He looked at Marcel attentively, and the latter asked himself if this were really the man he had heard, only a few moments before, talking lightly with a little girl.
—You have good manners, continued the Bishop; you are intelligent, I know. You will succeed therefore, if you intend it seriously. Our misfortune is, that we are encumbered with dull and stupid peasants, whom the Seminary has been able only partly to refine, and who render us ridiculous. You must certainly have gone to sleep in your village?
—No, Monseigneur, I have worked.
—We shall see that. And what sort of people are they? Do they perform their religious duties?
—A good and hard-working population.
—Do they perform their religious duties?
—Yes. Monseigneur, I was satisfied with them.
—What society?
—Very little. The lawyer, the doctor….
—Right-thinking?