"We, Alexander, ze Autocrat—" M. Chevalier began to read the passport, which had been brought in the meantime, but the officer of Cossacks tore it out of his hands, and his face expressed surprise.
"Guess who it is," he said, "for you all know him by reputation."
"How can we guess? Show it to us! Well, Abdel Kader, ha, ha, ha! Well, Cagliostro— Well, Peter III.—ha, ha, ha, ha!"
"Well, read it!"
The officer of Cossacks unfolded the paper and read the name of him who once had been Prince Peter Ivánovich, and the family name which everybody knows and pronounces with a certain respect and pleasure, when speaking of a person bearing that name, as of a near and familiar person. We shall call him Labázov. The officer of Cossacks had a dim recollection that this Peter Labázov had been something important in the year '25, and that he had been sent to hard labour,—but what he had been famous for, he did not exactly know. But of the others not one knew anything about him, and they replied:
"Oh, yes, the famous prince," just as they would have said, "Of course, he is famous!" about Shakespeare, who had written the "Æneid." But they recognized him from the explanations of the stout officer, who told them that he was a brother of Prince Iván, an uncle of the Chíkins, of Countess Prut, in short, the well-known—
"He must be very rich, if he is a brother of Prince Iván," remarked one of the young men, "if the fortune has been returned to him. It has been returned to some."
"What a lot of exiles are returning nowadays!" remarked another. "Really, fewer seem to have been sent away, than are returning now. Zhikínski, tell us that story of the 18th!" he turned to an officer of sharp-shooters, who had the reputation of being a good story-teller.
"Do tell it!"
"In the first place, it is a true story, and happened here, at Chevalier's, in the large hall. Three Decembrists came to have their dinner. They were sitting at one table, eating, drinking, talking. Opposite them sat down a gentleman of respectable mien, of about the same age, and he listened to their talking about Siberia. He asked them something, they exchanged a few words, began to converse, and it turned out that he, too, was from Siberia.