r. If I wished to behave nobly, justly, and with delicacy, I ought
to bestow half my fortune upon the son of my benefactor; but as economy
is my favourite virtue, and I know this is not a case in which the law
can intervene, I will not give up half my millions. But it would be too
openly vile, too flagrantly infamous, if I did not at least restore to
P----'s son the tens of thousands of roubles spent in curing my idiocy.
This is simply a case of conscience and of strict justice. Whatever
would have become of me if P---- had not looked after my education, and
had taken care of his own son instead of me?'

"No, gentlemen, our scions of the nobility do not reason thus. The
lawyer, who had taken up the matter purely out of friendship to the
young man, and almost against his will, invoked every consideration
of justice, delicacy, honour, and even plain figures; in vain, the
ex-patient of the Swiss lunatic asylum was inflexible. All this might
pass, but the sequel is absolutely unpardonable, and not to be excused
by any interesting malady. This millionaire, having but just discarded
the old gaiters of his professor, could not even understand that
the noble young man slaving away at his lessons was not asking for
charitable help, but for his rightful due, though the debt was not a
legal one; that, correctly speaking, he was not asking for anything, but
it was merely his friends who had thought fit to bestir themselves on
his behalf. With the cool insolence of a bloated capitalist, secure in
his millions, he majestically drew a banknote for fifty roubles from his
pocket-book and sent it to the noble young man as a humiliating piece of
charity. You can hardly believe it, gentlemen! You are scandalized and
disgusted; you cry out in indignation! But that is what he did! Needless
to say, the money was returned, or rather flung back in his face. The
case is not within the province of the law, it must be referred to the
tribunal of public opinion; this is what we now do, guaranteeing the
truth of all the details which we have related."

When Colia had finished reading, he handed the paper to the prince, and
retired silently to a corner of the room, hiding his face in his
hands. He was overcome by a feeling of inexpressible shame; his boyish
sensitiveness was wounded beyond endurance. It seemed to him that
something extraordinary, some sudden catastrophe had occurred, and that
he was almost the cause of it, because he had read the art