While he, motioning away the servants, pulled off his knee-high felt overshoes, I had opportunity to look at him. That is to say, my eyes at first were held by the head alone, with its softly curling gray hair, which flows, parted, to the neck. Thick, bushy, gray brows shade the deep-set, blue eyes and sharply define an angular, self-willed forehead. The nose is strong, slender above, broad and finely modelled in the nostrils. The long, gray mustache completely covers the mobile mouth. A waving white beard, parted in the middle, flows from the hoary cheeks to the shoulders. The head is not broad--rather, it might be called narrow--wholly unslavonic, and is well poised. The broad, strongly built shoulders have a military erectness. The powerful body is set on slender hips. A narrow foot is hidden in the high Russian boot and moves elastically. The step and carriage are youthful. An irony of fate will have it that the bitterest foe of militarism betrays in his whole appearance the former officer. The man in the peasant's dress is in every movement the _grand seigneur_. We were still standing in the vestibule, which serves also as a cloak-room. The count thrust both hands in his belt--well-shaped, powerful hands--and asked in faultless German my plan for the day. I felt the gentle eyes on my face as he spoke. The look is beaming and kindly. One is not pierced, only illuminated. Yet one feels distinctly that nothing is hidden from those quiet, kindly eyes. I answered that I should return to Moscow at midnight, and until then would under no consideration disturb him in his work. He told me, thereupon, to send back my sleigh, since he would have us driven at night to the station in his own. He would have no refusal to our eating breakfast before we withdrew to the room assigned us. The countess, he said, was in Moscow at the time, but the youngest daughter would soon return from the village school, where she taught. He would leave her to entertain us until luncheon. I should say here that my wife accompanied me on this wintry journey, as on the whole journey of investigation. Tolstoï himself would keep to his usual programme--would look over his mail, write a promised article, rest a little in the afternoon, then ride, and from dinner--that is, from six o'clock--until midnight would be at my disposal. Then he led us to a large room on the first floor. Here stood a long table, which remains spread all day. Tea and eggs were brought. Before withdrawing, however, the count sat with us awhile, asked with the tact of a man of the world about personal matters--the number of our children and how they were cared for in our absence, and the friends in Moscow who had introduced us to him--all in a low, musical voice which banished all embarrassment. Then he rose with a slight bow and walked to his room. At the door, however, he turned and came back to ask whether we brought any news of the war. It was just in the pause after the first