Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/285

 buying it! But for that, would it not be folly to let her put her ready money into books which she will never open?”

The whole town believed the doctor’s goddaughter to have been provided with the hidden funds, but, when it became positively known that her income of fourteen hundred francs and her repurchases constituted her entire fortune, then the doctor’s house and personal property excited universal curiosity. Some thought that sums in banknotes would be found hidden in the pieces of furniture; others, that the old man had lined his books. And so the sale presented the spectacle of strange precautions taken by the heirs. Dionis, acting as auctioneer, proclaimed every time an article was put up that the heirs only intended selling the piece of furniture and not any valuable it might contain; then, before surrendering it, they all submitted it to light-fingered examinations, having it probed and sounded; in fact, they followed it with the same look which a father would give to his only son on seeing him leave for the Indies.

“Ah! mademoiselle!” said La Bougival, in dismay upon her return from the first sitting, “I shall not go again. And Monsieur Bongrand is right, you would not be able to bear such a sight. Everything is out in the grounds. People come and go everywhere as if it were the street, the handsomest furniture is put to any use, they climb upon it, and a hen would not be able to find her chicks for the muddle! One would think one was at a fire.