At this time the handsome hero of Chesma, Count Alexis, was in his thirty-eighth year. Not only at home, but in a strange land, he loved to spend his time with doves, being passionately fond of these birds. On my arrival he was sitting at the very top of his house, where he ordered the footman at once to bring me. What a sight met my eyes! This celebrated man--so clever, so strong and so stately, before whom all other men seemed but pigmies--was seated on a common wooden chair at the dusty little window. Having run away from the heat, he was seated with only his shirt on! and was drinking out of a mug some iced wine, at the same time waving his handkerchief at a brood of doves, who were pirouetting about the roof. “Ah! Konchic;[24] how are you?” said he, turning for a minute towards me. “Well, what? run away, eh? Well, congratulate you, old fellow. Sit down. Oh! look there; are they not a lovely couple? What do you think of them? Ah! the rascals; there they are turning and twisting. Ah, _tourmelins_[25] ah!” Again he waved his handkerchief, and I, not finding any chair to sit upon, began looking at him with curiosity. The count in these last years of peace had grown stouter, his neck was quite like a bull’s, his shoulders like Jupiter’s or Bacchus’s, his face quite striking, with its look of health and dauntlessness. “Well! what are you staring at?” said he, standing and looking at me. “I was amusing myself with birds, while you were sitting with the Turks. Here they are all clay-coloured and black, but the tuberous ones, like ours, old fellow, are few, and not common. Yes, they can take letters for a longer distance than 100 _versts_. Marvellous! If we could but breed them in Russia! Well now, tell me everything about the prison and about the travels.” I began my narration. The count listened to me at first very inattentively, all the while looking out of the window, but afterwards he grew more interested; and when I touched upon the subject of the person whom I had met at Ragusa, and handed him the letter, the count threw a handful of seed from a plate at the assembled doves, and when they all flew off in a crowd up on the roof, stood up. “This news, my dear fellow, is such that we must talk seriously. Let’s get down from this mast into the company cabin.” We went downstairs and afterwards into the garden. The count on the way had dressed himself, and given orders that no one was to be received. We walked a long while backwards and forwards in the avenues. While I answered his questions I looked attentively into the expressive and often dreamy eyes of the count. He listened to me with very great attention. “Ah! art scheming?” said he, all at once; “why, suppose she is a pretender, an adventuress. Now explain,” added he, sitting down on a bench. “Art repeating the words of others or thine own?” I felt confused, and did not quite know what to answer.