"My dear boy, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to hear you speak thus, and to see you accept your fate so bravely. Tell me the truth—have you—have you always been happy?"
"Very happy."
"Truly?"
"Why should I try to deceive you? Now, my dear father, have you ever seen me gloomy or thoughtful? do I look like a discontented person?"
"You are endowed with such an excellent character!"
"Oh, that depends on circumstances! If, for instance, I were obliged to live with M. Ramon, that abominable griping miser, I should certainly become unbearable, unmanageable and frantic!"
"What can you have against that poor man?"
"All the ferocious resentment and rancour gathered during five days of torture!"
"Torture?"
"What else can it be, to inhabit a large dilapidated house, so empty, so cold and gloomy, that a tomb would be a cheerful dwelling in comparison? And then, to see the two wan, emaciated servants coming and going like shadows in this sepulchre; to assist at those meals—and what meals, great heavens!—where the master of the house seems to count the bites you swallow! And such a daughter!—for the wretch has a daughter, alas! and, his race may perhaps be perpetuated. It is she who lays aside the servants' insufficient shares and puts the remains of the meager meal under lock and key! All I can say is that, notwithstanding my usual good appetite, five minutes at that table sufficed to disgust me. For one is either one thing or the other; if rich, avarice is contemptible; if poor, it is stupid to attempt any display."