In this story, Nick and John come off the mountain and return to “normal” society, collecting their mail and becoming interested in the affairs of others again. Because the weather was becoming warmer, they had no choice but to end their skiing expedition and were therefore compelled to reenter the world of human interaction. That world is filled with death, tragedy, and what appears to be gross insensitivity. The peasant’s use of his dead wife’s corpse to hold his lantern seems inhuman to the inn-keeper and the priest, but the cleric’s anger and the inn-keeper’s pronouncement that all peasants are beasts are also insensitive. Moreover, simply by virtue of continuing their holiday and sitting down to a hot meal, Nick and John demonstrate that they too are “beasts,” for they have witnessed tragedy (albeit at second hand) and yet remained completely untouched by it.