"Alas!" he replied, "I can see for myself now that you are not much better than these folks"—he pointed with his thumb at my parents—"and that you have never, not even in the least, raised yourself above the level of your birth. Your way of thinking is the way these folks think"—he pointed at my parents again—"and they think as their grandparents did. Progress is to all of you as foreign as China. How can you be so silly," he continued, somewhat more gently, "to ask me what I am going to be? How can I tell to-day? At the present I have not the faintest notion of the conditions and circumstances of Vienna, and how am I to know which of my capacities is likely to be the most eminent? Let me have the choice of a profession, the possibility of a trial, and I will tell you what I am made of."
Greatly ashamed of my ignorance, I was silent again.
"If you possessed brain," my brother continued—"a thing which I am sorry to say I do not suspect you of after I have had the pleasure of exchanging these few words"—he bowed ironically—"you might have perceived by now that I am no ordinary person, but of an artistic turn of mind. These people"—he pointed again at my parents—"have, unfortunately, little or no understanding of that, and will in all probability fail to comprehend the greatness that the future holds in store for me. That is, however, of little consequence; it is you whom I expect to escape from your present station in life"—I admired the delicate way in which he referred to my station—"as soon as possible. It is true that you will never succeed in reaching the height destined for me, but you may, nevertheless, go on to perfect yourself in every way possible, in order to spare me the distress of blushing for your ignorance and social standing later on."
My father had got up from the table some time before, and with his hands crossed on his back nervously paced the room. He coughed now and again, as if something irritated his throat, and it was plain that he was angry. All at once he stopped in front of my brother.
"Don't you think," he asked, "that it would be best for you to mix with your own class of people as soon as possible?"
"Why, of course," my brother replied with utter coolness, "I have already decided to leave for Vienna to-morrow; all that I must ask you is to let me have the money for the journey, a sum so trivial that I can repay it to you multiplied a hundred times in a few months."
They looked quite calmly at each other, but it was a calm that seemed to be loaded with thunder and lightning. My mother must have felt the same, for she got up rather hastily, and her voice trembled as she said: "There is plenty of time to settle that to-morrow. You had better go to bed now."
The thunderstorm, however, broke next day. My brother insisted on a certain sum of money, which my father thought too great and refused to let him have the whole of it.
"Do you want me to reach Vienna without a single penny in my pockets?"
"I will give you as much as I can spare; there are the little ones to be thought of; I cannot let them starve."