"Then don't I enter into your calculations? I—"
"You? You are well and strong, too, and that pleases me."
"Don't I please you in any other way?"
"Yes, you are a good boy; you are always right-minded, and I am satisfied with you."
"Oh! if you were not satisfied with me, what a scamp, what a good-for-nothing I should be, after the way in which you have treated me! But there is still something else which ought to make you happy, if you think as I do."
"Very well, tell me; for I do not know what puzzle you are contriving for me."
"I mean no puzzle, Madame Blanche! I need but look into my heart, and I see that even if I had to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, and were to be beaten half to death every day into the bargain, and then had only a bundle of thorns or a heap of stones to lie on—well, can you understand?"
"I think so, my dear François; you could be happy in spite of so much evil if only your heart were at peace with God."
"Of course that is true, and I need not speak of it. But I meant something else."
"I cannot imagine what you are aiming at, and I see that you are cleverer than I am."