War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [599]
He was the same as always; but the inflamed color of his face, his glittering eyes, rapturously fixed on her, and especially his tender, childlike neck, rising from the turned-down collar of his shirt, gave him a special, innocent, boyish look, which she had never seen in Prince Andrei before. She went up to him, and with a quick, supple, youthful movement dropped to her knees.
He smiled and gave her his hand.
XXXII
For Prince Andrei seven days had gone by since the time he had come to himself in the dressing station on the field of Borodino. For all that time he had been almost continuously unconscious. In the opinion of the doctor, who accompanied the wounded man, his feverish state and the inflammation of his injured intestines were bound to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with pleasure a piece of bread with tea, and the doctor observed that his overall fever had gone down. Prince Andrei regained consciousness in the morning. The first night after they left Moscow had been quite warm, and Prince Andrei had been left to spend the night in the caleche; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself had asked to be taken out and given tea. The pain caused by the transfer to the cottage had made Prince Andrei moan loudly and lose consciousness again. When he had been placed on the camp bed, he lay for a long time with his eyes closed, not moving. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “What about the tea?” This memory of the small details of life struck the doctor. He took his pulse and, to his astonishment and displeasure, noticed that the pulse had improved. The doctor was displeased to notice it, because he was convinced from experience that Prince Andrei could not live and that, if he did not die now, he would die with greater suffering sometime later. Timokhin, the major of his regiment with the little red nose, who had been wounded in the leg at the same battle of Borodino and had joined them in Moscow, was being transported along with Prince Andrei. They were accompanied by the doctor, the prince’s valet, his driver, and two orderlies.
Prince Andrei was given tea. He drank it greedily, looking with feverish eyes at the door straight ahead of him, as if trying to understand and recall something.
“I don’t want any more. Is Timokhin here?” he asked. Timokhin crawled towards him along the bench.
“I’m here, Your Excellency.”
“How’s the wound?”
“Mine, sir? It’s all right. What about you?” Prince Andrei lapsed into thought again, as if trying to recall something.
“Is it possible to get hold of a book?” he said.
“What book?”
“The Gospel! I don’t have it.”
The doctor promised to get hold of it and began to ask the prince about what he felt. Prince Andrei answered all the doctor’s questions reluctantly but reasonably, and then said he would like to be propped on a bolster, because he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and the valet lifted the greatcoat that covered him and, wincing from the strong smell of rotting flesh that spread from the wound, began to examine this dreadful place. The doctor remained very displeased with something, changed something, turning the wounded man over so that he moaned again and, while he was being turned, again fainted from the pain and began to rave. He kept saying that they should quickly get hold of that book for him and put it there under him.
“What will it cost you!” he said. “I don’t have it—get it, please, put it under me for a moment,” he said in a pitiful voice.
The doctor went to the front hall to wash his hands.
“Ah, shame on you, really,” the doctor said to the valet, who was pouring water over his hands.