I was so angry at having been surprised in such a fit of extravagance that, from a remnant of the Hamstringer instinct, I immediately felt for a knife in my belt; but neither belt nor knife was there.  My silk waistcoat with its pocket reminded me that I was doomed to cut no more throats.  Patience smiled.

“Well, well!  What is the matter?” said the anchorite, in a calm and kindly tone.  “Do you imagine that I don’t know perfectly well how things stand?  I am not so simple but that I can reason; I am not so old but that I can see.  Who is it that makes the branches of my yew shake whenever the holy maiden is sitting at my door?  Who is it that follows us like a young wolf with measured steps through the copse when I take the lovely child to her father?  And what harm is there in it?  You are both young; you are both handsome; you are of the same family; and, if you chose, you might become a noble and honest man as she is a noble and honest girl.”

All my wrath had vanished as I listened to Patience speaking of Edmee.  I had such a vast longing to talk about her that I would even have been willing to have heard evil spoken of her, for the sole pleasure of hearing her name pronounced.  I continued my walk by the side of Patience.  The old man was tramping through the dew with bare feet.  It should be mentioned, however, that his feet had long been unacquainted with any covering and had attained a degree of callosity that rendered them proof against anything.  His only garments were a pair of blue canvas breeches which, in the absence of braces, hung loosely from his hips, and a coarse shirt.  He could not endure any constraint in his clothes; and his skin, hardened by exposure, was sensitive to neither heat nor cold.  Even when over eighty he was accustomed to go bareheaded in the broiling sun and with half-open shirt in the winter blasts.  Since Edmee had seen to his wants he had attained a certain cleanliness.  Nevertheless, in the disorder of his toilet and his hatred of everything that passed the bounds of the strictest necessity (though he could not have been charged with immodesty, which had always been odious to him), the cynic of the old days was still apparent.  His beard was shining like silver.  His bald skull was so polished that the moon was reflected in it as in water.  He walked slowly, with his hands behind his back and his head raised, like a man who is surveying his empire.  But most frequently his glances were thrown skywards, and he interrupted his conversation to point to the starry vault and exclaim: 

“Look at that; look how beautiful it is!”

He is the only peasant I have ever known to admire the sky; or, at least, he is the only one I have ever seen who was conscious of his admiration.

“Why, Master Patience,” I said to him, “do you think I might be an honest man if I chose?  Do you think that I am not one already?”

“Oh, do not be angry,” he answered.  “Patience is privileged to say anything.  Is he not the fool of the chateau?”