Chapter 37 Chapter Thirty-Seven

A doctor came out of the tent, wearing a blood-stained apron, his two small hands were also stained with blood, and a cigar was held between the little finger and thumb of one hand (for fear of staining the cigar) .He raised his head and looked around, past the wounded man.Obviously wanting to take a break, he turned his head left and right for a moment, sighed, and lowered his eyelids. "Come here," he answered the assistant, who pointed him to Prince Andrey, who ordered him to be carried into the tent. The wounded waiting for treatment began to discuss. "It seems that in that world, only noble lords are better off." said a wounded man.

Prince Andrey was brought in and placed on a table which had just been vacated and which the assistant was washing.Prince Andrew could not see clearly what was in the tent.He was distracted by groans of pain all around him and the sharp pain in his thighs, stomach and back.What he saw around him merged into one general impression—that the low tent seemed to be filled with naked, bloodied bodies, as it had been a few weeks before, on that hot August day, in A dirty pool filled with human flesh on the Smolensk boulevard.Yes, it was those bodies, those chairacanons, which at the time seemed to prefigure all that was before him, and the sight terrified him.

-------- ① French: Cannon fodder. There are three tables in the tent.Two tables were already occupied, and Prince Andrew was placed on the third table.For a while, no one cared about him, and he unconsciously saw the situation on the other two tables.On the nearest dais sat a Tatar, probably a Cossack, judging by the uniform thrown aside.Four soldiers supported him.A doctor in glasses was cutting something off his muscular sorrel back. "Ouch, ouch, ouch!..." the Tatar yelled like a pig, and suddenly raised his swarthy face with high cheekbones, upturned nose, and bared his white teeth, and began to struggle and wriggle, making piercing long noises. scream.On another platform surrounded by many people, there was a big fat man lying on his back with his head thrown back (Prince Andrei felt very familiar with his curly hair, hair color and head shape). Several medical assistants held him down. The man's chest, don't let him move.A thick snow-white leg was shaking rapidly and non-stop, as if suffering from malaria.The man was sobbing and choking.Two doctors—one of them pale and trembling—were silently working on the man's other, reddened leg.The doctor in spectacles finished the Tatar operation, covered him with his military overcoat, wiped his hands, and went up to Prince Andrew.

He glanced at Prince Andrew's face, and turned away hastily. "Take off his clothes, why stand there?" He said angrily to the medical assistants. When a medical assistant rolled up his sleeves and was busy unbuttoning and undressing Prince Andrey, Prince Andrey recalled his earliest and most distant childhood.The doctor bent down low to examine the injury, touched it, and sighed deeply.Then he gestured to someone else.Prince Andrei lost consciousness from the severe pain in his abdomen.When he awoke, the broken bone in his thigh had been removed, a piece of flesh from the blast had been removed, and the wound had been bandaged.Someone sprinkled water on his face.As soon as Prince Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor leaned over him, kissed him silently on the lips, and hurried away again.

Prince Andrey had not felt supremely happy for a long time since the pain he had endured.The best and happiest time of his life, especially the remotest childhood, when someone undressed him, put him in the crib, and the nurse sang lullabies to lull him to sleep, when he buried his head in the pillow Here, he has only one feeling about life, and that is that he feels very happy. ——In a trance, such a time is not even the past, but reality. The doctors hurriedly worked together around the wounded man whose head looked familiar to Prince Andrew, helped him to his feet, and comforted him. "Show me... oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" came his panicked, painful moan, interrupted by sobs at the time.Hearing this groan, Prince Andrew was on the verge of weeping.I don’t know if it’s because of his silent death; or because of his reluctance to leave this world; because of the childhood memories that are gone forever; because he is suffering, and others are suffering (that person groaned so miserably in front of him)— —for whatever reason he wanted to cry, childlike, kind, almost joyful tears.

The wounded man was shown his amputated, bloody, booted leg. "Oh! Oooohoo!" he cried like a woman.The doctor, who had stood beside the wounded man, shielding his face, walked away. "My God! What is the matter? Why is he here?" said Prince Andrew to himself. He recognized the wretched, weeping, limp, newly amputated man as Anatoly Kuragin.People helped him up and offered him a glass of water, but his quivering, swollen lips couldn't reach the edge of the glass.Anatoly wept bitterly. "Yes, this is him; yes, this man is somehow and painfully bound up with me," thought Prince Andrew, before he could comprehend what was going on before him. "What has this man to do with my childhood, with my life?" he asked himself, but got no answer.Suddenly, in Prince Andrew's imagination, another new and unexpected memory emerged from the innocent and lovely world of childhood.He remembered seeing Natasha for the first time at the ball in 1810, her slender neck and arms, her face, which was always in a state of excitement, surprised and delighted, and in the depths of his heart he saw Natasha. Her attachment and tenderness came to life, more vivid and more intense than ever.He remembered now his relationship with the man who looked at him dimly through tearful, swollen eyes.Prince Andrew remembered everything, and his happy heart was filled with intense pity and devotion for the man.

Prince Andrei could no longer hold back his tender, affectionate tears, and he wept, for others, for himself, and for their misunderstanding of himself and them. "Compassion and love for brothers, for those who love others, love for those who hate us, love for our enemies - yes, this is what God spreads among men, Princess Mary taught me and I used to A love that I don't understand; that's why I hate to die, that's all I have left, if I'm alive. But it's too late now. I know it!"