‘Stay, stay, doctor,’ exclaimed the patient in a lively tone, ‘don’t let’s count anything; I have never counted my enemies. And you, a clever man, you are telling me “times are changed.” Who in the world could persuade himself that age changes one’s face. Is it not the same in the morning when we get up as it was the previous evening when we went to bed? People here imagine, perhaps, that having exhausted all kinds of pleasure, I am going to relieve their monotony by giving them the spectacle of a field-marshal’s funeral. No, I am not a sufficiently good courtier to be the complacent actor in such an entertainment. I have no wish to divert the royal pit of the Congress Theatre in that way.’ These well-known words of the Prince de Ligne have always been strangely misquoted. Historians have lent to them a kind of philosophy, desirable, no doubt, but altogether unintended by the speaker. All have made him say: ‘I keep for these kings the spectacle of a field-marshal’s funeral.’ Not one of those historians heard him as I did; not one of them knew or even suspected the real character of that illustrious old man. The prince went on. ‘I do not intend using the epitaph of my friend the Marquis de Bonnay for a long time to come. I’ll defer the business of cutting his clever lines into marble for a while.’[92] Malfati, though strongly recommending great care, made it a point to reassure him, and to dismiss all idea of death. ‘It will have to come to that after all, I know. I was seriously thinking of it all night. Death suits many people. I once had the fancy of proving this in several articles I wrote hurriedly. I’ll touch them up and complete them later on. As for you,’ turning to us, ‘listen and look, in order to find out if you happen to belong to these categories; don’t worry about me. As for the doctor, it will serve him as a text when he wishes to preach resignation to his patients.’ Saying which, he took from under his pillow a book and began to read to us. Some of his reflections, apart from their original and piquant style, had also the merit of a comforting and gentle philosophic teaching. After that short moral lecture, Malfati left us. Golowkin, in order to amuse the invalid, told him some of the incidents of his mission to China; the variety of the pictures seemed to brighten him. Gradually dismissing the possibility of any danger, he began to refer cheerfully to some of the circumstances of his young days. ‘When I was a child,’ he said, ‘the dragoons of the Ligne regiment carried me in turns in their arms. My fondness for soldiers dates from that period. It’s a kind of affection which, contrary to the other, has often been repaid to me in coin of sterling devotion.’