Chapter 7

The wounded Avdeev was taken to the hospital -- a small wooden building roofed with boards at the entrance of the fort -- and was placed on one of the empty beds in the common ward. There were four patients in the ward: one ill with typhus and in high fever; another, pale, with dark shadows under his eyes, who had ague, was just expecting attack and yawned continually; and two more who had been wounded in a raid three weeks before: one in the hand -- he was up -- and the other in the shoulder. The latter was sitting on a bed. All of them except the typhus patient surrounded and questioned the newcomer and those who had brought him.

"Sometimes they fire as if they were spilling peas over you, and nothing happens . . . and this time only about five shots were fired," related one of the bearers.

"Each man get what fate sends!"

"Oh!" groaned Avdeev loudly, trying to master his pain when they began to place him on the bed; but he stopped groaning when he was on it, and only frowned and moved his feet continually. He held his hands over his wound and looked fixedly before him.

The doctor came, and gave orders to turn the wounded man over to see whether the bullet had passed out behind.

"What's this?" the doctor asked, pointing to the large white scars that crossed one another on the patient's back and loins.

"That was done long ago, your honor!" replied Avdeev with a groan.

They were scars left by the flogging Avdeev had received for the money he drank.

Avdeev was again turned over, and the doctor probed in his stomach for a long time and found the bullet, but failed to extract it. He put a dressing on the wound, and having stuck plaster over it went away. During the whole time the doctor was probing and bandaging the wound Avdeev lay with clenched teeth and closed eyes, but when the doctor had gone he opened them and looked around as though amazed. His eyes were turned on the other patients and on the surgeon's orderly, though he seemed to see not them but something else that surprised him.

His friends Panov and Serogin came in, but Avdeev continued to lie in the same position looking before him with surprise. It was long before he recognized his comrades, though his eyes gazed straight at them.

"I say, Peter, have you no message to send home?" said Panov.

Avdeev did not answer, though he was looking Panov in the face.

"I say, haven't you any orders to send home?" again repeated Panov, touching Avdeev's cold, large-boned hand.

Avdeev seemed to come to.

"Ah! . . . Panov!"

"Yes, I'm here. . . . I've come! Have you nothing for home? Serogin would write a letter."

"Serogin . . . " said Avdeev moving his eyes with difficulty towards Serogin, "will you write? . . . Well then,