BOOK TEN: 1812
37. CHAPTER XXXVII
(continued)
"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his
swarthy snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white
teeth, he began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing,
ringing, and prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many
people were crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his
head thrown back. His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head
seemed strangely familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were
pressing on his chest to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg
twitched rapidly all the time with a feverish tremor. The man was
sobbing and choking convulsively. Two doctors- one of whom was pale
and trembling- were silently doing something to this man's other, gory
leg. When he had finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an
overcoat, the spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his
hands.
He glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away.
"Undress him! What are you waiting for?" he cried angrily to the
dressers.
His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to
Prince Andrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began
hastily to undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The
doctor bent down over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he
made a sign to someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused
Prince Andrew to lose consciousness. When he came to himself the
splintered portions of his thighbone had been extracted, the torn
flesh cut away, and the wound bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on
his face. As soon as Prince Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent
over, kissed him silently on the lips, and hurried away.
After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a
blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All
the best and happiest moments of his life- especially his earliest
childhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when
leaning over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his
head in the pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life-
returned to his memory, not merely as something past but as
something present.
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