In the two stories, “The Cold,” and “Master and Man,” reactions to extreme cold are either as firm and unyielding as ice itself or as heartwarming as a cup of hot cocoa after sledding, with the aftereffects of the cold still tingling in one’s limbs. The narrator in “The Cold” blurs the line between extreme cold and extreme heat as he describes the sensation, “I thought I felt someone burning my right cheek with flame” (Korolenko, 1). But internally, a similar leap from extreme cold to extreme warmth occurs. Even the dog, bowing to the need of another animal to escape the dangers of the cold, “simply clenched his tail and ran thoughtfully off, seemingly bewildered by his own benevolence” (Korolenko, 5). Sokolskii and his traveling companion in the story also feel this melting of the heart in the face of bitter cold in the desperation to save first the ducks and then the man. His companion despairs at the other’s apparent indifference, “Our conscious had frozen!… Of course, that’s how it always is: all you have to do is lower the body’s temperature by two degrees and conscience freezes up…it’s a law of nature” (Korolenko, 16). When faced with the delights of the warm sleeping quarters, the men harden themselves against the coldness of letting another live slip by into the ultimate cold of death.

In “Master and Man,” Vasily Andreyevich is hardened to the plight of others by his greed, which explains his treatment (and underpayment) of Nikita. Yet in the face of the cold, his heart burns first with fear, “They say people who drink are soon frozen…he began to shiver, not knowing whether from cold or fear” (Tolstoy, 519). The same kindness that the narrator of “The Cold” highlights in the mother deer saving her baby deer is mirrored by Vasily’s selflessness of using himself as a human blanket, “he could not bring himself to leave Nikita for even a moment and so disturb that happy situation in which he felt himself; for he had no fear now” (Tolstoy, 526). Rather than the icy indifference which causes Vasily to abandon Nikita initially, the sight of another human freezing to death melts Vasily’s heart to put the health of another human being above his own.

Yet both Vasily and Ignatowicz die for their kindhearted actions. Both stories ask the question, “Was this individual’s sacrifice worth it?” After all, Ignatowicz did not even manage to save the other man. Would it be better to harden our hearts to match the environment and so survive individually? Combine heat and resources with one another, reminiscent of the communal sharing in A Dream in Polar Fog? Or sacrifice one’s self for the slim hope that someone else can live and warm oneself with the strength of conviction alone?