Frederick made himself comfortable in one of the blue arm-chairs, and opened the envelope.  He found a letter from his mother also.  But he was more anxious to learn his father’s feelings and opinion of the step he had taken, and he read his letter first.

* * * * *

Dear Frederick,

I do not know whether this letter will find you, or where it will find you.  Perhaps not until you reach New York, where it may arrive later than you.  I should really like you to have your old father’s and mother’s greetings on your trip, which is something of a surprise to us.  But we are used to surprises from you, since we have not had your unreserved confidence for a long time.  I am a fatalist, and far from wishing to bore you with reproaches; but it is a pity that ever since you have been of age, so many differences have arisen in our ways of thinking and acting.  A great pity, God knows.  If only you had sometimes listened to me—­but, as I said, there’s no use to come limping after with “if only’s” and the like.

My dear boy, now that fate has afflicted you so sorely—­I told you from the very first that Angele comes of a diseased family—­at least hold your head up.  If you do, then nothing’s lost.  And I especially beseech you—­don’t take that nonsense of your failure with bacilli too much to heart.  You know, I’ve already told you I think all the noise they make about bacilli is a hoax.  Why, Pettenkofer himself swallowed the whole culture of a typhus bacillus without its hurting him.

For all I care, go to America.  It may not be a bad idea and need not be a failure, I know persons whose lives were wrecked here and who went to America and returned millionaires, to be envied and fawned upon.  I don’t doubt that after all you have gone through, you have carefully weighed and considered the step you are taking.  Dear Frederick, I beg of you, concentrate.  The man who wants too much wants nothing.  Above all, get rid of your philanthropic notions.  You would never believe me when I told you that you uselessly sacrificed your money, your time, and your career to your philanthropic notions.  And don’t take up with Utopias, such as, for example, Socialism is, even at best.  Bismarck is gone.  The exceptional law against the Socialists has been repealed.  Now we’ll be seeing wonders from that pack of red internationals without a country.  Did you read that some Anarchist dogs have again been throwing bombs—­in Paris in a cafe not far from the Gare St. Lazare, right among a lot of innocent people, and seven or eight were killed.  My dear boy, you were in Paris.  For God’s sake, in the discontented mood you are in, don’t throw yourself in with such desperate elements.

Forgive me.  It was a slip of my pen.  But here in Goerlitz, far from the firing line, even a rational man, when he is troubled, begins to imagine things.  With your talents you might have been an officer on a general’s staff long ago.