"You allow Madame de Montreville to take into her house, to install there——"
"Whom, in heaven's name?"
"Whom! morbleu! the girl for whom Frédéric made a fool of himself; the girl who turned his head, and with whom he lived six weeks in the woods; the girl whom he adored then, and whom, for all I know, he loves still; for a man's heart is beyond comprehension! In short, Sister Anne, the dumb girl of the woods, of Vizille, is the one whom Madame de Montreville now has in her house!"
"Mon Dieu! what do I hear?"
"Do you mean to say you didn't recognize her?"
"Recognize her! a girl I never saw but once, and then at a distance? I don't scrutinize young women as you do, monsieur; and could I suspect, did I know, that she was dumb? did anyone tell me so? No; no one tells me anything, and then they expect me to know everything by divination! You young men are inconceivable! do you suppose I should know Latin if I had never learned it?"
"Well! you know it now."
"Parbleu! I was thrashed often enough to know it! Gad! how many stripes I got for the Epitome, and how many pensums for Phædrus's fables!"
"Great heaven! Monsieur Ménard, I am talking about Sister Anne, who is here in this house, with Frédéric's wife."
"I understand, I understand perfectly."