Prince Galtsin all at once became frightfully ashamed of his unjust suspicions. He felt that he was growing crimson, and turned away, without questioning the wounded men further, and, without looking after them, he went to the place where the injured men were being cared for.
Having forced his way with difficulty to the porch, through the wounded men who had come on foot, and the stretcher-bearers, who were entering with the wounded and emerging with the dead, Galtsin entered the first room, glanced round, and involuntarily turned back, and immediately ran into the street. It was too terrible.
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VIII.
The vast, dark, lofty hall, lighted only by the four or five candles, which the doctors were carrying about to inspect the wounded, was literally full. The stretcher-bearers brought in the wounded, ranged them one beside another on the floor, which was already so crowded that the unfortunate wretches hustled each other and sprinkled each other with their blood, and then went forth for more. The pools of blood which were visible on the unoccupied places, the hot breaths of several hundred men, and the steam which rose from those who were toiling with the stretchers produced a peculiar, thick, heavy, offensive atmosphere, in which the candles burned dimly in the different parts of the room. The dull murmur of diverse groans, sighs, deathrattles, broken now and again by a shriek, was borne throughout the apartment. Sisters of charity, with tranquil faces, and with an expression not of empty, feminine, tearfully sickly compassion, but of active, practical sympathy, flitted hither and thither among the blood-stained cloaks and shirts, stepping over the wounded, with medicine, water, bandages, lint.
Doctors, with their sleeves rolled up, knelt beside the wounded, beside whom the assistant surgeons held the candles, inspecting, feeling, and probing the wounds, in spite of the terrible groans and entreaties of the sufferers. One of the doctors was seated at a small table by the door, and, at the moment when Galtsin entered the room, he was just writing down '* No. 532."
"Ivan Bogaeff, common soldier, third company of the S regiment, fractura femoris complicaiaT' called another from the extremity of the hall, as he felt of the crushed leg...." Turn him over."
" 0-oi, my fathers, good fathers! " shrieked the soldier, beseeching them not to touch him.
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" Semyon Neferdoff, lieutenant-colonel of the
N regiment of infantry. Have a little patience,
colonel: you can only be attended to this way; I will let you alone," said a third, picking away jj at the head of the unfortunate colonel, with some sort of a hook.
" Ai! stop! Oi! for God's sake, quick, quick, for the sake a-a-a-a!..."
" Pei'foratio pectoris... Sevastyan Sereda, common soldier... of what regiment? however, you need not write that: moriUir. Carry him away," said the doctor, abandoning the soldier, who was rolling his eyes, and already emitting the deathrattle.
Forty stretcher-bearers stood at the door, awaiting the task of transporting to the hospital the men who had been attended to, and the dead to the chapel, and gazed at this picture in silence, only uttering a heavy sigh from time to time....
IX.
On his way to the bastion, Kalugin met numerous wounded men; but, knowing from experience that such a spectacle has a bad effect on the spirits of a man on the verge of an action, he not only did not pause to interrogate them, but, on the contrary, he tried not to pay any heed to them. At the foot of the hill he encountered an orderly, who was galloping from the bastion at full speed.
** Zobkin! Zobkin! Stop a minute! "
" Well, what is it 1 "
" Where are you from } '*
" From the lodgements."
" Well, how are things there! Hot } '*
**Ah, frightfully!"
And the orderly galloped on.
In fact, although there was not much firing from the rifles, the cannonade had begun with fresh vigor and greater heat than ever.
" Ah, that's bad! " thought Kalugin, experiencing a rather unpleasant sensation, and there came to him also a presentiment, that is to say, a very usual thought — the thought of death.
But Kalugin was an egotist and gifted with nerves of steel; in a word, he was what is called brave. He did not yield to his first sensation, and began to arouse his courage; he recalled to mind a certain adjutant of Napoleon, who, after having given the command to advance, galloped up to Napoleon, his head all covered with blood.