I lifted a corner of the canvas and recognised the stiff features of Gibarian. His glossy black hair clung tightly to his skull. The sinews of his throat stood out like bones. His glazed eyes stared up at the vault, a tear of opaque ice hanging from the corner of each lid. The cold was so intense that I had to clench my teeth to prevent them from chattering. I touched Gibarian’s cheek; it was like touching a block of petrified wood, bristling with black prickly hairs. The curve of the lips seemed to express an infinite, disdainful patience.
As I let the canvas fall, I noticed, peeping out from beneath the folds at the foot, five round, shiny objects, like black pearls, ranged in order of size. I stiffened with horror.
What I had seen were the round pads of five bare toes. Under the shroud, flattened against Gibarian’s body, lay the Negress. Slowly, I pulled back the canvas. Her head, covered in frizzy hair twisted up into little tufts, was resting in the hollow of one massive arm. Her back glistened, the skin stretched taut over the spinal column. The huge body gave no sign of life. I looked again at the soles of her naked feet; they had not been flattened or deformed in any way by the weight which they had had to carry. Walking had not calloused the skin, which was as unblemished as that of her shoulders.
With a far greater effort than it had taken to touch Gibarian’s corpse, I forced myself to touch one of the bare feet. Then I made a second bewildering discovery: this body, abandoned in a deep freeze, this apparent corpse, lived and moved. The woman had withdrawn her foot, like a sleeping dog when you try to take its paw.
It's a shame that the film version was so lame. 
