"What induced me?" replied Oswald; "I hardly know myself. This only I know: I always had an innate horror of what the world calls a permanent place; then the influence of Professor Berger, who advised me earnestly not to tie myself down before my time, but first to wander a few years about in the world. My present engagement actually binds me to do so, as soon as my pupils shall have wings able to bear them abroad." "Do you know, I fear, or rather I hope, you will not be able to carry out the plans of your eccentric friend as far as he intended?" "Why?" "Because--pardon me if I am too candid--because you are here in a false position, which must sooner or later become unbearable. Such a position is good only for one who cannot stand on his own feet, and is compelled to lean upon others; one who is accustomed from childhood up to subordinate his will to that of others, or rather, one who has no will and no opinion of his own. You are nothing of the kind. You are far too important for these people. They annoy you, and _vice versâ_. You think the baroness, what she really is, an ambitious, proud, avaricious person, stupid in spite of her reading; the baroness thinks you, what you are not, an immensely conceited, supercilious fool. You live in the same house, you eat at the same table, and yet you have no more points of contact than if a world lay between you. You stay together because neither of you chooses to say the word that will part you till the moment comes when one or the other will be compelled to utter it. Am I right?" "I cannot deny it." "You see! And the matter will be worse and worse." "Why so?"