"As for me, Michel, you know me too. If I were rich, I should be ashamed to work. People would think I did it from avarice, and to add a little to my savings. Nor could I work if I were not driven to it; I am a creature of habit, a routine workman; every day would be Sunday to me, and it would be as injurious for me to amuse myself all the week as it is advantageous for me to enjoy myself a little at table on the blessed day of rest. Ennui would lay hold of me, and melancholy after that. I should try to escape from it by intemperance perhaps, as most men do who don't know how to read and so can't keep up their spirits with beautiful written stories. But one must feed one's brain when the body is at rest, and they feed it with wine. That is worse than nothing, I know by experience. When I go to a wedding festival I enjoy myself the first day, I am bored the second, and sick the third. No, no! I must have my apron, my ladder, my glue-pot, and my ballads, or each hour seems as long as two. If you blush for me--But no, I won't finish, it is insulting to you; you will never blush for me. In that case, let me live as I please, and when I am too old and feeble to work, you shall take me in and take care of me; I agree to that, I give you my word on it. I can do nothing better for you, I am sure." "Your wishes shall be sacred to me," Michel replied, "and I realize fully that it is impossible for me to pay my debt to you with money; it would be altogether too easy to be able to liquidate a debt running through one's whole lifetime in an instant and without the slightest trouble. Ah! if I could only double the duration of your life, and restore, at the expense of my blood, the strength you have expended in supporting and educating me!" "Do not hope to pay me otherwise than by affection," replied the old decorator. "Youth cannot return, and I desire nothing that is contrary to the divine laws. If I have worked for you, I have done it with pleasure and without ever relying upon any other reward than that of seeing you make a wise use of your good fortune. The princess knows my way of thinking in that respect. If she should pay me for your education, she would deprive me of all my merit and pride; for I have a certain pride of my own, and I shall be proud to hear people say as they will before long: 'What a loyal Sicilian and good prince this Castro-Reale is! And yet it was that old fool of a Pier-Angelo who brought him up.' Come, give me your hand, and let us say no more about it. It would hurt me a little, I confess. It seems that the cardinal is dying. I want you to say a prayer with me for him, for he needs it sadly; he was a wicked man, and the woman who was taking you to the hospital, when my brother the monk and I snatched you from her arms, looked as if she would much rather throw you into the sea than into the orphan's crib. So let us pray with a good heart! Come, Michel, it won't be long."