One day Prince Alexander of Hesse and his wife were calling on me, when suddenly the door of the drawing-room opened and Leo appeared in the strangest garb, suggestive of a picture of a Spanish bandit. I gasped with astonishment. Leo apparently was not pleased with my visitors, and soon took his departure. [42]'Qui est donc ce singulier personnage?' inquired my visitors in astonishment. 'Mais c'est Léon Tolstoy.' 'Ah, mon Dieu, pourquoi ne l'avez vous pas nommé? Après avoir lu ses admirables écrits, nous mourions d'envie de le voir,' said they, reproachfully. [42] Who is that singular person?--inquired my visitors in astonishment. Why, it is Leo Tolstoy! Ah, good heavens! Why did you not tell us who it was? After reading his admirable writings, we were dying to see him.--said they, reproachfully. From Frankfurt the party proceeded to Hyères, where Nicholas, growing rapidly worse and worse, died on 20th September (new style). Few men have been so admired and loved as he was by all who knew him. The only thing recorded against him is the fact that when serving in the Caucasus he, like many of his fellow-officers, gave way to some extent to intemperance; but after returning home he recovered his self-control. I have already told of his influence over Leo in the early days of the Ant-Brotherhood, and of the green stick, buried where Tolstoy himself wishes his body to lie. Such influence he retained all through life, and men and women of most different temperaments make equally enthusiastic mention of his charm and goodness. That Leo's judgment of what is good and bad has remained strongly influenced by his love for and memory of Nicholas, is plain enough to all who have the facts before them and read his works attentively. Tourgénef once said: The humility which Leo Tolstoy developed theoretically, his brother actually practised in life. He always lived in the most impossible lodgings, almost hovels, somewhere in the out-of-the-way quarters of Moscow, and he willingly shared all he had with the poorest outcast. He was a delightful companion and narrator, but writing was to him almost a physical impossibility, the actual process of writing being as difficult for him as for a labourer whose stiff hands will not hold a pen. Nicholas did, however, as a matter of fact, contribute some _Memoirs of a Sportsman_ to the _Contemporary_. Never was any one's death more sincerely regretted. This is the letter Leo wrote to Aunt Tatiána, the night the event occurred.