Students are to use their reasoning skills and imagination to predict the story's outcome.
The students begin reading the story making pauses at designated spots. Every night Ivan stopped in at the saloon which was on the edge of the village cemetery. Ivan never crossed the cemetery to get to his lonely shack on the other side. Late on winter's night, when bitter wind and snow beat against the saloon, the customers took up the familiar mockery. Ivan's sickly protest only fed their taunts, and they jeered cruelly when the young Cossack Lieutenant flung his horrid challenge at him.