We were entertaining callers when Lieutenant Colonel von Egidy was announced: our ambassador Count Szechenyi, and Ossip Schubin the famous Austrian novelist, who had moved from Bohemia to Berlin awhile previously with her sister the painter. A pretty, vivacious, elegant lady. A new novel of hers had just been published, adding yet more to her already well-established reputation as a notable delineator of Austrian high life. When Egidy came in Count Szechenyi took his departure, but Ossip Schubin remained awhile longer. Joyously we went forward to greet our caller and shake hands with him. After a long correspondence a first meeting is the meeting after an absence. Egidy, although rather short in stature, had a very martial appearance; his bearing, his voice, his accent, were altogether those of a Prussian officer of hussars. But the rigorous face with its thick mustache was lighted up by a pair of smiling, gleaming blue eyes. The presence of the strange lady kept the conversation in conventional channels at first; there was no talk about the things that were close to our hearts. The lieutenant colonel and the authoress had ten minutes of very lively converse. Then Ossip Schubin took leave of us. Later it came out that neither of them had ever heard of the other. Evidently Egidy was not interested in fiction and Ossip Schubin cared still less for political addresses. Then, as soon as we were alone, we broached the subject of the efforts in which we were respectively engaged. I had not then heard any of Egidy’s public speeches, but even in his conversation words flowed warmly and eloquently from his lips. He was so completely penetrated with his ideas, his plans, his hopes, that he uttered what he was full of. Such an utterance were his speeches also, as I afterward discovered; only in them he spoke with an exceptionally loud, clear, and deliberate utterance, and was often carried to heights of eloquence by his inward fire. In the drawing-room, of course, he spoke gently and more simply, but still with ever logical fullness of thought, always consistent with himself. We now let him know our ideas and aims also. The peace cause Egidy had not yet included in his programme, although theoretically he agreed with us.