He took his son's cape and travelling bag, and gave him his arm as if he were a lady. Looking back into the courtyard, he asked: "Why, the cart is empty! Why haven't you brought your luggage from the station?" "My luggage? Why, father, do you think I am married and drag about boxes and portmanteaux with me? My things are in the dressing-bag; besides the fittings, there are a couple of shirts and a few pairs of gloves--that's all." He talked vivaciously and in a loud voice, and laughed much. Pressing his father's hand several times, he continued: "Well, and how are you, father? What's the news? I am told you are doing very well with your piqués and dimities.... Let us sit down." They clinked their glasses and finished their lunch quickly. When they had retired to the study, Ferdinand said, lighting a cigar: "I must introduce the French way of living here, and especially the French way of cooking." The father made a grimace. "Why? Isn't the German cuisine good enough?" "The Germans are pigs!" "What?" said the old man. "I say the Germans are pigs," laughed the son. "They neither know how to eat nor how to enjoy themselves." "Well," interrupted the father, "and what are you?" "I? I am a human being--in other words, a citizen of the world." That his son should call himself cosmopolitan mattered little to Adler, but he was much hurt by the wholesale relegation of Germans to the class of unclean animals. "I thought, my dear Ferdinand, that you might have learnt some sense for the sixty thousand roubles you have spent." The son flung away his cigar and fell on his father's neck. "What an excellent father you are!" he exclaimed, kissing him. "What a fine example of a real, stereotyped, conservative Baron! Well, don't frown--cheer up! Come, don't look so glum!" He seized him by his hands and drew him into the middle of the room. Tapping his chest, he said: "What a chest! ... what calves! If I had a young wife, I should know who to be jealous of. And you really mean to say all the same that you agree with these dead and stale theories? 'The devil take the Germans and their cookery!' That is a motto worthy of the age and of strong men." "You must be crazy," interrupted the father, somewhat pacified. "But what are you if you have ceased to be a German?" "I?" replied Ferdinand with mock seriousness. "Among Germans I am a Polish nobleman, Adler von Adlersdorf; among Frenchmen I am a republican and a democrat." Such was Ferdinand's first meeting with his father, and such were the spiritual gains of his stay abroad, paid for with sixty thousand roubles.