“What do you think of it, Prince?” Dessalles ventured to ask.
“I? I?...” said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking his eyes from the plan of the building.
“Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that...”
“Ha ha ha! The theater of war!” said the prince. “I have said and still say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get beyond the Niemen.”
Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary, forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what her father was saying was correct.
“When the snow melts they’ll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could fail to see it,” the prince continued, evidently thinking of the campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. “Bennigsen should have advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different turn...”
“But, Prince,” Dessalles began timidly, “the letter mentions Vítebsk....”
“Ah, the letter? Yes...” replied the prince peevishly. “Yes... yes...” His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. “Yes, he writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?”
Dessalles dropped his eyes.
“The prince says nothing about that,” he remarked gently.