"Hania? Not in the least. That would amuse thee."
I lied as if possessed; but it passed off more smoothly than I had expected.
"Then has not Lola Ustrytski? Hei?"
"Lola Ustrytski, a coquette!"
My father became impatient.
"Then what the devil is it? If thou art not in love, go as a soldier to the first muster."
"Do I know what the matter is? Nothing is the matter with me."
But I was tormented and made more impatient by questions which in their anxiety neither my father nor the priest spared, nor even Pani d'Yves. At last relations with them became disagreeable. I was carried away by everything and enraged at every trifle. Father Ludvik saw in this certain traits of a despotic character coming to the surface with age, and looking at my father significantly he laughed and said,—
"Topknot chickens by blood!"
But even he lost patience sometimes. Between my father and me there were frequently very disagreeable passages. Once at dinner during a dispute about nobility and democracy I so forgot myself as to declare that I should prefer a hundred times not to be born a noble. My father ordered me to leave the room. The women fell to crying because of this, and the whole house was embittered for two days.