urself from the labels which other men, even wise ones for the
period, have never ceased from pasting on their persons. If in
your career you had knocked against painted pots, labelled:
birthplace, fatherland, humanity, charity, etc., you would have
gone at considerably less speed, and not gone so far. But you
were astonishingly logical. With amazing strength and
unsparingness you have known how to will. It is from this point
precisely that I looked, and I was filled with real admiration.
During your absence, of more than three years, I called you
frequently, in thought, a superhuman. Friederich Nietsche
imagined such men as you when--"

He stopped here, raising a glance full of astonishment at his
father's face. Darvid, very pale, with quivering temples, stood
up, leaned firmly on the table, and said:

"Enough!"

Unable to conceal the violent emotion which he felt, under an
ironical tone and laugh, he continued:

"Enough of this mockery of reasoning and argument, and of all
this empty twaddle. If it was your intention to pass an
examination before me, I give you five with plus. You have fluent
speech, and quite a rich vocabulary of words. But I have no time
for those things and proceed to facts and figures. The life which
you are leading is impossible, and you must change. You must
begin another life."

He put emphasis on the word must. Maryan looked at his father
with an amazement which seemed to take away his speech.

"You have not ended your twenty-third year yet, and the history
of your romances has acquired broad notoriety in the world a
number of times--"

Maryan recovered from his amazement slowly.

"Affairs so completely personal--" began he with a hesitating
voice.

Darvid, paying no attention to the interruption, continued:

"The sum which you lost in betting at the last races was, even
for my fortune, considerable--thirty thousand."

Maryan had now almost recovered his balance.

"If this shrift is indispensable I will correct the
figures--thirty-six thousand."

"The suppers which you give to friends, male and female, have the
fame of Lucullus feasts."

Maryan, with sparks of hidden irritation in his eyes, laughed.

"An exaggeration! Our poor Borel has no idea of Lucullus, but
that he plunders us, unmercifully, is true."

"He knows how to will!" threw in Darvid.

Maryan raised his eyes to him, and said:

"He is making a fortune."

This time, in his turn, astonishment was depicted o