Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/331

Rh And he rolled up his shirt and showed his broad back, where a bullet was loosely encased near the bone. "Do you see how it rolls around?" he said, evidently pleased with the bullet as with a toy. "Now it has rolled over to the back." "Well, will Lukáshka live?" asked Olénin. "God knows! There is no doctor here. They have gone for one." "Where will they get one? At Gróznaya?" asked Olénin. "No, my father, I would long ago have cut the throats of your Russian doctors, if I were the Tsar. All they know is to cut. They have spoiled our Cossack Bakláshev, by taking off his leg. Consequently they are fools. What is Bakláshev good for now? No, my father, in the mountains there are genuine doctors. During an expedition my friend Vorchík was wounded right here, in the chest, and your doctors gave him up, but Saíb came down from the mountains and cured him. They know all kinds of herbs, my father."

"Stop talking nonsense," said Olénin. "I had better send the surgeon from the staff." "Nonsense?" the old man mimicked him. "Fool, fool! Nonsense! Send the surgeon! If your surgeons knew how to cure, the Cossacks and the Chechéns would go to get cured by them, whereas, your officers and colonels send for the doctors from the mountains. It is false, all false, with you people." Olénin did not try to retort. He was too much of the opinion that everything was false in the world in which he used to live, and to which he was now going to return. "How about Lukáshka ? Have you seen him?" he asked. "He is lying like one dead. He neither eats nor drinks. He won't stand anything but brandy. Well, he