Note 25 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
“On arriving at his rooms, Tourguéneff took from his writing-table a roll of paper. I give what he said word for word.
“‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Here is “copy” for your paper of an absolutely first-rate kind. This means that I am not its author. The master—for he is a real master—is almost unknown in France, but I assure you, on my soul and conscience, that I do not consider myself worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes.’
“Two days afterwards there appeared in the Temps, ‘Les Souvenirs de Sebastopol,’ by Leòn Tolstoi.”—Tourguéneff and his French Circle, p. 188.