And believe me on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful general--of whom Austria has so many--and to lay down all this heavy responsibility.

But circumstances are sometimes too strong for us, General.

" And Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not, but you have no grounds for telling me so.

And that is the whole point.

" The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply in the same tone.