Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/341

 was bidding him farewell. The affection he felt for so near a relation led him to attribute the illusion of this dream to the power of his imagination; the labors of the night which he had spent, as was his wont, in the trenches, caused him to fall asleep again without any apprehension. But the same voice disturbed him once more, and the phantom, that he had seen only in his sleep, compelled him to wake again and to distinctly hear the same words it had uttered before disappearing. The duke then recollected that one day when they were listening to the philosopher Pitrat discoursing upon the separation of the soul from the body, they had promised to say good-bye to each other if the first who happened to die was permitted to do so. Upon which, unable to overcome the dread of the truth of this warning, he promptly sent one of his servants to the marquis’s quarters, which were some distance from his own. But, before his man could return, the king sent to tell him, through persons who were best calculated to comfort him, of the misfortune he had feared.

“I leave it to the doctors to quarrel over the reason of this event, which I have heard related by the Duc de Montmorency several times, and which I thought so marvelous and probable as to be worth quoting.”

“But then,” said Ursule, “what ought I to do?”

“My child,” replied the curé, “it is a question of such serious things and such that would be so advantageous to yourself that you should maintain absolute silence. Now that you have confided the secrets of this apparition to me, perhaps it will not occur again. Moreover, you are now strong enough to go to church; so, to-morrow, you will go there to return thanks to God and pray Him to give your godfather peace. You may also rest assured that you have placed your secret in discreet keeping.”

“If you only knew my terrors when I go to sleep