pened them and whispered softly: "And the tea?"
His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished
the doctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse, and to his surprise and
dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he
knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so
a little later with greater suffering. Timokhin, the red-nosed major of
Prince Andrew's regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being
taken along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of
Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his
coachman, and two orderlies.

They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with
feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and
remember something.

"I don't want any more. Is Timokhin here?" he asked.

Timokhin crept along the bench to him.

"I am here, your excellency."

"How's your wound?"

"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?"

Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.

"Couldn't one get a book?" he asked.

"What book?"

"The Gospels. I haven't one."

The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he
was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but
reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was
uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak
with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of
mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful
place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a
change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned
again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking
them to get him the book and put it under him.

"What trouble would it be to you?" he said. "I have not got one. Please
get it for me and put it under for a moment," he pleaded in a piteous
voice.

The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.

"You fellows have no conscience," said he to the valet who was pouring
water over his hands. "For just one moment I didn't look after you...
It's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it."

"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!"
said the valet.

The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the
matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when