When she came into their ward she often glanced timidly in his direction and, with his eyes half closed, as he felt the pain easing and giving way to periods of relief, he would smile lengthily

He lay there, smiling, and what occupied his mind was very simple. He was reflecting that he was a Hero of the Soviet Union; he was still alive, his legs and arms were intact; yesterday they had for the first time opened the window to the warm spring air, with a dry earsplitting noise of coarse paper being torn, tomorrow he would try to get up, to walk a little, and, if he could manage to do so, he would get to know the slim young girl who kept stealing glances at him.

The next day he got up and made his way across the room toward the door, savoring the bliss of these still clumsy first steps. In the corridor he stopped by the open window and gazed with joyful hunger at the pale haze of the first greenery, the dusty little courtyard where the wounded were exercising, some of them on crutches, others with their arms in slings. He rolled a cigarette, lit it. He was hoping to meet her that very day, catch her eye ("On your feet already, after a wound like that!") and speak to her. He had given it much thought during those long days and long weeks. He would give her a little nod as he inhaled a mouthful of smoke, screw up his eyes and remark carelessly: "I have a feeling we've met somewhere before…"

But occasionally it struck him that he should start the conversation quite differently. Yes, begin with the words he had one day heard in a play his class had gone to see. The actor, swathed in his black cloak, had observed to the heroine who was clad in a pale, frothy lace dress: "So it is to you, Madam, that I owe my life…" Words that struck him as splendidly noble.

Abruptly she appeared. Caught off his guard, he hastily rolled a cigarette and screwed up his eyes. He had not even noticed she was running. Her big boots and skirt were spattered with mud, her hair clung to her brow in moist locks. The Chief Medical Officer was coming out of the room next door. He saw her and stopped, as if to say something to her. But she rushed up to him and, with a sob that burst out like a laugh, she exclaimed: "Lev Mikhailovich! The van… It's hit a mine. Near the stream… The stream's burst its banks… I'd already got out to look for the ford…"