And Kranitski, with a little worse accent in the same language, repeated the question a number of times.
Maryan, continuing to walk through the chamber, narrated the conversation with his father and the ultimatum given him. The baron laughed noiselessly, and inquired; Kranitski gave out cries of indignation. Maryan, with a fiery face and feverish movement, added:
"I had thought that man worthy of my admiration. Logical, consequent, unconquerable, formed of one piece. A magnificent monolith. No sentiments, no prejudices. Permitting no one to disturb the development of his individuality. I understood that his method of rearing me, and then pushing me to the highest spheres of life, pointed to this, that I was to live for his honor. I was to be one of the columns of that temple which he had raised to his own glory. But just that absoluteness with which he used everything for his own purposes roused in me homage. The power of producing was in him equal to his power of egotism. So must it be with every individuality fashioned by nature not on a model, but originally. I did not know him much, and desired a nearer acquaintance. I was certain that we should understand each other perfectly; that I should behold from nearby a magnificent monolith. Meanwhile it was stuck over with labels of various kinds of trash, and covered with half a hundred stains of the past—"
"He remembered the school of training and labor in time," laughed
Kranitski.
"Peste!" hissed the baron. "What a rheumatism of thought!"
"Moral principles!" added Kranitski, "he himself practises them beautifully. Let him give even half of his millions to that poverty which is ashamed to beg. Oh, he will not! He will not do that! By the help of moral principles it is easy to put sacred burdens on other men's shoulders."
"That is it," added Maryan, "on other men's shoulders you have hit the point, my old man. Yes! So many years he cared for nothing; he considered nothing; now on a sudden he has thrown down the edifice which he himself built. I know not as to others; but, as for me, I shall stick to my rights. I cannot permit myself to fall a victim to this sad accident, that my father is a mental rheumatic."
He stopped, meditated a moment, then added:
"That is even more than rheumatism of thought; it is the exudation of a decaying past, filling the brain with the corruption—of a corpse."
"Corruption of a corpse! very apt this expression!" exclaimed the baron.