Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/288

 From this first outburst, it will be understood how Ursule, poor and resigned, was going to annoy the wealthy Minoret. The worry of an inheritance to settle, the sale of his business, and the visits necessitated by unwonted affairs, his arguments with his wife about the slightest details and about the purchase of the doctor’s house, in which Zélie wanted to live in a homely way in the interests of her son; this uproar, which contrasted with the quiet of his ordinary life, prevented the great Minoret from thinking of his victim. But, a few days after his installation in the Rue des Bourgeois, toward the middle of May, as he was returning from a walk, he heard the sound of the piano, saw La Bougival sitting at the window like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly heard an importunate voice within him.

To explain why, in a man of the former postmaster’s stamp, the sight of Ursule, who did not even suspect the theft committed to her injury, should become unbearable; why the sight of this dignity in misfortune inspired him with the desire to send this young girl out of the town; and why this desire assumed the character of hatred and passion, would perhaps form a whole treatise on ethics. Perhaps he did not think himself the lawful owner of the thirty-six thousand francs income so long as she to whom it belonged was two steps from him. Perhaps he had a vague belief in some chance that would disclose his theft whilst those whom he had robbed were there. Perhaps Ursule’s