Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/104

 and always perfumed. A beautiful life is always more forcible than the most vigorous reasoning. One cannot resist the charms of certain pictures. And so the doctor’s eyes insensibly filled with tears when he saw the daughter of his heart going to church, dressed in white crêpe, shod in white satin shoes, adorned with white ribbons, her head encircled by a royal fillet fastened at the side with a big bow, the thousand curls streaming over her beautiful white shoulders, the bodice edged with a ruche trimmed with narrow ribbon, her eyes starry with a first hope, flying high and happy to a first union, loving her godfather more since she had soared up to God. When he saw the thought of eternity feeding this soul which had been till lately in the limbo of childhood, as after the night the sun gives life to the earth, still without knowing why, he felt angry at remaining alone at home. Seated on his flight of steps, he kept his eyes a long time fixed on their own gate through the bars of which his ward had vanished, saying: “Godfather, why do you not come? How can I be happy without you?” Although shaken to its very roots, the encyclopedist’s pride would not yet give way. Still he walked out so that he could see the procession of communicants, and distinguished his little Ursule shining with exaltation under her veil. She gave him an inspired look which moved, in the stony portion of his heart, the corner that was closed to God. But the deist held out, and he said to himself:

“Mummeries! To imagine, that, if there does