"But you were the happier for your ignorance."
"No, father. The struggle is too terrible. Often have I sat and wept. Ish-lui, time after time my book—destined as it was to success—came back to me from the publishers. And I could have produced it myself all along!"
Pangs of remorse agitated me. Had my plan been, indeed, a failure? "But you have the pride of unhelped success."
"And the bitter memories. And once—" He paused.
"Once?" I said.
"Once I loved a girl. She is dead now, so it doesn't matter. There were many and complicated obstacles to our union. With money they would have been overcome."
"Poor boy!" I said wonderingly, for I knew nothing of this apparently new love episode. "Forgive me, my son, if I have acted mistakenly. Anyhow, from this moment your happiness is my sole care."
"No," he said, with sudden determination. "It is too late now. You meant it for the best, papasha. But I do not want the money now. I have money of my own—and glory. Why should I give up what my own hands have won?"
"Because I ask it of you, Paul; because I ask you to allow me to make reparation for the mischief I have done."
"The truest reparation will be to let things go unrepaired," he said, with a touch of sarcasm. "I shall be happier as editor of this paper. What finer medium for my ideas than a great newspaper? What more potent lever to my hand for raising Holy Russia to a yet higher plane? No, father. Let bygones be bygones. Give my share of your wealth to a society for helping struggling talent. I struggle no longer. Leave me to go on in the path my pen has carved out."