"And perfectly characterless," replies Nikolai. "You were pleased that she overlooked Mascha's precipitation so easily yesterday. I was not. Aunt Barbara is in bad circumstances; if I am not mistaken, she will very soon turn to you in her money matters, and with Mascha she will play the rôle of an indulgent step-mother, who flatters the step-child in order not to offend the father. If Mascha is to prosper, she must live with people who understand her, who love her, but who are conscientious enough to be severe with her, and to guide her from time to time, tenderly but firmly, in the right way. She is much too gifted, much too obstinate for one to dare to leave her to herself. Mascha is a little race-horse who must be caressed, spared, but held very firmly in check. I know her better than you, for I have had more opportunity to observe her, and I tell you it is really dangerous to leave Mascha with people who will trouble themselves as little about her as the Jeliagins."
"You exaggerate, you exaggerate," grumbled Lensky. "Besides, how can I help it? Shall I shut up my song-bird in a cage, in a convent or a boarding-school? I tried it. She would not bear it. What shall I do with her?"
"Take her with you," says Nikolai.
"With me! That is impossible," bursts out Lensky--"impossible! What can a widower do with a grown daughter?"
Nikolai frowned. For a moment he is silent, then he says: "Do you remember how strongly you expressed yourself about Kasin, when he sent his daughter out into the wide world merely because she interfered with his bachelor life?"
Lensky's face darkens. This time Nikolai's remark has hit its aim. "And you will draw a comparison between me and Kasin?" says he, slowly, cuttingly.
Nikolai thinks he has gone too far. "Naturally I did not think of that," he begins; "the actions of a great artist, of a genius----"
But there Lensky interrupts him.
"Spare me this genius; I am sick of being eternally pursued with this word," he cries. "I will be judged as a man with Kasin. As a man, what have I in common with this frivolous egoist, who first ran through his own and his wife's property, and then lived on still poorer devils, while he went about the world without troubling himself that his wife, his child, meanwhile suffered from hunger, without asking if they were well or ill; while I"--he drew a deep breath--"while I have tormented myself, worried myself about you my whole life long? All that you possess I won with my head and hands. God knows, I desired little for myself, but for you nothing was good enough. And if one of you wanted anything, I left everything and came from the ends of the earth to look after you--" He stops, out of breath.
"And you stayed with us as long as you were worried about us," says Nikolai, softly. "Yes, father, you were boundlessly generous to us, and still miserly. You never denied us anything, and still everything--yourself!"