Then, as to women--how is it about women?
Boy, don't be so hard in the mouth.... Do you think I don't know you are in love?...
Just think, my boy, only a year and a half ago, you came to me one fine day and explained to me that you wished to engage yourself to Agnes.... You know that I have not the slightest objection to Agnes. She will make an excellent Frau von Drosse.
But your twenty-one years and, ah, good God!... You still carry about with you most merrily the eggshells on your back--as the infantry carries the knapsack. You hadn't the slightest idea of what are commonly called "women"--of course, I don't count barmaids and such people.... So I said to you: "My boy, let this interview be buried--and above all, so far as Agnes is concerned.... Do as your father and your grandfather did! Get some experience and--then come again." Don't you remember that?
And now, it seems to me, you have had some experience.
You have in the end had a so-called "passion," or are stuck in the middle of it; which of the two I don't know. Yet to judge from the discontinuance of your letters, the latter is the case.... Since we are here together as two men, I will not expostulate with you further.... You know perhaps the story of that abbé who, in society, once excused the absence of his bishop with the words: "Monseigneur est en retard à cause d'amour." To a certain extent, this holds good in every case.... But in spite of that, on your mother's account, don't do it again. That is my advice to you.... There! And now we'll enter at once upon the matter itself.... Just see, Frau von Lanski is, it will be admitted, a very charming woman, but----
Father, how do you come to refer to Frau von Lanski?
There, there, there, only take it calmly, only take it calmly.... I know just what there is to know about such affairs, and I don't by any means wish to pry into your secrets ... But so far as the grand passion is concerned, be calm.... I can cure you again ... Be quite calm.
That I can well believe, father, if only you have the time necessary to do it.
Because, in twenty-four hours, I shall be a dead man.
(_Springing up, and taking him by the shoulder_.) Boy!
Father, I did not wish to tell anything. I came here only to take farewell of you in silence. But you have drawn it out of me, father.