“There now, had I been a Napoleon or a Frederick, I should certainly have paid you a compliment,” Bolhov remarked, turning towards me quite calmly.

“You have done so as it is,” I answered, with difficulty hiding the excitement produced in me by the danger just passed.

“Well, what if I have?⁠—no one will write it down.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Well, if you do put it down, it will only be ‘for critikism,’ as Mischenkov says,” he added with a smile.

“Ugh! the damned thing!” just then remarked Antonov behind us, as he spat over his shoulder with vexation, “just missed my legs!”

All my attempts to seem calm, and all our cunning phrases, suddenly seemed to me insufferably silly after that simple exclamation.