The Officer of the Guards bent forward as he stared at his son's friend; he seemed to be seeing him for the first time. That evening, when he and his son were alone in the smoking room, he said, 'Konrad will never make a true soldier.'
'Why?' asked his son, shocked.
But he knew his father was right. The Officer of the Guards shrugged his shoulders, lit a cigar, stretched his legs towards the fireplace, and watched the curl of smoke. And then calmly, with the assurance of an expert, he said, 'Because he is a different kind of man.'
His father was long dead and many years had passed before the General understood what he had meant.