"May I go in and look?" "What is there to see?" said the assistant.

But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in, Rostov entered the soldiers' ward.

The foul air, to which he had already begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here.

It was a little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it originated.

In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows, the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and leaving a passage in the middle.