"Well, then, look at us both,—at me and at your picture!"
Already the unhappy man had seen that these two beings, the one in the picture and the one by his side, resembled each other like brothers; yet he did not understand, and muttered: "Well, what is it you wish?"
Then in an ugly voice, the tramp replied: "What do I wish? Why, first I wish you to recognize me."
"Who are you?"
"Who am I? Ask anybody by the roadside, ask your servant, let's go and ask the mayor and show him this; and he will laugh, I tell you that! Ah! you will not recognize me as your son, papa curé?"
The old man raised his arms above his head, with a patriarchal gesture, and muttered despairingly: "It cannot be true!"
The young fellow drew quite close to him.
"Ah! It cannot be true, you say! You must stop lying, do you hear?" His clenched fists and threatening face, and the violence with which he spoke, made the priest retreat a few steps, while he asked himself anxiously which one of them was laboring under a mistake.
Again he asserted: "I never had a child."
The other man replied: "And no mistress, either?"