'You are a weather-cock.'
'On the contrary,' replied the Doctor. 'My observation has
confirmed my fears. It will not do, Otto, not do.'
'What will not do?' demanded the Prince, with a sickening stab of
pain.
'None of it,' answered Gotthold. 'You are unfitted for a life of
action; you lack the stamina, the habit, the restraint, the
patience. Your wife is greatly better, vastly better; and though
she is in bad hands, displays a very different aptitude. She is a
woman of affairs; you are - dear boy, you are yourself. I bid you
back to your amusements; like a smiling dominie, I give you holidays
for life. Yes,' he continued, 'there is a day appointed for all
when they shall turn again upon their own philosophy. I had grown
to disbelieve impartially in all; and if in the atlas of the
sciences there were two charts I disbelieved in more than all the
rest, they were politics and morals. I had a sneaking kindness for
your vices; as they were negative, they flattered my philosophy; and
I called them almost virtues. Well, Otto, I was wrong; I have
forsworn my sceptical philosophy; and I perceive your faults to be
unpardonable. You are unfit to be a Prince, unfit to be a husband.
And I give you my word, I would rather see a man capably doing evil
than blundering about good.'
Otto was still silent, in extreme dudgeon.
Presently the Doctor resumed: 'I will take the smaller matter first:
your conduct to your wife.
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