Only toward Bouverot Albano showed a steady coldness; but the Knight was friendly. Albano, brought up more among books than among men, often wondered within himself, that in the former the same difference of sentiments passed by him so lightly, which among the latter assailed him so sharply. At last his father asked him upon one occasion, "Why dost thou demean thyself so strangely toward Herr von Bouverot? Nothing exasperates more than a considerate, quiet hatred; a passionate hatred does so far less." "Because it is my law," he answered, "to flee and to hate the everlasting untruthfulness of men in their connections with each other. Out of mere humanity to place one's self on a par with unlike persons, designedly to make a friendly face to any one, to have such a feeling towards a man, that one is not at liberty to speak it out to him on the spot, that may well be deemed complete slavery, and confounds the purest." "Whoso will love nothing but his likeness," replied Gaspard, "has nothing but himself to love. Von Bouverot," he added, laughing, "is, after all, a brave host and travelling _compagnon_." Albano, who could withstand even people whom he respected, made no inquisition upon his father, but thought the German gentleman only the more despicable. That gentleman, born a pettifogger and pedler, had, it must be observed, cleared a pathway of deep footprints for himself in the snow of the Knight and the Princess,--both of whom, like all long travellers,[73] were uncommonly avaricious,--by overseeing and overreaching all hosts and Italians in settling up the _Patto_,[74] and even by his understanding the art of being profoundly coarse just at the right time, whereas upon turning from the host to the Princess he would become as much a man of the world again as Fontenelle or any Frenchman, who in such cases always counts up and curses longer than he eats. The Knight of the Fleece, who, as he confessed, had never travelled so cheaply, covered him, therefore, with the laurel which grew all about here, and looked as gay as he had never looked before. Only to his son was the cold, wrathful, coarse man a volcano, ejecting slime and water. Ride a mile ahead of a crowned head or a classic author, who is also one, and in general before people who have money, but not to spare, and only save them a few gold pieces a day,--never shall you have seen the said heads more glad or grateful than in such a case!