"Besides, I must pick up Basin. While I've been here, he's gone to see those friends of his—you know them too, I'm sure,—who are called after a bridge—oh, yes, the Iénas." "It was a battle before it was a bridge, Princess; it was a victory!" said the General. "I mean to say, to an old soldier like me," he went on, wiping his monocle and replacing it, as though he were laying a fresh dressing on the raw wound underneath, while the Princess instinctively looked away, "that Empire nobility, well, of course, it's not the same thing, but, after all, taking it as it is, it's very fine of its kind; they were people who really did fight like heroes."