(No, he would not! They had tortured him into lying; they had snuffed about in his soul, and uprooted good seeds as though they were weeds; they wished to stifle his personality, which had just as good a right to exist as their own; they had never been forbearing with his faults, why should he be so with theirs? Because Christ had said.... That had become a matter of complete indifference, and had no application to him now. For the rest, he did not bother about those at home, but shut himself up in himself. They were unsympathetic to him, and could not obtain his sympathy. That was the whole thing in a nutshell. They had faults and wanted him to pardon them. Very well, he did so, if they would only leave him in peace!)
"Learn to be grateful to your parents, who spare no pains in promoting your true welfare and happiness (hm!), and that this may be brought about through love to God your Creator, who has caused you to be born in this improving (hm! hm!) environment, for obtaining peace and blessedness is the prayer of your anxious but hopeful
"AXEL."
"I have had enough of father confessors and inquisitors," thought John; he had escaped and felt himself free. They stretched their claws after him, but he was beyond their reach. His friend's letter was insincere and artificial; "the hands were the hands of Esau." He returned no answer to it, but broke off all intercourse with both his friends.
They called him ungrateful. A person who insists on gratitude is worse than a creditor, for he first makes a present on which he plumes himself, and then sends in the account—an account which can never be paid, for a service done in return does not seem to extinguish the debt of gratitude; it is a mortgage on a man's soul, a debt which cannot be paid, and which stretches over the whole subsequent life. Accept a service from your friend, and he will expect you to falsify your opinion of him and to praise his own evil deeds, and those of his wife and children.
But gratitude is a deep feeling which honours a man and at the same time humiliates him. Would that a time may come when it will not be necessary to fetter ourselves with gratitude for a benefit, which perhaps is a mere duty.
John felt ashamed of the breach with his friends, but they hindered and oppressed him. After all, what had they given him in social intercourse which he had not given back?
Fritz, as his friend with the pince-nez was called, was a prudent man of the world. These two epithets "prudent" and "man of the world" had a bad significance at that time. To be prudent in a romantic period, when all were a little cracked, and to be cracked was considered a mark of the upper classes, was almost synonymous with being bad. To be a man of the world when all attempted, as well as they could, to deceive themselves in religion, was considered still worse. Fritz was prudent. He wished to lead his own life in a pleasant way and to make a career for himself. He therefore sought the acquaintance of those in good social position. That was prudent, because they had power and money. Why should he not seek them? How did he come to make friends with John? Perhaps through a sort of animal sympathy, perhaps through long habit. John could not do any special service for him except to whisper answers to him in the class and to lend him books. For Fritz did not learn his lessons, and spent in punch the money which was intended for books.
Now when he saw that John was inwardly purified, and that his outer man was presentable, he introduced him to his own coterie. This was a little circle of young fellows, some of them rich and some of them of good rank belonging to the same class as John. The latter was a little shy at first, but soon stood on a good footing with them. One day, at drill time, Fritz told him that he had been invited to a ball.
"I to a ball? Are you mad? I would certainly be out of place there."