XVII
ONCE when Svinin happened to be at His Eminence's to receive his blessing the distinguished dignitary began: "By the by, about that shot?" Svinin related the whole truth, in which there was nothing whatever "about that shot."
The high ecclesiastic listened to the real story in silence, gently touching his white rosary and never taking his eyes off the narrator. When Svinin had finished His Eminence quietly murmured in rippling speech:
"From all this one is obliged to conclude that in this matter the statements made were neither wholly nor on every occasion strictly true."
Svinin stammered and then answered with the excuse that it was not he but General Kokoshkin who had made the report.
His Eminence passed his rosary through his waxen fingers in silence, and then murmured:
"One must make a distinction between a lie and what is not wholly true."
43
