That he would do what he had said any man who saw him then might feel certain.
The bloom on Maryan's cheeks took on a brick color; his eyes filled with steel sparks.
"The system of taking fortresses through famine," said he, in an undertone; and, then with head inclined somewhat, and eyes fixed on the carpet, he said:
"I am astonished. I thought, father, that in spite of my seeing you rarely, I knew you well; now I find that I did not know you at all. I admired in you that power of thought which was able to strike from you the bonds of every prejudice; now, I have convinced myself that your ideas are not only patriarchal, but despotic. This is a deception which pains. I wonder myself, even, that this affects me so powerfully; but in falling from heights one must always hurt, even the point of the nose. This is one lesson more not to climb heights. I have in me a cursed imagination which leads me astray. One more mirage has vanished; one more painted pot has lost its colors. What is to be done?"
He said this in a low voice, biting his lower lip at times; he was pained in reality, and deeply. After a while he continued:
"What is to be done? I must be resigned to the disappointment which has met me; but as to disposing of my person so absolutely, I protest. Had it been your intention, my father, to make a mill-hand of me, you should have begun that work earlier. My individuality is now developed, and cannot be pounded in through the gate of a given cemetery. To rear me as a great lord and permit—even demand—during a rather long period that I should use all the good things of society, and be distinguished most brilliantly for your sake, and then thrust into a school of economy, modesty, and labor is—pardon me if I call the thing by its name—illogical and devoid of sequence. I might even add, that it lacks justice; but I do not wish to defend myself with arguments taken from painted pots. One thing is certain—namely this: that I shall not be the victim of patriarchal despotism."
He rose, took his hat from the carpet, and calmly, elegantly, but with a brick-colored flush on his cheeks, and a blue, swollen vein on his forehead, he added:
"I know not what I shall do. It may happen me to be the creator of my own destiny. I know how to be this; and I shall decide more readily to be a workman at my own will than at the will of another. I shall surely leave this place. Expatriation has come to my mind more than once, but not in the direction in which you have seen fit to indicate. Besides, I do not know yet, for this has fallen suddenly. I shall look into myself; I shall look around me. Meanwhile, I must go; for I have promised one of my friends to be at a certain collector's place at a given hour, to examine a very curious picture. It is an original; an authentic Overbeck. A rare thing; a real find—I take farewell of you, my father."
He made a low bow and went out. Exquisite elegance did not desert him for an instant; still, in the expression of his face, and especially his excited complexion, and his voice, too, indignation and distress were evident in a degree which bordered on suffering.
The door of the antechamber opened and closed. Darvid was as if petrified. What was this? What had happened? Was it possible that this should be the end of the conversation, and that such a conversation should end in Overbeck, and a perfectly elegant bow? Wonderful man! Yes, for that was no petulant child, with childish requests, evasions, outbursts; but a premature man, almost an old man. A reasoner; a pessimist; a sceptic. A genial head! What elegance! What command of self. A princely exterior. Marvellous man! What could he do with him? If he had asked for forgiveness; had promised, in part, even to accommodate himself to his father's wishes; even to change his life a little. But this iron persistence and unshaken confidence in himself, joined with perfect politeness, and with reason which would not yield a step! What was to be done with him? Fortresses are taken sometimes through famine; but, suppose it is resolved on everything except yielding. Well, he would try; he would keep his word; he would see.