Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/282

 instead of poverty. Although uttered unreproachfully, this argument wounded the old lady quite as much as the idea of an early and violent dispossession. On learning this disaster, Ursule, barely recovered from the fever and the blow aimed at her by the heirs, was stupefied with grief. To love and find one’s self powerless to succor the beloved one is one of the most frightful sufferings that can lay waste to the soul of a noble, delicate woman.

“I meant to have bought my uncle’s house, I shall buy your mother’s,” she said.

“Is it possible?” said Savinien. “You are a minor and cannot sell your stock without formalities to which the attorney for the crown would never consent Besides, we shall not attempt to resist. The whole town is delighted to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like hounds at the death. Happily I still have ten thousand francs with which I shall be able to provide for my mother until the end of this wretched business. After all, your godfather’s inventory is not finished; Monsieur Bongrand still hopes to find something for you. He is as astonished as I am to know that you are without any fortune. The doctor so often spoke, either to him or to me, of the beautiful future he had arranged for you, that we do not at all understand this issue.”

“Bah!” she said, “as long as I can buy my godfather’s library and furniture so that they shall not be scattered or fall into the hands of strangers, I am contented with my lot.”