Ursule Mirouët

At this instant a woman in her Sunday best⁠—for the bells of all the churches of Nemours were summoning the inhabitants to midday Mass⁠—a woman of about six-and-thirty, addressed the postmaster.

“Well, cousin,” said she, “you would not believe me! Our uncle is in the High Street with Ursule, and they are going to Mass.”

In spite of the license of modern romance in the matter of local coloring, it is impossible to carry realism so far as to repeat the horrible abuse, mingled with oaths, which this news, so undramatic as it would seem, brought from the wide mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his thin voice became a hiss, and his face had the appearance which the country folk ingeniously refer to as “sunstroke.”

“Are you certain?” he asked after his first explosion of rage.

The postilions as they went by touched three hats to the master, who seemed neither to see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for his son, Minoret-Levrault returned up the High Street with his cousin.

“Did I not always tell you so?” she went on. “When Doctor Minoret has fallen into his dotage, that sanctimonious little slut will make a bigot of him; and as those who rule the mind rule the purse, she will get all our money.”

“But, Madame Massin,” said the postmaster, quite confounded.

“Oh yes!” cried Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin, “you will say as Massin does: ‘Is a girl of fifteen likely to invent and execute such a plot?

He took Minoret’s hand, Minoret yielding; he held it for a minute with an apparent concentration of thought, and with his other hand he took that of the woman in the chair; then he placed the doctor’s hand in the woman’s, signing to the old sceptic to sit down by the side of this Pythoness without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight thrill in the excessively calm face of the woman when the Swedenborgian placed them in contact; but the movement, though marvelous in its results, was in itself extremely simple.

“Obey this gentleman,” said the Unknown, extending his hand over the head of the woman, who seemed to inhale light and life from him. “And remember that all you do for him will please me.⁠—Now, you can speak to her,” he said to Minoret.

“Go to Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois, to my house,” said the doctor.

“Give her time; hold her hand till she shows by what she says that she is there,” said Bouvard to his old friend.

“I see a river,” replied the woman in a low voice, and seeming to be looking attentively within herself, in spite of her closed eyes. “I see a pretty garden.”

“Why have you begun by the river and the garden?” asked Minoret.

“Because they are in the garden.”

“Who?”

“The young lady and her nurse, of whom you are thinking.”

“What is the garden like?” asked Minoret.

“As you go into it by the steps that lead to the river there is a long gallery to the right, built of

“Well, Ursule,” said the doctor, drawing her on to his knees again, “and as you went to sleep with your head on the pillow, did you not say, ‘Dear godfather! Whom will he play backgammon with in Paris?’ ”

Ursule started to her feet as though the trump of Judgment had sounded in her ears; she gave a cry of terror; her dilated eyes stared at the old man with fixed horror.

“Who are you, godfather? Where did you get such a power?” she asked, fancying that as he did not believe in God, he must have made a compact with the angel of hell.

“What did you sow in the garden yesterday?”

“Mignonette, sweet peas, balsams⁠—”

“And larkspurs to end with?”

She fell on her knees.

“Do not terrify me, godfather!⁠—But you were here, were you not?”

“Am I not always with you,” replied the doctor in jest, to spare the innocent child’s reason.

“Let us go to your room.” Then he gave her his arm and went upstairs.

“Your knees are quaking, dear friend,” said she.

“Yes; I feel quite overset.”

“Do you at last believe in God?” she exclaimed, with innocent gladness, though the tears rose to her eyes.

“Well, then, dear godfather,” said she, “I will open my soul to you. In the month of May Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Till that visit I had never paid the least attention to him. When he went away to live in Paris I was a little child, and I saw no difference, I swear to you, between a young man⁠—and others like you, excepting that I loved you, and never imagined I could love anyone better, whoever he might be. Monsieur Savinien arrived by the mail-coach the night before his mother’s birthday without our knowing of it. At seven next morning, after saying my prayers, as I opened the window to air my room, I saw the open windows of Monsieur Savinien’s room, and Monsieur Savinien himself in his dressing-gown engaged in shaving himself, and doing everything with such grace in his movements⁠—in short, I thought him very nice. He combed his black moustache, and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his throat white and round.⁠—Oh! must I say it all?⁠—I noticed that his fresh neck, and his face, and his beautiful black hair were quite unlike yours when I see you shaving yourself; and something rose up in me from I know not where⁠—like a mist rushing in waves to my heart, to my head, and so violently that I had to sit down. I could not stand; I was trembling. But I longed so much to see him that I pulled myself up on tiptoe; then he saw me, and for fun he blew me a kiss from the ends of his fingers, and⁠—”

The curé and the physician had left; La Bougival was preparing the mustard plasters.

“Are we quite alone?” said the old man to his ward.

Ursule stood on tiptoe to look out on the courtyard.

“Yes,” said she, “Monsieur le Curé shut the gate as he went out.”

“My darling child,” said the dying man, “my hours, my minutes are numbered. I have not been a doctor for nothing; the mustard plasters recommended by the apothecary will not carry me through till tonight.⁠—Do not cry, Ursule,” he said, finding himself interrupted by his ward’s sobs, “But listen to me: the point is that you should marry Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes up with the sinapism, go down to the Chinese pavilion; here is the key; lift up the marble top of the Boule cabinet, and under it you will find a letter addressed to you; take it, and come up and show it to me, for I shall not die easy unless I know that it is in your hands. When I am dead, do not at once announce the fact; first send for Monsieur de Portenduère, read the letter together, and swear to me in his name and in your own that you will obey my last injunctions. When he has done what I desire, you can announce my death, and then the comedy of the inheritance will begin.⁠—God grant that those monsters may not ill-use you.”

“Yes, godfather.”