“So you have read him? You read German?”
“Yes, tolerably; that is, well enough for Schiller and Uhland, but not well enough for Jean Paul and Goethe.”
“Never mind; trust me for a guide; you shall now venture upon both.”
“But how will you be able to give up time valuable as yours to such teachings? Would it be fair of me, besides, to steal hours that ought to be devoted to your country?”
Though I had not the slightest imaginable ground to suspect any secret sarcasm in this speech, my guilty conscience made me feel it as a perfect torture. “She knows me,” thought I, “and this sneer at my pretended importance is intended to overwhelm me.”
“As to my country's claims,” said I, haughtily, “I make light of them. All that I have seen of life only shows the shallowness of what is called the public service. I am resolved to leave it, and forever.”
“And for what?”
“A life of retirement,—obscurity if you will.”
“It is what I should do if I were a man.”
“Indeed!”