smell of putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.
“I can’t tear myself to pieces,” the doctor was saying. “Come to Makár Alexéevich in the evening. I shall be there.”
The assistant asked some further questions.
“Oh, do the best you can! Isn’t it all the same?”
The doctor noticed Rostóv coming upstairs.
“What do you want, sir?” said the doctor. “What do you want? The bullets having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir.”
“How so?” asked Rostóv.
“Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makéev and I” (he pointed to the assistant), “keep on here. Some five of us doctors have died in this place. … When a new one comes he is done for in