Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/241

 “My dear monsieur,” he said, “Ursule is a regular sensitive-plant, that a harsh word would kill. With her, you ought to moderate the outburst of love. Oh! if you had loved her for sixteen years, you would have been content with her promise,” he added, by way of revenge for the remark with which Savinien had concluded his last letter.

Two days after, Savinien left In spite of the letters he wrote regularly to Ursule, she fell a prey to an apparently causeless illness. Like beautiful fruit attacked by worms, one thought was gnawing at her heart. She lost appetite and her beautiful color. When her godfather first asked her what she felt:

“I want to see the sea,” she said.

“It is difficult to take you to any seaport in December,” replied the old man.

“Can I go then?” she said.

If high winds arose, Ursule would feel greatly disturbed, believing, in spite of the learned distinctions of her godfather, the curé and the justice of the peace between the winds of sea and those of the land, that Savinien was fighting a hurricane. The justice of the peace made her happy for several days with an engraving of a midshipman in uniform. She would read the newspapers, fancying they might give some news of the cruise for which Savinien had left. She devoured Cooper’s naval romances, and tried to learn the naval terms. These proofs of fixity of thought, often pretended by other women, were so natural to Ursule that she