“A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito,” said the officer, looking at Pierre’s fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger. “I owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That is all I can say.”

There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the word) in the officer’s voice, in the expression of his face and in his gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the Frenchman’s smile, pressed the hand held out to him.

“Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September,” he introduced himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under his mustache. “Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance with that maniac’s bullet in my body?”