"My dear father, we are veritably poor, at least! We cheerfully endure our privations; and if in my days of ambition, I have sometimes dreamed of a more comfortable existence, it was not for myself, you may rest assured, for I am perfectly satisfied with my fate." "I know your kind heart, my dear boy, as well as your love for me; and my only consolation in our poverty is to know that you do not complain of your condition." "Complain! do you not share it with me? and then, after all, what more could we want?" "We might want a little more comfort." "Upon my word, I don't see it in that light, father. We don't eat stuffed chicken, it is true; but we eat all we want and with appetite--witness this empty paper and the disappearance of the four-pound loaf between us. Our clothes are shabby and worn, but they are warm; our room is up five nights of stairs, but it shelters us; we earn from sixteen to eighteen hundred francs per annum between us--the sum is not enormous, but it suffices; we have no debts! Ah! my dear father, may heaven never send us worse days, and I shall never complain." "My dear boy, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to hear you speak thus, and to see you accept your fate so bravely. Tell me the truth--have you--have you always been happy?" "Very happy." "Truly?" "Why should I try to deceive you? Now, my dear father, have you ever seen me gloomy or thoughtful? do I look like a discontented person?" "You are endowed with such an excellent character!" "Oh, that depends on circumstances! If, for instance, I were obliged to live with M. Ramon, that abominable griping miser, I should certainly become unbearable, unmanageable and frantic!" "What can you have against that poor man?" "All the ferocious resentment and rancour gathered during five days of torture!" "Torture?" "What else can it be, to inhabit a large dilapidated house, so empty, so cold and gloomy, that a tomb would be a cheerful dwelling in comparison? And then, to see the two wan, emaciated servants coming and going like shadows in this sepulchre; to assist at those meals--and what meals, great heavens!--where the master of the house seems to count the bites you swallow! And such a daughter!--for the wretch has a daughter, alas! and, his race may perhaps be perpetuated. It is she who lays aside the servants' insufficient shares and puts the remains of the meager meal under lock and key! All I can say is that, notwithstanding my usual good appetite, five minutes at that table sufficed to disgust me. For one is either one thing or the other; if rich, avarice is contemptible; if poor, it is stupid to attempt any display." "My dear Louis, I find you strangely hostile to this poor man and his daughter--you who are always so kind and benevolent!" "His daughter! do you call that a daughter?" "What in the devil do you mean! do you take her for a monster?" "I don't take her for a woman." "My dear boy, you must have taken leave of your senses!"