"To be sure. They have attempted once more to treat me like a schoolboy, who, when he has accomplished his daily appointed task, is to be watched, and made to render an account of every step he takes, even in his hours of recreation. I have made it clear to them that I am tired of their everlasting guardianship." The Captain did not ask what step the quarrel was about; the short conversation with Jonas seemed to have explained all that sufficiently; he only said, shaking his head--"It is unfortunate that you are so completely dependent upon our uncle. If later on it end in a regular rupture between you, and you leave the business, it would become a question of existence for you--your income goes entirely with it. You, yourself, might trust wholly to your compositions, but to think they could support a family yet would be making your future very uncertain from the beginning. I had only myself to act for; you will be compelled to wait until a greater work places you in the position of being able to turn your back, with your wife and child, upon all the envy of a small provincial town." "Impossible!" cried Reinhold almost madly. "By that time I shall have foundered ten times over, and what talent I possess with me. Endure, wait, perhaps for years? I cannot do it, it is the same thing to me as suicide. My new work is completed. If only in some degree it attain the success of the first, it would enable me to live at least a few months in Italy." Hugo was staggered. CHAPTER V. "You are going to Italy? Why there particularly?" asked the Captain. "Where then?" interposed Reinhold impatiently. "Italy is the school of all art and artists. There alone could I complete the meagre, defective study to which circumstances confined me. Can you not understand that?" "No," said the Captain, somewhat coldly. "I do not see the necessity that a beginner should go at once to the higher school. You can find opportunity enough for study here; most of our talented men have had to struggle and work for years before Italy at last crowned their work. Supposing, however, you carry out your plan, what is to become of your wife and child in the meanwhile? Do you intend to take them with you?" "Ella?" cried the young man, in an almost contemptuous voice. "That would be the most certain method of rendering my success impossible. Do you think, that in the first step I take towards freedom, I could drag the whole chain of domestic misery with me?" A slight frown was perceptible between Hugo's eyes-- "That sounds very hard, Reinhold," he answered. "Is it my fault, that I am at last conscious of the truth?" growled Reinhold. "My wife cannot raise herself above the sphere of cooking and household management. It is not her fault, I know, but it is not therefore any less the misfortune of my life."