“You, Ivan?”
“Paris, for me, of all places in the world!” replied Ivan, without any suspicion that the answer would be displeasing to the father.
“I might have known so,” muttered the baron, with a slight frown clouding his forehead.
“O papa!” added Ivan, noticing the shade of displeasure which his answer had produced; “I don’t care particularly about Paris. I’ll go anywhere—to America, if Alexis likes it best—all round the world for that matter.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the baron; “that sounds better, Ivan; and, since you offer no objection to it, all round the world you shall go.”
“Indeed? I’m glad to hear it,” said Alexis.
“What! visit all the great cities of the world?” exclaimed Ivan, whose mind was evidently occupied with the delights of great cities.
“So” replied his father; “it is just that which I do not intend you shall do. There is a great deal to be learnt in cities, but much that would be better not learnt at all. I have no objection to your passing through cities—for you must needs do so on your journey—but one of the conditions which I shall prescribe is, that you make stay in no city, longer than you can arrange for getting out of it. It is through countries I wish you to travel—amidst the scenes of nature—and not in towns and cities, where you would see very little more than you can in Saint Petersburg itself. It is Nature I wish you to become acquainted with, and you must see it in its most primitive forms. There only can you appreciate Nature in all its sublimity and grandeur.”
“Agreed, papa!” exclaimed both the boys at once. “Which way do you wish us to go?”
“All round the world, as Ivan has suggested.”