In the summer of 1902 we received several interesting visits at Harmannsdorf; I mean visits from abroad, for with our friends of the neighborhood there was always continual going back and forth. The visitors to whom I refer came from St. Petersburg and the Caucasus. First Emanuel Nobel, my departed friend Alfred Nobel’s nephew. I found that Emanuel had many traits of resemblance to Alfred,—the same seriousness, the same depth, the same broad, democratic ideas. In his outward semblance, also, and in his voice the nephew reminded me of the uncle. Emanuel is unmarried. The rumor that he was to marry his friend Minister Witte’s sister proved to be false; he lives in absolute devotion to his brother’s numerous family. He is at the head of the greatest naphtha business in the world. Fourteen vessels carry its products on the seas. Twice a year he journeys to Baku, where his most productive oil wells flow. When, a few years later, during the Russo-Japanese war, those oil wells were set on fire and blazed up into the skies like pillars of flame, his losses must have been immense. The second visit from abroad was from the Princess Tamara of Georgia and her two daughters. They stayed two days at Harmannsdorf, and we indulged in endless reminiscences of the old times in the Caucasus. That beloved, beautiful country, too, was to endure the most atrocious sufferings from that miserable war. During August of that year my husband and I accepted an invitation from Count Heinrich Taaffe (son of the former Austrian Prime Minister) and his charming wife to visit them at Castle Ellischau in northern Bohemia, where we spent a very delightful week.