# Ursule Mirouët (Tomlinson translation)/Part I/6

Upon waking, quite sure that, since his return, no one had crossed the threshold of his door, the doctor proceeded, not without an unconquerable dread, to the verification of facts. He himself was ignorant of the difference between the two bank bills and the change of the volumes of the Pandects. The somnambule had seen well. He rang for La Bougival.
“Tell Ursule to come to speak to me,” he said, sitting down in the middle of his library.
The child came, ran to him and kissed him; the doctor took her on his knee, where she sat mingling her beautiful fair locks with her old friend’s white hairs.
“Is anything the matter, godfather?”
“Yes, but promise me, by your salvation, to answer my questions frankly, without evasion.”
Ursule blushed right up to her forehead.
“Oh! I shall not ask you anything that you cannot tell me,” he continued, seeing the shame of first love troubling the hitherto childish purity of those beautiful eyes.
“Speak, godfather.”
“With what thought did you finish your evening prayers yesterday, and at what time did you say them?”
“It was a quarter-past nine, half-past nine.”
​“Well then, repeat me your last prayer.”
The young girl hoped that her voice might communicate her faith to the unbeliever; she left her place, knelt down, joined her hands fervently, a radiant light illumined her face, she looked at the old man and said:
“What I asked of God yesterday, I asked this morning, and I will ask for it until it is granted me.”
Then she repeated her prayer with renewed and more powerful expression; but, to her great astonishment, her godfather interrupted her by finishing the prayer.
“All right, Ursule,” said the doctor, taking his godchild on his knee again. “When you went to sleep with your head on the pillow, did you not say to yourself, ‘That dear godfather! who will play backgammon with him in Paris?’”
Ursule sprang up as if the trump of the Judgment Day had sounded in her ears; she gave a cry of terror; her dilated eyes gazed at the old man with horrible fixity.
“Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such a power?” she asked, supposing that, not to believe in God, he must have made a compact with the angel of darkness.
“What did you sow in your garden yesterday?”
“Mignonette, sweet peas and balsam.”
“And lastly some larkspur?”
She fell on her knees.
“Do not frighten me, godfather; but you were here, were you not?”
​“Am I not always with you?” replied the doctor, jesting in order to respect this innocent creature’s reason, “let us go to your room.”
He gave her his arm and went up the stairs.
“Your legs are trembling, my dear friend,” she said.
“Yes, I am as if thunderstruck.”
“Are you at last going to believe in God?’ she cried with artless joy, showing the tears in her eyes.
The old man looked at the simple, pretty room he had arranged for Ursule. On the floor, a plain, cheap, green carpet that she kept in exquisite cleanliness; on the walls, a pale gray paper strewn with roses and their green foliage; the windows, which looked on the courtyard, were hung with calico curtains trimmed with a band of some pink stuff; between the two windows, under a long, high glass, was a gilded wooden bracket covered with marble upon which stood a blue Sèvres vase that she used to fill with flowers; and, opposite the fireplace, a little chest of drawers in charming marquetry with a top of the marble known as breccia of Aleppo. The bed, hung with old chintz and with curtains of pinklined chintz, was one of those duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, and which was ornamented with a tuft of feathers carved above the four fluted posts at each angle. An old clock, encased in a sort of tortoise-shell monument encrusted with ivory arabesques, adorned the mantelpiece, of which the marble top and candlesticks, ​and the glass with its gray painted frame presented a remarkable harmony of tone, color and style. A big wardrobe, the doors of which were covered with landscapes made in different woods, some of which were of a green tint, and which are no longer to be found in the trade, doubtless contained her linen and dresses. In this room he breathed the fragrance of Heaven. The exact arrangement of things showed a spirit of order and a sense of harmony which would certainly have struck everybody, even a Minoret-Levrault. One could especially see how much Ursule loved the things that surrounded her, and how she delighted in a room which was bound up, so to speak, in her childhood and girlhood life. Reviewing everything according to its bearings, the guardian ascertained that it was possible to see over into Madame Portenduère’s from Ursule’s room. During the night, he had reflected on the line of conduct he ought to take with Ursule concerning the secret surprise of this growing passion. An examination would compromise him with his ward. Either he must approve or disapprove of this love; in either case, his position would be false. So he had determined to examine the respective situations of young Portenduère and Ursule to find out whether he ought to fight against this partiality before it became irresistible. An old man only could display so much wisdom. Still quivering under the blows of the truth of the magnetic facts, he kept turning round and looking at the smallest objects in the ​room, and he wanted to cast his eye over the almanac hung at the corner of the fireplace.
“These horrid candlesticks are too heavy for your pretty little hands,” he said, taking up the candlesticks of marble decorated with copper.
He weighed them in his hand, looked at the almanac, took it and said:
“This seems to me very ugly also. Why do you keep this postman’s almanac in such a pretty room?”
“Oh! do let me have it, godfather.”
“No, you shall have another one to-morrow.”
He went down with this convincing proof, shut himself up in his study, looked for Saint Savinien, and found, as the somnambulist had said, a tiny, red dot in front of the nineteenth of October; he also saw one opposite the day of Saint Denis, his own patron saint and before Saint Jean, the curé’s patron. This point, the size of a pin’s head, the sleeping woman had seen in spite of distance and obstacles. Until night time the old man meditated upon these events, which were even more immense to him than to anyone else. He was bound to yield to evidence. A strong wall crumbled away, so to speak, within him, for he lived supported by two foundations; his indifference to religious matters and his disbelief in magnetism. By proving that the senses, a purely physical construction, organs whose powers were accounted for, were bounded by some of the attributes of the infinite, magnetism overthrew, or at least seemed to him to overthrow, Spinosa’s powerful argumentation; the infinite and ​the finite, two elements that according to this great man were incompatible, proved to be one within the other. Whatever power he might have accorded to divisibility, to the mobility of matter, he could not admit that it had half-divine qualities. After all, he had grown too old to connect these phenomena with a system, to compare them with those of sleep, sight, and light. All his science, based upon the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac, was in ruins. Seeing his hollow idols in pieces, his incredulity necessarily faltered. And so all the advantage in this struggle beween Catholic childhood and Voltairean old age, was to be with Ursule. A light was streaming on this dismantled fort, and on these ruins. The voice of prayer was bursting from the bosom of the fragments! Nevertheless, the stubborn old man picked a quarrel with his doubts. Although he was struck to the heart, he would not make up his mind, and constantly struggled against God. And yet, his spirit seemed wavering, he was no longer the same. Dreamy beyond measure, he would read Pascal’s Pensées. Bossuet’s sublime Histoire des Variations, he read Bonald and Saint-Augustin; he also insisted upon running through the works of Swedenborg and the late Saint-Martin, of which the mysterious man had spoken. The edifice built up in this man by materialism was cracking in every part, it only needed one more shake; and, when his heart was ripe for God, he fell into the heavenly vineyard as the fruits fall. Several times already whilst playing with the ​curé, his godchild beside them, he had asked questions, which, considering his opinions, appeared strange to the Abbé Chaperon, yet ignorant of the inward labor with which God was redressing this beautiful conscience.
“Do you believe in apparitions?” asked the unbeliever of his pastor whilst interrupting the game.
“Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century, has said that he has seen some,” replied the curé.
“I know all those that have engrossed scholars, I have just read Plotin over again. At this moment, I am questioning you as a Catholic, and ask you if you think that a dead man can revisit the living.”
“But Jesus appeared to His Apostles after His death,” rejoined the curé. “The church must have faith in our Saviour’s apparitions. As to miracles, they are not wanting,” said the Abbé Chaperon, smiling, “would you care to hear the most recent? It happened during the eighteenth century.”
“Bah!”
“Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse de Liguori knew of the Pope’s death far away from Rome, the very moment when the Holy Father was expiring, and there are numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted bishop, being in a trance, heard the sovereign pontiff’s last words and repeated them before several persons. The courier entrusted to announce it to the Bishop, only arrived thirty hours after—”
“Jesuit!” replied old Minoret, jokingly, “I do ​not ask you for proofs, I ask you if you believe in it.”
“I believe that the apparition depends very much on the person who sees it,” said the curé, still teasing the unbeliever.
“My friend, I am not laying a trap for you; what do you believe in all this?”
“I believe the power of God to be infinite,” said the abbé.
“When I am dead, if I become reconciled with God, I will pray Him to let me appear to you,” said the doctor, laughing.
“That is precisely the agreement made between Cardan and his friend,” replied the curé.
“Ursule,” said Minoret, “if ever any danger threatens you, call me and I will come.”
“You have just said in one word the touching elegy entitled Néère, by André Chénier,” replied the curé. “But poets are only great because they know how to clothe facts or the sentiments of eternally living pictures.”
“Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?” said the young girl in a mournful tone. “We Christians do not die, our tomb is the cradle of our soul.”
“Well,” said the doctor, smiling, “we must some day leave this world, and when I am no longer here, you will be very much astonished at your good fortune.”
“When you are no more, my beloved friend, my only consolation will be to devote my life to you.”
​“To me, dead?”
“Yes. All the good works that I might be able to do should be done in your name to redeem your mistakes. I should pray to God every day, so that in His infinite mercy He might not eternally punish the errors of a day, and that He might place a soul as beautiful and pure as yours close to Himself, among the souls of the blessed.”
This answer, said with angelic candor and pronounced in an accent full of conviction, overwhelmed fallacy and converted Denis Minoret as Saint-Paul was converted. A ray of inward light dazzled him, whilst this tenderness, reaching all through his life to come, made his eyes fill with tears. There was something electric in this sudden effect of grace. The curé clasped his hands and rose, disturbed. The child, astonished at her success, burst into tears. The old man stood up as if someone had called him, gazed into space as if he could see some aurora, then he bent his knee upon his armchair, folded his hands and cast his eyes upon the ground like a profoundly humiliated man.
“O God!” he said in a voice of emotion, and raising his forehead, “if anyone can obtain my forgiveness and lead me to Thee, is it not this spotless creature? Forgive the repentant old age that this glorious child offers Thee!”
He mentally lifted up his soul to God, praying Him to complete his enlightenment by His science after having overwhelmed him with His mercy; he turned to the curé and stretching out his hand, said:
​“My dear pastor, I am a little child again, I belong to you and give you up my soul.”
Ursule covered her godfather’s hand with joyful tears and kisses. The old man took the child upon his knees and called her gaily his godmother. The curé, completely moved, recited the Veni, Creator, in a sort of religious effusion. These three kneeling Christians used this hymn as their evening prayer.
“What is the matter?” asked La Bougival, astonished.
“At last my godfather believes in God,” replied Ursule.
“Ah! upon my faith! he only needed that to be quite perfect,” cried the old Bressane, crossing herself with grave naïveté.
“Dear doctor,” said the good priest, “you will soon understand the greatness of religion and the necessity of its observances; you will find its philosophy, as regards its humanity, much loftier than that of the most daring intelligence.”
The curé, who displayed an almost childish delight, then agreed to catechise the old man whilst conferring with him twice a week. Thus, the conversion attributed to Ursule and to a spirit of sordid calculation was spontaneous. The curé, who had refrained for fourteen years from touching the wounds of this heart, even whilst deploring them, had been applied to as one sends for the surgeon when one knows one’s self to be hurt. Since this scene, every night the prayers pronounced by Ursule had been said together. From time to time the old man had ​felt peace succeeding to agitation within him. Having, as he said, God for a responsible editor for unaccountable things, his mind was at rest. His beloved child answered that by this he could well see that he was advancing in the kingdom of God. During mass, he had just been reading the prayers whilst applying his senses to them, for he had risen after a first conference to the divine idea of communion among all believers. This old neophyte had understood the eternal symbol attaching to this food, which faith renders necessary when it has been fathomed in its inmost, deep, and joyful meaning. If he had seemed in haste to return home, it was to thank his dear little godchild for having made him take the cowl, according to the beautiful expression of times gone by. And so he was holding her on his knee in the salon and giving her a holy kiss on the forehead at the very moment when, soiling so sacred an influence with their ignoble fears, his collateral heirs were lavishing the coarsest abuse upon Ursule. The old man’s eagerness to get home, his asserted scorn of his relations, and his biting answers upon leaving the church were naturally attributed by each of the heirs to the hatred for them with which Ursule was inspiring him.
Whilst the godchild was playing to her godfather variations of Weber’s Last Thought, a fine plot was hatching in the dining-room of the Minoret-Levrault household which was to result in bringing on the scene one of the chief persons in this ​drama. The breakfast, noisy like all provincial breakfasts and enlivened by some excellent wines which reach Nemours by the canal, either from Burgundy or La Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zélie had sent for some shell-fish, salt water fish and various gastronomic dainties, in order to celebrate Désiré’s return.
The dining-room, in the middle of which the round table presented a gladdening sight, looked like an inn-room. Satisfied with her quantity of stock, Zélie had built a pavilion between her immense yard and her garden planted with vegetables and full of fruit trees. Everything, with her, was only for cleanliness and solidity. Levrault-Levrault’s example had seemed terrible to the country. And so she forbade her architect to lead her into any similar nonsense. This room was consequently hung with a glazed paper, furnished with walnut chairs, walnut sideboards, and adorned with a faience stove, a timepiece and a barometer. If the plates and dishes were of common white china, the table was conspicuous through the linen and abundant silver. Once the coffee had been served by Zélie, who was on the move like a leaden shot in a bottle of champagne, for she contented herself with a cook; when Désiré, the future barrister, had been told all about the great event of the morning and its consequences, Zélie shut the door, and the notary Dionis was requested to speak. From the silence that ensued, and from the look that each heir fixed upon this authentic face, it was easy to ​recognize the dominion that such men exercise over families.
“My dear children,” said he, “your uncle, having been born in 1746, is eighty-three years old today; now, old men are subject to follies, and this little—”
“Viper!” cried Madame Massin.
“Wretch!” said Zélie.
“Let us call her only by name,” rejoined Dionis.
“Well then, she is a thief,” said Madame Crémière.
“A pretty thief,” replied Désiré Minoret.
“This little Ursule,” resumed Dionis, “he is very fond of. In the interest of you all, my clients, I did not wait until this morning to seek information, and this is what I know about this young—”
“Despoiler!” cried the tax-gatherer.
“Legacy-hunter!” said the clerk.
“Chut! my friends,” said the notary, “or I take my hat, leave you and say good-night.”
“Come, papa,” cried Minoret pouring out for him a small glass of rum, “take it! it came from Rome itself. Indeed, it is worth a franc’s stage-fees.”
“It is true that Ursule is the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouët; but her father is the natural son of Valentin Mirouët, your uncle’s father-in-law. So Ursule is Doctor Denis Minoret’s natural niece. As a natural niece, the will the doctor may make in her favor would be hardly assailable; and, if he left her his fortune in this way, you would bring a sufficiently serious action for yourselves against ​Ursule, as one cannot maintain that there is no bond of parentage between Ursule and the doctor; but this suit would certainly frighten a defenceless young girl and might lead to some compromise.”
“The severity of the law upon the claims of natural children is so great,” said the newly-made licentiate, anxious to show off his knowledge, “that, according to the terms of a decision of the supreme Court of Appeal of the seventh of July, 1817, a natural child can lay claim to nothing from his natural grandfather, not even maintenance. So you see how they have widened the parentage of the natural child. The law pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, for it alleges that the liberality shown to the grandchildren applies to the natural son by interposition of person. This results from comparing Articles 757, 908 and 911 of the Civil Code. The Royal Court of Paris on the twenty-sixth of December of last year also reduced the legacy left to the legitimate child of the natural son by the grandfather, who, most assuredly, as a grandfather, was as much of a stranger to the natural grandson as the doctor, as an uncle, could be to Ursule.”
“All that,” said Goupil, “seems to me only to concern the question of gifts made by the grandparents to the natural descendants; it is no question at all of the uncles, who do not appear to me to have any tie of kindred with the legitimate children of their natural brothers-in-law. Ursule is a stranger to Doctor Minoret. I recollect a decision ​of the Royal Court of Colmar, made in 1825, whilst I was finishing reading for the law, by which it was declared that once a natural child was deceased, his descendants could no longer be the object of interposition. Now, Ursule’s father is dead.”
Goupil’s argument produced what, in accounts of legislative sittings, journalists describe by this parenthesis: (Profound Sensation).
“And what does that signify?” cried Dionis, “that the case of gifts made by the uncle of a natural child has never yet come before the court; but, let it come, and the severity of the French law toward natural children would be all the more enforced as we live in an age in which religion is respected. And I can also answer for it that over this lawsuit there would be a compromise, particularly when you can have been persuaded to drive Ursule to the Court of Appeal.”
The delight of heirs finding heaps of gold broke out into smiles, starts, and gestures all round the table, which prevented them from noticing a denial from Goupil. Then, after this outburst, profound silence and anxiety followed the notary’s first word, a most terrible word:
“But—”
Dionis then saw all eyes staring at him, and all faces set in the same expression just as if he had pulled the string on one of those little stages where all the characters walk in jerks by means of machinery.
“But no law can prevent your uncle from adopting ​or marrying Ursule,” he resumed. “As for adoption it could be contested and I think you would gain your cause; the royal courts do not trifle on the subject of adoption, and you would be heard at the inquiry. It is all very well the doctor wearing the ribbon of Saint-Michel, being an officer of the Legion of Honor and former physician to the Ex-Emperor, he will die. But, if you are forewarned in case of adoption, how would you know of the marriage? The old man is sly enough to go and marry in Paris after a year’s residence, and requite his intended, in the marriage settlements, by a dowry of a million. Therefore the only act that can endanger your inheritance is the marriage of the little one and your uncle.”
Here the notary paused.
“There is yet another danger,” said Goupil again, with a knowing look, “that of a will made to a third, old Bongrand, for instance, who might hold a legacy trust for Mademoiselle Ursule Mirouët.”
“If you worry your uncle,” resumed Dionis, cutting short his head clerk, “and if you are not kind to Ursule, you will drive him either into marriage, or into the legacy trust of which Goupil has spoken; but I do not believe him capable of resorting to a legacy trust, a dangerous means. As to marriage, it is easy to prevent that. Désiré only has to pay her the least attention and she would always prefer a charming young man, the cock of Nemours, to an old man.”
“Mother,” whispered the postmaster’s son to ​Zélie, as much allured by the sum as by Ursule’s beauty, “if I were to marry her, we should have all.”
“Are you mad? You who will one day have an income of fifty thousand francs and who are to become a deputy! As long as I am alive you shall not be ruined by an idiotic marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs?—a fine thing! The mayor’s only daughter will have fifty thousand francs income, and has already been proposed to me—”
This answer, the first time his mother had ever spoken harshly to him, extinguished any hope that Désiré might have had of marrying the lovely Ursule, for his father and he would never be able to prevail against the determination written in Zélie’s terrible blue eyes.
“Eh! but see here, Monsieur Dionis,” cried Crémière, nudged by his wife, “if the old man took the thing seriously and married his ward to Désiré whilst giving her the reversion to all his fortune, good-bye to the inheritance! And if he only lives another five years our uncle will have pretty well a million.”
“Never,” cried Zélie, “in my lifetime shall Désiré marry the daughter of a bastard, a charitygirl, picked up in a market-place! Bless me! my son is to represent the Minorets at his uncle’s death, and the Minorets can boast of five hundred years of good citizens. It is quite as good as the nobility. Make yourselves easy about that; Désiré will marry when we know what he can become in the Chamber of Deputies.”
​This haughty declaration was seconded by Goupil, who said:
“Désiré, endowed with an income of twenty-four thousand francs, will become either president of the royal Courts or attorney-general, which leads to the peerage; and a foolish marriage would do for him.”
The heirs then all talked to one another; but held their peace at Minoret’s thump on the table to enable the notary to continue speaking.
“Your uncle is an honest, worthy man,” resumed Dionis. “He believes himself to be immortal; and like all intelligent people, he will allow death to overtake him without having made a will. My opinion is therefore, that at present he should be urged to invest his capital in such a way as to render your dispossession difficult, and the chance has occurred. Young Portenduère is imprisoned at Sainte-Pélagie for debts of a hundred and odd thousand francs. His aged mother knows he is in prison, she cries like a Magdalen and is expecting the Abbé Chaperon to dinner, doubtless in order to discuss this disaster with him. Well, to-night I will go and persuade your uncle to sell his stock of five per cent consols, which are at one hundred and eighteen, and lend Madame de Portenduère, on her Bordières farm and on her house, the sum necessary to clear the prodigal child. I shall be in my character as notary in speaking for this little fool of a Portenduère, and it is very natural that I should wish to make him re-invest his stock; I gain the deeds, the sale and commission on it. If I can become his ​adviser, I will propose other investments in land for the surplus of the capital, and I have some excellent ones in my office. Once his fortune is placed in landed estates or in trust mortgages in the country, it will not easily fly away. One can always cause difficulties to arise between the wish to realize and the realization.”
The heirs, struck by the truth of this argument, much more skilful than that of Monsieur Josse, murmured approvingly.
“You must all act together,” said the notary in conclusion, “so as to keep your uncle in Nemours, to which he is accustomed, and where you can watch him. By providing a lover for the little one, you prevent the marriage—”
“But suppose the marriage took place?” said Goupil, seized with an ambitious idea.
“Even that would not be so bad, for the loss would be enumerated, and one would know what the old man wishes to give her,” replied the notary. “But if you let Désiré loose upon her, he can dawdle on with the little one until the old man’s death. Marriages are made and unmade.”
“The shortest way,” said Goupil, “if the doctor is still going to live any length of time, would be to marry her to some good fellow, who would free you of her by settling with her at Sens, Montargis or Orléans, with a hundred thousand francs.”
Dionis, Massin, Zélie and Goupil, the only clever heads in this assembly, exchanged four glances full of ideas.
​“That would be the worm within the pear,” whispered Zélie to Massin.
“Why did they let him come?” replied the clerk.
“That would suit you very nicely,” cried Désiré to Goupil, “but could you ever keep yourself clean enough to please the old man and his ward?”
“You are not rubbing your stomach with a basket,” said the postmaster who finally grasped Goupil’s idea.
This coarse joke was a prodigious success. The head clerk scrutinized the laughers with such a terrible look, that silence was immediately restored.
“Nowadays,” whispered Zélie to Massin, “notaries think only of their own interests; and suppose Dionis, in order to profit, went over to Ursule’s side?”
“I am sure of him,” replied the clerk, giving his cousin a look out of his malicious little eyes.
He was going to add, “I know enough to ruin him!” but checked himself.
“I am entirely of Dionis’s opinion,” said he, aloud.
“And I also,” cried Zélie, who nevertheless suspected a collusion of interest between the notary and the clerk.
“My wife has voted,” said the postmaster, sucking down a glass of brandy, although his face was already violet-colored from digesting the breakfast and from a remarkable absorption of liquor.
“That’s all right,” said the tax-gatherer.
“Then shall I go after dinner?” rejoined Dionis.
​“If Monsieur Dionis is right,” said Madame Crémière to Madame Massin, “we must visit our uncle in the evening as before, every Sunday, and do all that Monsieur Dionis has just told us.”
“Yes, to be received as we used to be!” cried Zélie. “After all, we have a good income of more than forty thousand francs, and he has refused all our invitations; we are quite as good as he is. Even though I do not know how to make laws, I can steer my own bark.”
“As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,” said Madame Massin, rather piqued, “I do not care to lose ten thousand!”
“We are his nieces, we will take care of him; we will keep our eyes open,” said Madame Crémière, “and some day, cousin, you will be grateful to us.”
“Treat Ursule well, the old man De Jordy left her his savings,” said the notary, lifting his forefinger to his lips.
“I will be on my P’s and Q’s,” cried Désiré.
“You were as clever as Desroches, the cleverest of all the Paris solicitors,” said Goupil to his master as they left the post-house.
“And they discuss our fees!” replied the notary, smiling bitterly.
The heirs, who were seeing Dionis and his head clerk home, all met, their faces rather flushed by the breakfast, at the end of vespers. According to the notary’s anticipations, the Abbé Chaperon was giving his arm to old Madame de Portenduère.
​“She has dragged him to vespers,” cried Madame Massin, drawing Madame Crémière’s attention to Ursule and her godfather as they were leaving the church.
“Let us go and speak to him,” said Madame Crémière, advancing toward the old man.
The change that the conference had wrought in all these faces surprised Doctor Minoret. He wondered what was the cause of this feigned friendliness, and, out of curiosity, favored the meeting of Ursule and the two women, eager to greet her with exaggerated affection and forced smiles.
“Uncle, will you allow us to come and see you tonight?” said Madame Crémière. “We have sometimes thought that we worried you; but it is such a long time since our children paid you their respects, and now our daughters are of an age to make acquaintance with our dear Ursule.”
“Ursule is worthy of her name,” replied the doctor, “she is very wild.”
“Let us tame her,” said Madame Massin. “And then, see here, uncle,” added this good housewife, trying to hide her projects under a calculation of economy, “we were told that your dear godchild shows such wonderful talent on the piano-forte, that we should be delighted to hear her. Madame Crémière and I are rather inclined to have her master for our little ones; for, if he had seven or eight pupils, he might fix his charges within reach of our fortunes—”
“Willingly,” said the old man, “and that would ​be all the better as I also wish to give Ursule a singing-master.”
“Well then, till to-night, uncle; we will come with your great-nephew Désiré, who is now a lawyer.”
“Till to-night,” replied Minoret, who wanted to fathom these shallow minds.
The two nieces squeezed Ursule’s hand, saying to her with pretended graciousness:
“Au revoir.”
“Oh! godfather, then you see into my heart?” cried Ursule, giving the old man a look full of gratitude.
“You have a voice,” he said. “And I also want you to have drawing and Italian masters. A woman,” resumed the doctor, looking at Ursule as he was opening the gate of his house, “ought to be brought up in such a way as to feel herself equal to any position in which her marriage may place her.”
Ursule grew as red as a cherry; her guardian seemed to be thinking of the same person as she was. Feeling herself on the point of confessing the involuntary partiality which drove her to thinking of Savinien and connecting all her longing for perfection with him, she went and sat down under the clump of climbing plants, where, from afar, she stood out like a blue and white flower.
“You can quite see, godfather, how kind your nieces are to me; they were nice,” she said, seeing him coming, and to throw him off the scent of the thoughts which had made her pensive.
​“Poor little thing!” cried the old man.
He patted Ursule’s hand as she laid it on his arm, and led her along the terrace beside the river, where no one could overhear them.
“Why do you say, ‘Poor little thing?’”
“Do you not see that they are afraid of you?”
“But why?”
“All my heirs are just now very uneasy about my conversion; they have doubtless attributed it to the influence you exercise over me, and imagine that I shall disappoint them of my inheritance in order to enrich you.”
“But that would not be?” said Ursule naïvely, looking at her godfather.
“Oh! heavenly consolation of my declining days!” said the old man, lifting up his ward and kissing her on both cheeks. “It is indeed for her and not for myself! O God! that I prayed Thee a moment ago to let me live until the day upon which I shall have entrusted her to some good being who is worthy of her! You will see, my little angel, the farce that the Minorets, Crémières and Massins will come and play here. You want to beautify and prolong my life, you do! Whereas they only think of my death—”
“God preserve us from hating; but, if that is so, —oh! I do indeed despise them!” said Ursule.
“Dinner!” cried La Bougival from the top of the steps, which, on the garden side, were at the end of the passage.