"Oh, then you are not l’abbé Glorfindoni? Then I would say you resembled the Snowman, were it not for the way you call to mind Jean-Astin, the popular tenor."
"I am neither one nor the other," said Monte Fato. "Look better, look further, search your earliest memories, and you will know me, c’est un fait, ça."
There was in these words of the Count a magnetic vibration whereby the exhausted senses of the miserable one were revived one last time.
"Had it been possible to save you, I swear by the tomb and pipe-weed of my father, I would have tried to return you to life and to repentance," continued the Count.
"Who are you then?"
The Count understood that this was the last élan of life; he approached the dying man, covering him with a look at once calm and sad, and whispered in his ear: "I am ..." and pronounced a name so low, that the Count himself seemed afraid to hear it.
And Buttrebeurrousse, by a supreme effort, knelt, lifted his arms to heaven, and cried: "Oh, my Érou, my Érou, pardon me for having denied you; you exist indeed, you are the father and judge of Men, Hobbites, Dwarves, Ents, and Elves, who sank the accursed isle of Numéneur and raised up from its ruin a remnant that now adorns the salotti of Gondor. Long have I misknown you! Forgive me! Receive me!"
