"Nonsense! but you are excited, and I see that it will be hard for me to make you listen to reason. This girl seemed to me to be very pretty, indeed, and I agree that she's a phoenix; but, after all, what do you propose to do? surely you don't intend to pass your life in these woods?" "I don't intend to leave Sister Anne." "Very good; then bring your Sister Anne along; let her come with us; make a baroness of her, if you choose, for the benefit of poor Ménard; I'll undertake to arrange it all; but leave these old fir-trees, under which you'll turn into an orang-outang in time." "That isn't possible. In yonder cabin there is an excellent old woman, who has taken care of her ever since she was a child; she can't desert her." "The deuce! so you have a whole family on your hands!" "Go, Dubourg; return to Grenoble with Ménard; I will join you there in a few days, but I cannot leave her now." "Return to Grenoble, eh? Do you imagine that I enjoy myself there, with your tutor, when I can't show my face anywhere?" "Oh! I forgot. Take this wallet; it contains our fortune; take it, and do what you please with it. I have a few louis, that's all I need." "Really, my dear Frédéric, you are mad! to think of living in the woods and making love all day with your little villager!" "Ah! she's no ordinary woman. If you knew--poor child! But, no, I won't tell you anything; you can't understand my heart. Adieu, Dubourg!" "You insist upon it? All right, I'll take the cash-box, and leave you. I know what men are, I have had more experience than you have: within a fortnight, you'll have had enough of this kind of life, and you'll come back to us." "Yes, if Sister Anne will come with me." "You will come without her, I am perfectly sure. Au revoir! make love at your ease; make it all day and all night; in short, make so much of it, that a fortnight hence you'll have had more than enough." And Dubourg, having put the wallet in his pocket, hastened down into the valley, where he found Ménard sitting quietly by their horses. "To horse!" he exclaimed joyfully; "make haste!" "What's that? to horse? But I don't see monsieur le comte." "Because he has stayed with his Dulcinea." "He stays, and we go?" "To be sure; for, having no passions in the forest, we might be bored here." "But, monsieur le baron, I don't understand this at all." "Monsieur Ménard, I am acting like a man who knows the human heart, especially that of a young man. If we had undertaken to thwart his wishes, Frédéric would have been quite capable of doing some insane thing. Instead of that, let us allow him to follow his inclination. I will answer for it that, in a fortnight at the latest, his love, being satisfied, will have calmed down, and he will have recovered his senses. There is no passion deep enough to stand a tête-à-tête of three consecutive weeks. Love is a fire which goes out of itself, because it never has sense enough to be sparing of its fuel."