“ Sapperlot , Engineer! What is this I am hearing of your activities? So you have thrown yourself into a career of benevolence? You are seeking justification through good works?”

“Nothing worth mentioning, Herr Settembrini. Nothing to make a fuss about. My cousin and I⁠—”

“Don’t talk to me about your cousin. When the two of you make yourselves talked about, it is you we are dealing with. Your cousin’s is a good and simple nature, most worthy of respect; exposed to no intellectual perils, the sort that gives a schoolmaster not one anxious moment. You’ll not make me believe he is the moving spirit. No; yours is the more gifted, if also the more exposed nature. You are, if I may so express myself, life’s delicate child, one has to trouble about you. And moreover you have given me permission to trouble about you.”