“A truce to what she has told me! How can I remember all that your aunt says? She doesn’t know her own mind, perhaps.”
“Oh, pardon me; she knows it only too well! She has a will of iron. She must have told you about her plans, for she declares that you approve them.”
“I approve of sacrificing a charming child like you to a dotard?”
“There now, you see that you know the baron’s age perfectly well.”
“But once again, what baron do you mean?”
“What baron? Is it possible that it can be necessary for me to mention the Snow Man?”
“Indeed! The Snow Man? Very well, I must confess that I am no wiser than I was before.”
“How, Monsieur Goefle, you do not know the surname of the most powerful, the richest, and at the same time the most wicked and hateful of your clients, the Baron Olaus de Waldemora?”
“What, the proprietor of this chateau?”
“Certainly, and of the new chateau on the other shore of the lake; the owner, moreover, of innumerable iron mines, lead mines, and alum mines, and of several valleys, forests and mountains, without referring to his fields, cattle, farms and lakes; the seigneur, in a word, of a good tenth part of Dalecarlia. It is because of his vast possessions that my aunt is at me, from morning until night, to make me forget that he is old, sickly, and perhaps burdened with crimes.”