"Say what? deuce take it!" cried Jean, who had, as we know, very little patience. "Oh! a thousand foolish things," replied Emile, who felt an icy chill, alternating at intervals with a burning flush. "For instance, that it is exceedingly fortunate for the poor that there are rich men." "That is false!" said Jean, with a shrug. "That the more rich and poor there are, the better the world will get on." "I deny it." "That the battle between the rich and poor is ordained by God, and that the rich should go forth to it with the keenest joy." "On the contrary, God forbids it!" "Lastly, that men of intellect are happier than the poor in intellect, because such is the order of Providence." "Ten thousand devils, he lies!" cried Jean, smiting the rock with his stick. "Don't repeat any more of that drivel, for I can't listen to it. The Good Lord himself has said just the opposite of it all, and he came to the earth, disguised as a carpenter, for nothing else than to prove it." "Much God and the Gospel have to do with it!" rejoined Emile. "This is a question of Gilberte and me. I shall never persuade my father that he is wrong. I must say what he does, Jean, and then I shall be free to marry Gilberte. He will go himself to-morrow and ask her father to give her to me." "Really! Why he must be mad indeed to believe that you will echo his nonsense in good faith! Ah! yes, I see that his brain is really awry, Emile, and that is what makes you feel so badly; for I see, also, that you are sad to the bottom of your heart, my poor boy." Emile shed tears, which relieved him, and, recovering his self-possession, he explained more clearly to the carpenter what had taken place between his father and himself. Jean listened with his eyes on the ground; then, after reflecting for a long time, he took the young man's hand, saying: "Emile, you mustn't tell these lies; they are unworthy of a man. I see that your father is more crafty than crazy, and that he won't be satisfied with two or three vague words, such as we sometimes say to soothe a man who has drunk too much and whom we treat like a child. Your father, when you have lied to him, or made promises that you can't keep, won't let you breathe, and if you try to become a man again he will say: 'Remember, that you're nobody now?' He is proud and hard; I know it well. He won't give you one day a week to think in your own way, and, more than that, he will make your wife unhappy. I can see it all: he will make you blush before her, and he will play his cards so well that she will finally blush for you. To the devil with all lies and words you don't mean! None of that, Emile; I forbid it." "But Gilberte?" "Gilberte will say as I do, and so will Antoine and Janille. _Ma mie_ Janille can say what she pleases. For my part, I don't propose that you shall lie. There's no Gilberte who could make me lie." "Then I must give her up--not see her any more?"