At six o'clock we were summoned to dinner, at which the count appeared. As entrée there were baked fish--for the count, rice cutlets--then a roast and vegetables, of which the count took only the latter; then dessert and black coffee. We drank kvass, later tea, with cakes. Everything was very well prepared. A man-servant waited at table. It is by no means petty to tell all this. The Tolstoïs do not live on locusts and wild honey, but like other good families in Russia. We have, thank Heaven, outgrown the days when genius had to assert itself by extravagant conduct. Brilliant originality is entirely compatible with conformity to custom in all every-day usages, according to our way of thinking. Conversely, all originality immediately becomes suspicious in our eyes when it labors to assert itself in trifles. "A wise man behaves like other people." The individuality of Tolstoï shows in no way the stamp of the idle wish to differentiate itself in each and every particular from other people. No one will expect me to reproduce every detail of the conversation, which began at dinner and ended almost six hours later at the house door. I certainly have not forgotten a word of it, but I cannot answer for the order of succession of subjects, nor even for every expression and every turn of speech. I therefore reconstruct from memory only what seems to me the most important, and ask every indulgence for this report. It is as faithful as is possible to human inadequacy after such fatigues and excitements, and with rather tardy notes. "I am now under the influence of two Germans," began the count. "I am reading Kant and Lichtenberg--selections, to be sure, for I do not possess an original edition. I am fascinated by the clearness and grace of their style, and in particular by Lichtenberg's keen wit." "Goethe says, 'When Lichtenberg makes a jest, a whole system is hidden behind it,'" I threw in. "I do not understand how the Germans of to-day can so neglect their writer and go so mad over a coquettish feuilletonist like Nietzsche. He is no philosopher, and has no honest purpose of seeking and speaking the truth." "But he has an unprecedented polish of style, and an endless amount of temperament." "Schopenhauer seems to me greater as a stylist. Still, I agree with you that he has a glittering polish, though it is only the facile grace of the feuilletonist, which does not entitle him to a place among the great thinkers and teachers of humanity." "He flatters, however, the aristocratic instincts of the new-Germans, who have attained power and honor, and he works against the evils of socialism." "What is the condition of socialism in Germany?" asked the count, immediately, with great interest. "I fear it has lost in depth and strength what it has gained in breadth."