not easily forget.

Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov knew him
too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart
he feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was
evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices
from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered to
hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before
the staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat
office. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with two Cossack
regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as was his wont, rode
out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by
a French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at
another time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a
wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing
at the staff and went into hospital.

CHAPTER XVII

In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pavlograds did
not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostov, who
felt his friend's absence very much, having no news of him since he
left and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his
affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov
in hospital.

The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated
by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so
beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly
dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets,
tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.

The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and
panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence
that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale
swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the
yard.

Directly Rostov entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of
putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army
doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.

"I can't tear myself to pieces," the doctor was saying. "Come to Makar
Alexeevich in the evening. I shall be there."

The assistant asked some further questions.

"Oh, do the best you can! Isn't it all the same?" The doctor noticed
Rostov coming upst