“And you will go without means, in shameful dependence and poverty?”
“Without means and in poverty. Not in dependence.”
“Folly!”
“What can hard words avail to-day, father?”
“And is this an irrevocable necessity?”
“Yes, irrevocable.”
“And also the parting between ourselves and you?”
“It is you who desire it; it has become a necessity to me.”
The Privy Councillor fell silent. Only a gentle swaying of his trunk gave evidence that inwardly he was a broken man. Up to this moment he had nursed a hope; he had not believed in the inevitable. He had followed a faint beam of light, which had now vanished and left him in the darkness. His heart crumbled in a vain love for the son who had faced him with an inevitability which he could not comprehend. And all that he had conquered in this world—power, wealth, honours, a golden station in a realm of splendour—suddenly became to him frightfully meaningless and desolate.