"They hit the rail from outside, and if people had not been waiting for this signal, they would not have heard it: it was so quiet and devoid of any halftones, as if, while making their way along a narrow roadway, they had skinned their sides on sharp protrusions and icicles, hoarseness from the cold of the permafrost, or there, outside, they were hitting not ringing iron, but bone on bone. And yet the sound of the signal about the end of the work reached the ears of people, people straightened up, let go of the shovel and pick from their hands - without finishing, without finishing, without removing the shovels from the rock dumps, as if their hands immediately weakened and lost the ability to work, straightening up and freeing themselves from unnecessary things, people reached out to the exit from the face...”