“Here it is: I want to marry Celeste Levesque.”
“Well, my boy, what's there to prevent you?”
“The father won't have it.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, my father.”
“What does your father say?”
“He says she has a child.”
“She's not the first to whom that happened, since our Mother Eve.”
“A child by Victor Lecoq, Anthime Loisel's servant man.”
“Ha! ha! So he won't have it?”