They had had five courses for dinner, which was served in the garden; but the heat made it almost impossible to eat, so that all the work of the cook (who received £50 a year) and of his assistants, who had taken special trouble to prepare dinner for the visitor, was wasted. They had only eaten of the iced fish-soup, and the parti-coloured, prettily shaped ice-pudding, elaborately ornamented with spun sugar and biscuits. Besides the visitor, there had been present at dinner a Liberal doctor, the children’s tutor⁠—a desperately Socialistic, Revolutionary student (but whom Nicholas Semyónovitch was able to keep within bounds)⁠—Nicholas Semyónovitch’s wife, Marie, and their three children; the youngest of whom came only to dessert.