e pleasure of informing the reader
before, has built up for me a considerable circle of men and women
admirers. With self-evident emotion I shall tell of the pleasant hours
of our hearty conversations, which I modestly call "My talks."

It is difficult for me to explain how I deserved it, but the majority
of those who come to me regard me with a feeling of the profoundest
respect, even adoration, and only a few come for the purpose of arguing
with me, but these arguments are usually of a moderate and proper
character. I usually seat myself in the middle of the room, in a soft
and deep armchair, which is furnished me for this occasion by the
Warden; my hearers surround me closely, and some of them, the more
enthusiastic youths and maidens, seat themselves at my feet.

Having before me an audience more than half of which is composed of
women, and entirely disposed in my favour, I always appeal not so
much to the mind as to the sensitive and truthful heart. Fortunately
I possess a certain oratorical power, and the customary effects of the
oratorical art, to which all preachers, beginning in all probability
with Mohammed, have resorted, and which I can handle rather cleverly,
allow me to influence my hearers in the desired direction. It is easily
understood that to the dear ladies in my audience I am not so much the
sage, who has solved the mystery of the iron grate, as a great martyr of
a righteous cause, which they do not quite understand. Shunning abstract
discussions, they eagerly hang on every word of compassion and kindness,
and respond with the same. Allowing them to love me and to believe in
my immutable knowledge of life, I afford them the happy opportunity to
depart at least for a time from the coldness of life, from its painful
doubts and questions.

I say openly without any false modesty, which I despise even as I
despise hypocrisy, there were lectures at which I myself being in a
state of exaltation, called forth in my audience, especially in my
nervous lady visitors, a mood of intense agitation, which turned into
hysterical laughter and tears. Of course I am not a prophet; I am
merely a modest thinker, but no one would succeed in convincing my
lady admirers that there is no prophetic meaning and significance in my
speeches.

I remember one such lecture which took place two months ago. The night
before I could not sleep as soundly as I usually slept; perhaps it was
simply because of the full moon, which aff