Page 747 - war-and-peace

Chapter XVIII

Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostov to
the officers’ wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of
which stood open. There were beds in these rooms and the
sick and wounded officers were lying or sitting on them.
Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing
gowns. The first person Rostov met in the officers’ ward was
a thin little man with one arm, who was walking about the
first room in a nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a
pipe between his teeth. Rostov looked at him, trying to re-
member where he had seen him before.
‘See where we’ve met again!’ said the little man. ‘Tushin,
Tushin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon
Grabern? And I’ve had a bit cut off, you see...’ he went on
with a smile, pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing
gown. ‘Looking for Vasili Dmitrich Denisov? My neighbor,’
he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted. ‘Here, here,’
and Tushin led him into the next room, from whence came
sounds of several laughing voices.
‘How can they laugh, or even live at all here?’ thought
Rostov, still aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that
had been so strong in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming
to see fixed on him those envious looks which had followed
him out from both sides, and the face of that young soldier
with eyes rolled back.

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