Ursula by Honoré de Balzac (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📕

think about it--I'll see," said the old man, evidently at a loss for a reply.

Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the doctor.

"Already!" cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. "Yes," he said to Ursula, "send him here."

"I'll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the advance-guard of your heirs," said Bongrand. "They breakfasted together at the post house, and something is being engineered."

The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden. After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon.

The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very remarkable. The latter deny them the "lesser" powers while recognizing their possession of the "higher." It is, perhaps, a tribute to them. Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are mistaken! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued by the doctor's silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula's interests which he thought endangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs. He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old man and Dionis.

"No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be," he thought as he looked at her, "there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and their own morality. I'll test here. The Minoret-Levraults," he began, settling his spectacles, "might possibly ask you in marriage for their son."

The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a moment's inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to the glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged Monsieur Bongrand's pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he smiled at her and said, "Go! go!"

Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer which reached the pagoda where she was.

"My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that, and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall come back from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I shall not sell my property in the Funds."

Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head against the blind to steady herself.

"Good God, what is the matter with her?" thought the old doctor. "She has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her."

He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.

"Adieu, Monsieur," he said to the notary, "please leave us."

He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her inhale it.

"Take my place," said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; "I must be alone with her."

The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.

"I don't know," replied Dionis. "She was standing by the pagoda, listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is there anything between them?"

"At fifteen years of age? pooh!" replied Bongrand.

"She was born in February, 1813; she'll be sixteen in four months."

"I don't believe she ever saw him," said the judge. "No, it is only a nervous attack."

"Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notary.

Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage "in extremis" which they dreaded,--the only sure means by which the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying his son to Ursula.

"If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her," replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and infatuated with her noble blood."

"Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres," replied the notary, on the point of betraying himself.

Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.

"I shall have to come down to the mayor's daughter," he thought. "But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really loves him."

The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.

"What ails you, my child?" he said. "Your life is my life. Without your smiles what would become of me?"

"Savinien in prison!" she said.

With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to sob.

"Saved!" thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great anxiety. "Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife," he thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart, applying his ear to it. "Ah, that's all right," he said to himself. "I did not know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet," he added, looking at her; "but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all that has passed between you."

"I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other," she answered, sobbing. "But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!"

"Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little love-affair."

Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was silence between them.

"Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been."

"No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child, and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else. Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother's fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the windows in Monsieur Savinien's room open; and Monsieur Savinien was there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements there was such grace--I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white throat--so round!--must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and face and that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when I watch you arranging your beard. There came--I don't know how--a sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so violently that I sat down--I couldn't stand, I trembled so. But I longed to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and--"

"And?"

"And then," she continued, "I hid myself--I was ashamed, but happy--why should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling--it dazzled my soul and gave it some power, but I don't know what--it came again each time I saw within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as it was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his clothes, even the tap of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little thing about him--his hand with the delicate glove--acted like a spell upon me; and yet I had strength enough not to think of him during mass. When the service was over I stayed in the church to let Madame de Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind him. I couldn't tell you how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round to fasten the iron gate--"

"Where was La Bougival?" asked the doctor.

"Oh, I let her go to the kitchen," said Ursula simply. "Then I saw Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh! godfather, I was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of surprise and admiration--I don't know what I would not do to make him look at me again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for any good I do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to Paris that evening, and I have not seen him since. The street seems empty; he took my heart away with him--but he does not know it."

"Is that all?" asked the old man.

"All, dear godfather," she said, with a sigh of regret that there was not more to tell.

"My little girl," said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your