Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/344

 a glance, as you take in a whole landscape with your eye, He would not be God.”

“Monsieur le Curé, do you give me your word that you have only been given these details by my uncle?”

“Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursule to repeat them to her. Worn out by her dreams, she has confided these revelations to me in secret, and considers them so devoid of reason that she will never mention them. And so you may be easy on that point.”

“But I am easy in every way, Monsieur Chaperon.”

“I hope so,” said the old priest “Even though I might call these dream warnings absurd, I should still deem it necessary to inform you of them, on account of the singularity of the details. You are an honest man, and have gained your handsome fortune too lawfully to want to add to it by theft Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and would be too much tortured by remorse. We have within us a feeling of right, in the most civilized as well as in the most uncivilized man, which will not permit us to peacefully enjoy any good that is wrongfully acquired according to the laws of the society in which we live, for well constituted societies are modeled upon the rules imposed upon mankind by God Himself. In this, communities are of divine origin. Man does not discover ideas, he does not invent forms, he imitates the eternal relations that surround him on all sides. And so, see