Book 10 Chapter 37

ONE OF THE DOCTORS came out of the tent with a blood-stained apron, and small, blood-stained hands, in one of which he had a cigar, carefully held between his thumb and little finger, that it might not be stained too. This doctor threw his head up, and looked about him, but over the level of the wounded crowd. He was evidently longing for a short respite. After turning his head from right to left for a few minutes, he sighed and dropped his eyes again.

“All right, immediately,” he said in reply to an assistant, who pointed him our Prince Andrey, and he bade the bearers carry him into the tent.

A murmur rose in the crowd of wounded men waiting.

“Even in the next world it's only the gentry who will have a good time,” said one.

Prince Andrey was carried in, and laid on a table that had just been cleared, and was being rinsed over by an assistant. He could not make out distinctly what was in the tent. The pitiful groans on all sides, and the excruciating pain in his thigh, his stomach, and his back distracted his attention. Everything he saw around melted for him into a single general impression of naked, blood-stained, human flesh, which seemed to fill up the whole low-pitched tent, as, a few weeks before, on that hot August day, the bare human flesh had filled up the dirty pond along the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the same chair à canon, the sight of which had aroused in him then a horror, that seemed prophetic of what he felt now.

There were three tables in the tent. Two were occupied, on the third they laid Prince Andrey. For some time he was left alone, an involuntary witness of what was being done at the other tables. On the table nearest sat a Tatar, probably of a Cossack regiment, judging from the uniform that had been thrown down close by. Four soldiers were holding him. A doctor in spectacles was cutting something in his brown, muscular back.

‘Ooh! ooh! ooh!…” the Tatar, as it were, grunted, and all of a sudden, throwing up his broad, swarthy, sun-burned face, and showing his white teeth, he began wriggling, twitching, and shrieking a piercingly shrill, prolonged scream. On the other table, round which a number of persons were standing, a big, stout man lay on his back, with his head flung back. The colour and curliness of the hair and the shape seemed strangely familiar to Prince Andrey. Several assistants were holding him, and weighing on his chest. One white, plump leg was incessantly moving with a rapid, spasmodic twitching. This man was sobbing and choking convulsively. Two doctors—one was pale and trembling—were mutely engaged in doing something with the other red, gory leg. Having finished with the Tatar, over whom a cloak was thrown, the doctor in spectacles came up to Prince Andrey, wiping his hands.

He glanced at his face, and hurriedly turned away. “Undress him! Why are you dawdling?” he shouted angrily to the assistant.

His earliest, remotest childhood came back to Prince Andrey, when the assistant, with tucked-up sleeves, hurriedly unbuttoned his buttons, and took off his clothes. The doctor bent close down over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to some one. And the excruciating pain inside his stomach made Prince Andrey lose consciousness. When he regained consciousness, the broken splinters of his thigh bone had been removed, the bits of ragged flesh had been cut off, and the wound bound up. Water was sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince Andrey opened his eyes, the doctor bent over him, kissed him on the lips without speaking, and hurried away.

After the agony he had passed through, Prince Andrey felt a blissful peace, such as he had not known for very long. All the best and happiest moments of his life, especially his earliest childhood, when he had been undressed and put to bed, when his nurse had sung lullabies over him, when, burying his head in the pillows, he had felt happy in the mere consciousness of life, rose before his imagination, not like the past even, but as though it were the actual present.

The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man, whose head had seemed somehow familiar to Prince Andrey: they were lifting him up and trying to soothe him.

“Show it to me… ooo! o! ooo!” he could hear his frightened, abjectly suffering moans, broken by sobs. Hearing his moans, Prince Andrey wanted to cry. Either because he was dying thus without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or from these memories of a childhood that could never return, or because he was in pain, or because others were suffering, and that man was moaning so piteously, he longed to weep childlike, good, almost happy, tears.

They showed the wounded man the leg that had been amputated, wearing a boot, and covered with dry gore. “O! oooo!” he sobbed like a woman. The doctor who had been standing near him, screening his face, moved away.

“My God! How's this? Why is he here?” Prince Andrey wondered.

In the miserable, sobbing, abject creature, whose leg had just been cut off, he recognised Anatole Kuragin. It was Anatole they were holding up in their arms and offering a glass of water, the edge of which he could not catch with his trembling, swollen lips. Anatole drew a sobbing, convulsive breath. “Yes, it is he; yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully bound up with me,” thought Prince Andrey, with no clear understanding yet of what was before him. “What is the connection between that man and my childhood, my life?” he asked himself, unable to find the clue. And all at once a new, unexpected memory from that childlike world of purity and love rose up before Prince Andrey. He remembered Natasha, as he had seen her for the first time at the ball in 1810, with her slender neck and slender arms, and her frightened, happy face, ready for ecstatic enjoyment, and a love and tenderness awoke in his heart for her stronger and more loving than ever. He recalled now the bond that existed between him and this man, who was looking vaguely at him through the tears that filled his swollen eyes. Prince Andrey remembered everything, and a passionate pity and love for that suffering man filled his happy heart.

Prince Andrey could restrain himself no more and wept tears of love and tenderness over his fellow-men, over himself, and over their errors and his own. “Sympathy, love for our brothers, for those who love us, love for those who hate us, love for our enemies; yes, the love that God preached upon earth, that Marie sought to teach me, and I did not understand, that is why I am sorry to part with life, that is what was left me if I had lived. But now it is too late. I know that!”

一个医生从帐篷里走出来，围着一条血渍斑斑的围裙，他那两只不大的手也沾满了血，一只手的小指和拇指间夹着一支雪茄（怕弄脏了雪茄）。他抬起头，目光越过受伤的人，四下张望着。显然，他想休息一下，向左向右转了一会儿头，叹了口气，垂下了眼睑。

“这就来。”他回答着医助的话，后者向他指了指安德烈公爵，于是他吩咐把公爵抬进帐篷。

候诊的伤员们纷纷议论起来。

“看来在那个世界也只有贵族老爷好过。”一个伤员说。

安德烈公爵被抬进来，放在一张刚腾出的，医助正在冲洗的桌上。安德烈公爵看不清帐篷里的东西。四周痛苦的呻吟声、他的大腿、肚子和背脊剧烈的疼痛，分散了他的注意力。他所看到的周围的一切，融汇成一个总的印象——赤裸的、血淋淋的人体似乎塞满了这座低矮的帐篷，就像几星期前，在那炎热的八月的一天，在斯摩棱斯克大道上人的肉体填满的一个脏污的水池。是的，这正是那些肉体，那些chair　a　canon①，那在当时仿佛就预示了眼前的一切景象，这种情形使他感到恐怖。

①法语：炮灰。

帐篷里有三张台子。两张已经被占着了，安德烈公爵被放在第三张台子上。有一阵子没人管他，他无意识地看到了另外两张台子上的情形。最近的台子上坐着一个鞑靼人，从扔在旁边的制服看来，大概是一个哥萨克。四个士兵扶着他。一个戴眼镜的医生正在他肌肉发达的栗色背脊上切除什么东西。

“哎哟，哎哟，哎哟！……”鞑靼人猪叫似的喊着，突然昂起高颧骨、翘鼻子、黝黑的脸，龇着雪白的牙，开始挣扎、扭动，发出刺耳的长声尖叫。另一张围着好多人的平台上，平卧着一个大胖子，向后仰着头（他那卷发、发色及头型，安德烈公爵都觉得非常熟悉。）几个医助按住那个人的胸脯，不让他动弹。一条雪白的大粗腿快速不停地、像发疟疾似的抖动着。那个人抽泣着，哽咽着。两个医生——其中一个面色苍白，哆哆嗦嗦的，——默默地在那个人的另一只发红的腿上做着什么。戴眼镜的医生做完了鞑靼人的手术，给他盖上军大衣，擦着手，走到安德烈公爵跟前。

他朝安德烈公爵的脸看了一眼，连忙转过身去。

“给他脱衣服，站着干吗？”他愤愤地对医助们说。

当一个医助卷起袖子，忙着给安德烈公爵解钮扣，脱衣服的时候，安德烈公爵回忆起了自己最早、最遥远的童年。医生低低地弯下身来查看伤势，摸了摸，深深地叹了一口气。然后他对别人打了个手势。由于腹内的剧痛，安德烈公爵失去了知觉。他醒来时，大腿里的碎骨已被取出，炸开的一块肉被切除，伤口也包扎好了。有人往他脸上洒水。安德烈公爵刚一睁眼，医生就向他俯下身来，默默地在他嘴唇上吻了吻，又匆匆地走开了。

自从经受了那次痛苦以来，安德烈公爵好久不曾有过无上的幸福的感觉了。他一生中最美好，最幸福的时光，尤其是最遥远的童年，那时，有人给他脱衣，把他抱到小床上，保姆唱着催眠曲哄他睡觉，那时，他把头埋在枕头里，他对生活只有一个感觉，那就是觉得自己很幸福。——恍惚中，这样的时光甚至不是过去，而是现实。

医生们在安德烈公爵觉得那人的头型很熟悉的伤员周围忙合着，把他扶起来，安慰他。

“给我看看……噢噢噢噢！噢噢噢噢噢！”传来他那时时被啜泣打断的、惊慌不安的、痛得钻心的呻吟声。听到这呻吟声，安德烈公爵直想哭。不知是为了他无声无息地死去；还是为了他舍不得离开人世；为了那一去不复返的童年的回忆；为了他在受苦，别人也在受苦（那个人在他面前那么悲惨地呻吟）——不管为了什么，他直想哭，流出孩子般的、善良的、几乎是愉快的眼泪。

人们给那个伤员看了看他那条被截去的、沾满血渍的、还穿着靴子的腿。

“噢！噢噢噢噢！”他像个女人似的恸哭起来。那个站在伤员身旁挡住了他的脸的医生，这时走开了。

“我的上帝！这是怎么回事？他怎么在这儿？”安德烈公爵自言自语道。

他认出那个不幸的、痛哭失声、虚弱无力、刚被截去腿的人就是阿纳托利·库拉金。人们扶起他，递给他一杯水，但是他那颤抖着的肿起的嘴唇老挨不到杯子边。阿纳托利痛苦地啜泣着。“是的，这是他；是的，这个人不知怎的和我密切而沉痛地连在一起。”安德烈公爵还没弄清楚眼前究竟是怎么回事，心中就想道。“这个人与我的童年，我的生活有什么关系呢？”他自问，却得不到答案。突然，在安德烈公爵的想象中，从纯洁可爱的童年世界中浮现出另一种新的意外的回忆。他想起一八一○年在舞会上第一次看见娜塔莎，想起她那纤细的脖颈和手臂，她那时时都处于兴奋状态的，又惊又喜的面庞，于是在他心灵深处对她的眷恋和柔情苏醒了，比任何时候都更生动、更强烈。他这时想起了他同那个用含泪的，肿起的眼睛模糊地看他的人之间的关系。安德烈公爵想起了一切，于是对那个人强烈的怜悯和挚爱之情充满了他那幸福的心。

安德烈公爵再也忍不住流出了温柔、深情的眼泪，他哭了，哭别人，哭自己，哭他们和自己的错误认识。

“对兄弟们、对爱他人的人们的同情和爱，对恨我们的人的爱，对敌人的爱，——是的，这就是上帝在人间散播的、玛丽亚公爵小姐教给我而我过去不懂的那种爱；这就是我为什么舍不得离开人世，这就是我所剩下的唯一的东西，如果我还活着的话。但是现在已经晚了。我知道这一点！”