"Still, I am not terrified," replied Gilberte. "Brought up as I have been in uncertainty, and living from day to day, as it were, perhaps I have myself fallen into the habit of looking upon poverty with that same happy indifference. Either I am naturally of that disposition, or Jean's heedlessness reassures me; it is certain that none of us felt the least uneasiness in the congratulations we exchanged this morning. It takes so little to satisfy Jean! He is as sober and as healthy as a wild man. He has never been better than during these two months that he has lived in the woods, walking all day and sleeping most of the time in the open air. He declares that his sight has grown keener, that his youth has returned again, and that, if the summer would last all the time, he would never need to come back to the village to live. But in the bottom of his heart he has an invincible affection for his native place, and furthermore he would not be satisfied to be idle long. We urged him this morning to settle down here with us, and to live as we do, without thought for the morrow. "'There is room enough here and plenty of material for you to build yourself a house,' said my father. 'I have all the stone you need and enough old trees for your frame, and I'll help you to put it up as you helped me with mine.' "But Jean wouldn't listen to that. "'Very good,' said he, 'but what in heaven's name should I do to kill time when you have set me up as a country gentleman? I can't live on my income, and I don't propose to be a burden to you during the thirty years that I still have to live, it may be. Even if you were rich enough to support me, I should die of ennui. It's all right for you, Monsieur Antoine, you were brought up to do nothing. Although you're no sluggard and you have proved it--it costs you nothing to resume the habit of living like a _monsieur_; but there's no more hunting and coursing for me; pray, am I to sit with folded arms? I should go mad at the end of the first week.'" "So," said Emile, thinking of his father's theory of incessant toil and no repose in old age, "so Jean will never feel the longing to be free, although he makes so many sacrifices to his alleged freedom?" "Why, are freedom and idleness the same thing?" said Gilberte, in a tone of surprise. "I think not. Jean is passionately fond of work, and all his freedom consists in choosing the work that pleases him; when he works to gratify his inclination and his natural inventiveness, he works with all the more ardor." "Yes, mademoiselle, you are right," said Emile, with sudden melancholy, "and that is the whole secret. Man is born to work always, but to work according to his aptitudes and in proportion to the enjoyment he derives from it! Ah! if only I were a skilful carpenter! with what joy I would go and work with Jean Jappeloup, for the benefit of such a wise and unselfish man!"