My father frowned; seeing, however, that in this way he could not bring me to terms, he chose another. He smiled under his gray mustache, half closed one eye, in the fashion of a soldier, took me gently by the ear, and asked, as if joking,-- "But has Hania, perhaps, turned thine own head? Speak, my boy." "Hania? Not in the least. That would amuse thee." I lied as if possessed; but it passed off more smoothly than I had expected. "Then has not Lola Ustrytski? Hei?" "Lola Ustrytski, a coquette!" My father became impatient. "Then what the devil is it? If thou art not in love, go as a soldier to the first muster." "Do I know what the matter is? Nothing is the matter with me." But I was tormented and made more impatient by questions which in their anxiety neither my father nor the priest spared, nor even Pani d'Yves. At last relations with them became disagreeable. I was carried away by everything and enraged at every trifle. Father Ludvik saw in this certain traits of a despotic character coming to the surface with age, and looking at my father significantly he laughed and said,-- "Topknot chickens by blood!" But even he lost patience sometimes. Between my father and me there were frequently very disagreeable passages. Once at dinner during a dispute about nobility and democracy I so forgot myself as to declare that I should prefer a hundred times not to be born a noble. My father ordered me to leave the room. The women fell to crying because of this, and the whole house was embittered for two days. As to me, I was neither an aristocrat nor a democrat; I was simply in love and unhappy. There was no place in me whatever for principles, theories, or social convictions; and if I fought in the name of some against others, I did so only through vexation, to annoy it is unknown whom or why, just as I began religious disputes with Father Ludvik to annoy him. These disputes ended with slamming of doors. In short, I poisoned not the existence of myself only, but that of the whole house; and when after ten days Selim returned, a stone, as it were, fell from every one's breast. When he came I was not at home, for I was racing about through the neighborhood on horseback. I returned only toward evening and went straight to the farm buildings, where a stable-boy said, while taking my horse,-- "The Panich has come from Horeli." At that moment Kazio came up and repeated the same news. "I know that already," answered I, harshly. "Where is Selim now?" "In the garden with Hania, I think. I will go and look for him." We both went to the garden, but Kazio ran ahead. I, not hurrying purposely with the greeting, had not gone fifty steps when, at the bend of the alley, I saw Kazio hastening back. Kazio, who was a great rogue and a joker, began from afar to make gestures and grimaces like a monkey. His face was red; he held his finger to his mouth and laughed, stifling laughter at the same time. When he came up to me he called in a low voice,--