Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/128

 “Can you tell me what sort of seeds she has sown?”

“Mignonette, sweet peas, balsam—”

“And the last?”

“Larkspur.”

“Where is my money?”

“At your notary’s; but you invest it cautiously without losing a single day’s interest.”

“Yes; but where is the money I keep at Nemours for my half-yearly expenditure?”

“You put it in a big book bound in red, entitled Pandects of Justinian, volume II., between the last two leaves; the book is above the glass-paneled sideboard in the folio division. You have a whole row of it. Your funds are in the last volume, on the salon side. Stay! volume III. is before volume II. But you have no money, it is—”

“Bills of one thousand francs?” asked the doctor.

“I cannot see clearly, they are folded up. No, there are two bills of five hundred francs each.”

“Can you see them?”

“Yes.”

“What are they like?”

“One is very yellow and old, the other white and almost new.—”

This last part of the examination startled Doctor Minoret. He looked at Bouvard stupefied; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, accustomed to the astonishment of unbelievers, were talking in a low voice without appearing either surprised or astounded. Minoret begged them to let him return