"Emile," rejoined the manufacturer with well-feigned calmness, "I see that we have been talking for some moments without understanding each other, and that if we continue on this tack you will pick a quarrel with me and treat me as if you were a young saint and I an old heathen. With whom are you in such a passion? I was quite right, at the outset, to try to put you on your guard against enthusiasm. All this warmth of brain is simply youthful effervescence, and when you are as old as I am and have had a little experience and are accustomed to doing your duty, you won't think it necessary to flap your wings in order to be honest, or to shout your convictions so loud. Beware of emphasis, which is nothing more than the language of self-satisfied vanity. Tell me, boy, do you happen to believe that honor, morality, good faith in keeping engagements, humane sentiments, pity for the unfortunate, devotion to country, respect for the rights of others, domestic virtues and the love of one's neighbor are very rare and substantially impossible virtues in these days and in the world we live in?"
"Yes, father, I do firmly believe it."
"Well, I believe nothing of the kind. I am less misanthropic at fifty than you are at one-and-twenty; I have a better opinion of my fellow-men, apparently because I don't possess your lights and your infallible glance!"
"In heaven's name! do not make fun of me, father; you break my heart."
"Very well, let us talk seriously. I will assume with you that those virtues are the religion and the rule of life of a small number of people. Will you at least do me the honor to assume that they are not wholly foreign to your father's character?"
"Most of your acts, father, have convinced me that to do good was your sole ambition. Why then do your words seem to attempt to show me that you have a less noble aim?"
"That is precisely what I want to come at. You agree that my conduct is irreproachable, and yet you are scandalized to hear me appeal to calm common sense and to the counsel of sound logic! Tell me, what would you think of your father if, every hour in the day, you should hear him declaiming against those who do not follow his example? If, setting himself up as a model, and all puffed out with self-love and self-admiration, he should weary you at every turn with his own praises and with anathemas hurled at the rest of mankind? You would hold your peace and throw a veil over that annoying absurdity; but, do what you would, the thought would come that your worthy father had one deplorable weakness and that his vanity detracted from his merit."
"Doubtless, father, I prefer your reserve and your judicious modesty; but when we are alone together, and on the rare and solemn occasions when you deign to open your heart to me, should I not be overjoyed to hear you extol noble ideas and kindle a holy enthusiasm in my heart, instead of hearing you sneer at my aspirations and trample them contemptuously in the dirt."
"I do not despise noble ideas, nor do I laugh at your worthy aspirations. What I do spurn and what I desire to stifle in you are the declamation and braggadocio of the new humanitarian schools. I cannot endure their holding up principles as old as the world in the guise of truths unheard of until this day. I would like you to love duty with immovable tranquillity, and perform it with the stoical silence of genuine conviction. Believe me, an acquaintance with good and evil doesn't date from yesterday, and I did not wait to learn justice until you had sucked in the celestial manna while smoking your cigar on the sidewalks of Poitiers."
"All this may be true, generally speaking," said Emile, heated by Monsieur Cardonnet's persistent irony. "There are old citizens who, like you, father, practise virtue without ostentation, and there may be impertinent students who preach it without loving it and, as it were, without knowing what it is. But your last shaft of satire I can not take to my own account or that of my young friends. I do not claim to be anything more than a child and do not pride myself on any experience I may have had. On the contrary, I come with respect and confidence, actuated only by good instincts and good intentions, to ask you for the truth, for advice, example, assistance and instruction. I have on my side only my youthful ideas, and I lay them at your feet. Disgusted as I am by the shocking contradictions which the laws of society recognize and sanction, I implore you to tell me how you have been able to accept them without protest, and to remain an honest man. I confess that I am weak and ignorant, for I cannot conceive the possibility of such a thing. So tell me, I pray you, instead of heaping freezing sarcasm on me. Am I blameworthy in asking for light? am I insolent and mad because I desire to know the laws of my conscience and the aim of my life? Yes, your character is noble and your conduct judicious and wise; your heart is kind and your hand liberal; you assist the poor man and you pay him handsomely for his labor. But whither are you going by this straight, sure road? It seems to me that you sometimes lack indulgence, and your severity has often frightened me.