“No, I’ve heard nothing of this from Lebedeff, if you mean Lebedeff.”

“H’m; I thought differently. You see, we were talking over this period of history. I was criticizing a current report of something which then happened, and having been myself an eyewitness of the occurrence⁠—you are smiling, prince⁠—you are looking at my face as if⁠—”

“Oh no! not at all⁠—I⁠—”

“I am rather young-looking, I know; but I am actually older than I appear to be. I was ten or eleven in the year 1812. I don’t know my age exactly, but it has always been a weakness of mine to make it out less than it really is.”

“I assure you, general, I do not in the least doubt your statement. One of our living autobiographers states that when he was a small baby in Moscow in 1812 the French soldiers fed him with bread.”