“Your Excellency, how light it feels!” he said, smiling respectfully. “What?” “It feels light, Your Excellency.” “What’s he talking about?” thought Prince Andrei. “Ah, the spring, probably,” he thought, looking about. “So it is, everything’s green already … so quickly! Birches, and bird cherry, and alders already beginning … But no sign of oaks. Ah, there’s one.” At the side of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times older than the birches of the woods, it was ten times as thick and twice as tall as any birch. It was an enormous oak, twice the span of a man’s arms in girth, with some limbs
