perintendents, those abject spies, all
those Kazimers and Kaetans, go hunting about on your hundreds of
thousands of acres from morning to night, and to please you try to
get three skins off one ox. Excuse me, I speak disconnectedly, but
that doesn't matter. You don't look upon the simple people as human
beings. And even the princes, counts, and bishops who used to come
and see you, you looked upon simply as decorative figures, not as
living beings. But the worst of all, the thing that most revolts
me, is having a fortune of over a million and doing nothing for
other people, nothing!"

The princess sat amazed, aghast, offended, not knowing what to say
or how to behave. She had never before been spoken to in such a
tone. The doctor's unpleasant, angry voice and his clumsy, faltering
phrases made a harsh clattering noise in her ears and her head.
Then she began to feel as though the gesticulating doctor was hitting
her on the head with his hat.

"It's not true!" she articulated softly, in an imploring voice.
"I've done a great deal of good for other people; you know it
yourself!"

"Nonsense!" cried the doctor. "Can you possibly go on thinking of
your philanthropic work as something genuine and useful, and not a
mere mummery? It was a farce from beginning to end; it was playing
at loving your neighbour, the most open farce which even children
and stupid peasant women saw through! Take for instance your--
what was it called?--house for homeless old women without relations,
of which you made me something like a head doctor, and of which you
were the patroness. Mercy on us! What a charming institution it
was! A house was built with parquet floors and a weathercock on the
roof; a dozen old women were collected from the villages and made
to sleep under blankets and sheets of Dutch linen, and given toffee
to eat."

The doctor gave a malignant chuckle into his hat, and went on
speaking rapidly and stammering:

"It was a farce! The attendants kept the sheets and the blankets
under lock and key, for fear the old women should soil them--'Let
the old devil's pepper-pots sleep on the floor.' The old women did
not dare to sit down on the beds, to put on their jackets, to walk
over the polished floors. Everything was kept for show and hidden
away from the old women as though they were thieves, and the old
women were clothed and fed on the sly by other people's charity,
and prayed to God night and day to be released from their pr