Chapter 21 - Page 2

desire to make a parade of disliking the
notion of being an heir (somehow I thought it the thing to do).
"You cannot think how I loathed the whole two hours that I spent
there!--Yet he is a fine-looking old fellow, and was very kind to
me," I added--wishing, among other things, to disabuse my friend
of any possible idea that my loathing had arisen out of the fact
that I had felt so small. "It is only the idea that people may be
classing me with the Princess who lives with him, and who licks
the dust off his boots. He is a wonderful old man, and good and
considerate to everybody, but it is awful to see how he treats
the Princess. Money is a detestable thing, and ruins all human
relations.

"Do you know, I think it would be far the best thing for me to
have an open explanation with the Prince," I went on; "to tell
him that I respect him as a man, but think nothing of being his
heir, and that I desire him to leave me nothing, since that is
the only condition on which I can, in future, visit his house."

Instead of bursting out laughing when I said this, Dimitri
pondered awhile in silence, and then answered:

"You are wrong. Either you ought to refrain from supposing that
people may be classing you with this Princess of whom you speak,
or, if you DO suppose such a thing, you ought to suppose further
that people are thinking what you yourself know quite well--
namely, that such thoughts are so utterly foreign to your nature
that you despise them and would never make them a basis for
action. Suppose, however, that people DO suppose you to suppose
such a thing--Well, to sum up," he added, feeling that he was
getting a little mixed in his pronouncements, "you had much
better not suppose anything of the kind."

My friend was perfectly right, though it was not until long, long
afterwards that experience of life taught me the evil that comes
of thinking--still worse, of saying--much that seems very fine;
taught me that there are certain thoughts which should always be
kept to oneself, since brave words seldom go with brave deeds. I
learnt then that the mere fact of giving utterance to a good
intention often makes it difficult, nay, impossible, to carry
that good intention into effect. Yet how is one to refrain from
giving utterance to the brave, self-sufficient impulses of youth?
Only long afterwards does one remember and regret them, even as
one incontinently plucks a flower before its blooming, and
subsequently finds it lying crushed and withered on the ground.

The very next morning I, who had just been telling my friend
Dimitri that money corrupts all human relations, and had (as we
have seen) squandered the whole of my cash