After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andréy enjoyed a blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the best and happiest moments of his life—especially his earliest childhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life—returned to his memory, not merely as something past but as something present.
The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose head seemed familiar to Prince Andréy: they were lifting him up and trying to quiet him.
“Show it to me. … Oh, ooh … Oh! Oh, ooh!” his frightened moans could be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.
Hearing those moans Prince Andréy wanted to weep. Whether because he was dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or because of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or because he was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him was groaning so piteously—he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and almost happy tears.
The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood and with the boot still on.
“Oh! Oh, ooh!” he sobbed, like a woman.
The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince Andréy from seeing his face, moved away.