matter between a father and a son; all the rest is not worth the trouble that one takes to reason about it. Don't you think I am right? _André_--All that is true, my dear father! and I am just as much attached to you as you are to me. Far be it from me to reproach you; but now in my turn I want to make a confession to you. You are an exception in our society; your fettered youth, your precocious widowerhood, are your excuses, if you need any. You were born at a time when all France was in a fever, and when the individual, as well as the great mass of people, seemed to be striving to spend by every possible means a superabundance of vitality. Urged toward active life by nature, by curiosity, by temperament, you have cared for things that were worth caring for,--for them only; for entertaining yourself, for hunting, for fine horses, for the artist world, for people of rank and distinction. In such an environment as this you have paid your tribute to your country, you have paid the debt of your rank in life and of your name. But I, on the other hand, like almost all my generation, brought in contact with a fashionable world from the time that I began life,--I, born in an epoch of lassitude and transition,--I led for a while this life by mere imitation in laziness.... It is a kind of existence that no longer amuses me; and moreover, I can tell you that it never did amuse me. To sit up all night turning over cards; to get up at two o'clock in the afternoon, to have horses put to the carriage and go for the drive around the Lake, or to ride horseback; to live by day with idlers and to pass my evenings with such parasites as your friend M. De Tournas--all that seems to me the height of foolishness. And at the bottom of your own thoughts you think just as I do. So now, now that you really have got to a serious explanation of affairs, let us reach a real irrevocable determination of them. Are you willing to let me arrange your life for you in the future exactly as I would wish to arrange my own life? Are you willing to have confidence in me, and after having brought me up in your way, are you willing that in turn, while there is still time for it, I should--bring you up in mine? _Count_--Yes, go on. _André_--Very well,--to severe diseases strong remedies. You think a great deal of our Vilsac estate? _Count_--I was born there. I should not be sorry to end my days there. _André_--Very well. We will keep Vilsac for you, and find money in some other way to pay off the mortgage. _Count_--How? _André_--That's my business; only you must send away the two piqueurs, and six of the keepers. _Count_--Poor fellows! _André_--And only four horses are to be kept. No more entertainments are to be given, no more fireworks. You will entertain only two or three intimate friends now and then,--if we find as many friends as that among all those that are about us nowadays here.--and you will stay at Vilsac seven or eight months of the year. _Count_--Alone!