of the hurricane.  And I stood beside her smoking and looking attentively at my glove.

She took my arm and we spent a long while walking near the ice-hill.  The riddle evidently would not let her rest. . . .  Had those words been uttered or not? . . .  Yes or no?  Yes or no?  It was the question of pride, or honour, of life—­a very important question, the most important question in the world.  Nadenka kept impatiently, sorrowfully looking into my face with a penetrating glance; she answered at random, waiting to see whether I would not speak.  Oh, the play of feeling on that sweet face!  I saw that she was struggling with herself, that she wanted to say something, to ask some question, but she could not find the words; she felt awkward and frightened and troubled by her joy. . . .

“Do you know what,” she said without looking at me.

“Well?” I asked.

“Let us . . . slide down again.”

We clambered up the ice-hill by the steps again.  I sat Nadenka, pale and trembling, in the sledge; again we flew into the terrible abyss, again the wind roared and the runners whirred, and again when the flight of our sledge was at its swiftest and noisiest, I said in a low voice: 

“I love you, Nadenka!”

When the sledge stopped, Nadenka flung a glance at the hill down which we had both slid, then bent a long look upon my face, listened to my voice which was unconcerned and passionless, and the whole of her little figure, every bit of it, even her muff and her hood expressed the utmost bewilderment, and on her face was written:  “What does it mean?  Who uttered those words?  Did he, or did I only fancy it?”