“Towards the evening of a December day in 1602, two horsemen were riding along a road in the depths of a centuries-old Lithuanian forest. One of them was a man of strong build, broad shoulders, dressed in a dark fur-lined caftan and a low sable hat that covered his forehead and ears. A pair of carved handles of long-barreled pistols peeked out from behind the sash; a saber in a velvet sheath with silver grips was attached to the side. A long, wide golden beard fell like a spade onto his chest. An attentive observer might notice some glints of gray in this beard. This gray hair, however, was not the “silver of years,” because the rider’s face—a handsome face of a purely Russian type—was young, although serious, almost sad...”