MME. CATHERINE. Such is life, Monseiur Adolphe. But you young ones are always demanding too much, and then you come here and blubber over it afterward.
ADOLPHE. No, it isn't that. I reproach nobody, and I am as fond as ever of both of them. But there is one thing that makes me sick at heart. You see, I thought more of Maurice than of anybody else; so much that I wouldn't have grudged him anything that could give him pleasure—but now I have lost him, and it hurts me worse than the loss of her. I have lost both of them, and so my loneliness is made doubly painful. And then there is still something else which I have not yet been able to clear up.
MME. CATHERINE. Don't brood so much. Work and divert yourself.
Now, for instance, do you ever go to church?
ADOLPHE. What should I do there?
MME. CATHERINE. Oh, there's so much to look at, and then there is the music. There is nothing commonplace about it, at least.
ADOLPHE. Perhaps not. But I don't belong to that fold, I guess, for it never stirs me to any devotion. And then, Madame Catherine, faith is a gift, they tell me, and I haven't got it yet.
MME. CATHERINE. Well, wait till you get it—But what is this I heard a while ago? Is it true that you have sold a picture in London for a high price, and that you have got a medal?
ADOLPHE. Yes, it's true.
MME. CATHERINE. Merciful heavens!—and not a word do you say about it?
ADOLPHE. I am afraid of fortune, and besides it seems almost worthless to me at this moment. I am afraid of it as of a spectre: it brings disaster to speak of having seen it.