Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/143

 felt peace succeeding to agitation within him. Having, as he said, God for a responsible editor for unaccountable things, his mind was at rest. His beloved child answered that by this he could well see that he was advancing in the kingdom of God. During mass, he had just been reading the prayers whilst applying his senses to them, for he had risen after a first conference to the divine idea of communion among all believers. This old neophyte had understood the eternal symbol attaching to this food, which faith renders necessary when it has been fathomed in its inmost, deep, and joyful meaning. If he had seemed in haste to return home, it was to thank his dear little godchild for having made him take the cowl, according to the beautiful expression of times gone by. And so he was holding her on his knee in the salon and giving her a holy kiss on the forehead at the very moment when, soiling so sacred an influence with their ignoble fears, his collateral heirs were lavishing the coarsest abuse upon Ursule. The old man’s eagerness to get home, his asserted scorn of his relations, and his biting answers upon leaving the church were naturally attributed by each of the heirs to the hatred for them with which Ursule was inspiring him.

Whilst the godchild was playing to her godfather variations of Weber’s Last Thought, a fine plot was hatching in the dining-room of the Minoret-Levrault household which was to result in bringing on the scene one of the chief persons in this