Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/133

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Upon waking, quite sure that, since his return, no one had crossed the threshold of his door, the doctor proceeded, not without an unconquerable dread, to the verification of facts. He himself was ignorant of the difference between the two bank bills and the change of the volumes of the Pandects. The somnambule had seen well. He rang for La Bougival.

“Tell Ursule to come to speak to me,” he said, sitting down in the middle of his library.

The child came, ran to him and kissed him; the doctor took her on his knee, where she sat mingling her beautiful fair locks with her old friend’s white hairs.

“Is anything the matter, godfather?”

“Yes, but promise me, by your salvation, to answer my questions frankly, without evasion.”

Ursule blushed right up to her forehead.

“Oh! I shall not ask you anything that you cannot tell me,” he continued, seeing the shame of first love troubling the hitherto childish purity of those beautiful eyes.

“Speak, godfather.”

“With what thought did you finish your evening prayers yesterday, and at what time did you say them?”

“It was a quarter-past nine, half-past nine.” (107)