"Patience!" said the abbé in a tone that made the dying man tremble. "Érou and the Valards are full of mercy for you. They gave you life, health, strength, an assured occupation, friends even, all in life that is needed to provide calm of conscience and the satisfaction of natural desires. Instead of exploiting these gifts of the One, you have dedicated yourself to sloth, to drunkenness, and in a state of drunkenness you betrayed one of your best friends. After you betrayed your friend, the Valards began, not to strike you, but to warn you; the eagles of Manvre assailed you not yet with their claws, but with droppings only. You fell into misery and hunger, and began to envy the life that you could have led, had you bothered, when from the blessed realm there arrives thee a silmaril that perhaps Éarendeau himself used for a bowling-ball. But this unheard of, unexpected wealth does not suffice you, from the moment you come to possess it; you seek to double it, and through murder."
"It is not I who wanted to kill the dwarf, but la Carcharotte," said Buttrebeurrousse.
"Yes, and therefore Érou showed mercy to you; you were not put to death, but to perpetual imprisonment."
"Perpetual imprisonment! A fine mercy!"
