The Old Man.—Who would live, my son, if the future were revealed to him?—when a single anticipated misfortune gives us so much useless uneasiness—when the foreknowledge of one certain calamity is enough to embitter every day that precedes it! It is better not to pry too curiously, even into the things which surround us. Heaven, which has given us the power of reflection to foresee our necessities, gave us also those very necessities to set limits to its exercise.
Paul.—You tell me that with money people in Europe acquire dignities and honours. I will go, then, to enrich myself in Bengal, and afterwards proceed to Paris, and marry Virginia. I will embark at once.
The Old Man.—What! would you leave her mother and yours?
Paul.—Why, you yourself have advised my going to the Indies.
The Old Man.—Virginia was then here; but you are now the only means of support both of her mother and of your own.
Paul.—Virginia will assist them by means of her rich relation.
The Old Man.—The rich care little for those, from whom no honour is reflected upon themselves in the world. Many of them have relations much more to be pitied than Madame de la Tour, who, for want of their assistance, sacrifice their liberty for bread, and pass their lives immured within the walls of a convent.
Paul.—Oh, what a country is Europe! Virginia must come back here. What need has she of a rich relation? She was so happy in these huts; she looked so beautiful and so well dressed with a red handkerchief or a few flowers around her head! Return, Virginia! leave your sumptuous mansions and your grandeur, and come back to these rocks,—to the shade of these woods and of our cocoa trees. Alas! you are perhaps even now unhappy!"—and he began to shed tears. "My father," continued he, "hide nothing from me; if you cannot tell me whether I shall marry Virginia, tell me at least if she loves me still, surrounded as she is by noblemen who speak to the king, and who go to see her."
The Old Man.—Oh, my dear friend! I am sure, for many reasons, that she loves you; but above all, because she is virtuous. At these words he threw himself on my neck in a transport of joy.
Paul.—But do you think that the women of Europe are false, as they are represented in the comedies and books which you have lent me?