Chapters 8-11 Summary

Chapter 8 begins with a description of Yefrem Podduyev, one of the patients in the ward with Pavel and Oleg. He is a very strong man, a construction worker who travels all over the Soviet Union doing the hardest work. He is fighting death, and considers it his personal goal to let all the other patients know they are going to die, too. He reads a book of short stories and is intrigued by one entitled "What do men live by?" He asks each of the patients in the ward their answer to the question, and then tells them the author says the answer is love. Pavel demands to know who the author is, and when he is told it is Leo Tolstoy, he laughs. Dontsova has learned that the administrative assistant Olympiada will be absent from the ward for ten days...