Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/107

 cause for remorse or repentance, Minoret enjoyed a perfect serenity. In carrying out his kindnesses without any hope of a heavenly harvest, he considered himself loftier than the catholic, whom he always accused of usury with God.

“But,” the Abbé Chaperon would say, “if all men would devote themselves to this trade, you must confess that society would be perfect. There would be no more poor. To be charitable in your way, one must be a great philosopher; you raise yourself to your doctrine by reasoning, you are a social exception; whilst it suffices to be a Christian to be charitable according to ours. With you, it is an effort; with us, it is natural.”

“That means, curé, that I think and you feel, that’s all.”

And yet, at twelve years of age, Ursule, whose naturally feminine penetration and cleverness had been trained by a superior education, and whose reason, in all its bloom, was enlightened by a religious spirit, of all kinds of spirits the most delicate, ended by understanding that her godfather believed neither in a future, nor in the immortality of the soul, neither in providence nor in God. Plied with questions by the innocent creature, it was impossible for the doctor to hide this fatal secret any longer. Ursule’s artless consternation made him smile at first; but, seeing her sometimes sad, he understood the depth of affection that this sadness betokened. Despotic love has a horror of any kind of disagreement even in ideas that are alien to it Sometimes,