He bared his muscular arms.

Yes, there was strength in them.

But Nikolay, who lay there breathing with what was left of lungs, had had a strong, healthy body too.

And suddenly he recalled how they used to go to bed together as children, and how they only waited till Fyodor Bogdanitch was out of the room to fling pillows at each other and laugh, laugh irrepressibly, so that even their awe of Fyodor Bogdanitch could not check the effervescing, overbrimming sense of life and happiness.