"I beg pardon for that, father, but I am wonderfully slow in writing letters. I will explain all to you willingly in words—"
Darvid interrupted:
"I have no time for long talk, so tell me at once. Have you no love for science?"
Maryan let out a streak of smoke from his lips, and spoke with deliberation:
"I feel no repugnance whatever toward science. I read much, and mental curiosity is just one of the most emphatic traits of my individuality. In childhood I swallowed books in monumental numbers, but I have never learned school lessons. All were astonished at this, and still the thing is simple, it lies quite on the surface. Common individualities yield to rules, but energetic and higher ones will not endure them. Rules and duty are stables in which humanity confines its beasts, to prevent them from injuring fields under culture. Cattle and sheep stand patiently in the enclosures, higher organisms break them down and go out into freedom. I need absolute freedom in all things; and,-therefore, I stopped going to inns of science, which give out this science at stated hours, in certain sorts and doses. Though, even in this regard, I showed many good intentions, owing to the entreaties and persuasions of mamma. From legal studies I betook myself to the study of nature, and turned from that to philosophy, thinking that something would occupy me, and that I should be able to still that real storm of desperation which seized poor mamma. But I was not able. The professors were contemptible, my fellow-students a rabble. Society relations amused me in those days, and occupied me: imagination swept me farther and higher. So I stopped a labor which was annoying and irritating, and which, moreover, had no object."
He quenched his cigarette stump in the ash-pan, and, sinking again into the deep armchair, continued:
"So far as I have been able to observe, people study science regularly for one of two purposes: either they intend to devote themselves to what is called the salvation of mankind, or they need to win a morsel of bread for their stomachs. Neither of these objects could be mine; for, as to the first, I hold the principle of individuality carried quite to anarchy. The so-called salvation of society is, for our decadent epoch, a fable, quite impossible; and the naked truth is, that each man lives for himself, and in his own fashion. The man whom fate serves well passes his life in a manner more or less agreeable; if it serves him ill—he perishes. Luck, and the chance meeting of causes, arranges everything. It is impossible to turn the earth into a general paradise, just as it is to change a small planet into an immense one. The salvation of society is one of the narcotics invented to lull the sufferings of people. Altruists possess a whole drug-shop of these narcotics; whoever wishes has the right to use them; but, as for me, I prefer not to be lulled to sleep. I am an individualist, and do not understand why Pavel must suffer for the purpose of decreasing the pains of Gavel. Let Gavel, as well as Pavel, think of himself; and, if they are clever, they will both help themselves somehow without turning to labelled bottles. This is my conviction about one of the objects for which people make regular studies in science. As to the other—"
He took out his cigarette-ease again, and, lighting a cigarette, finished:
"As to the other object, that is a simple thing; since being your son, my father, I shall not need to bake my own bread. Such is my confession of faith which I have laid down before you; all the more readily since I have long cherished a genuine reverence for your strength of mind and independence. I am certain, too, that by no one could I be understood better than by you, my father."
He was mistaken. The man to whom he was talking so fluently and politely did not understand him in any sense.