Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/345

 what happens: no criminal going to the scaffold with the power of taking the secret of his crimes with him, allows his head to be cut off before he has made the confession to which he is impelled by some mysterious power. Therefore, my dear Monsieur Minoret, if you are at ease, I shall go away feeling happy.”

Minoret was so stupefied that he did not show the curé out. When he thought he was quite alone, he flew into an apoplectic rage; he gave vent to the wildest blasphemies, and called Ursule the most odious names.

“Well, what has she done to you?” said his wife, who had tiptoed back after having shown out the curé.

For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, intoxicated with rage and exasperated by his wife’s ceaseless questions, gave her such a beating that, when she fell covered with bruises, he was obliged to pick her up in his arms and, feeling thoroughly ashamed, to put her to bed himself. He had a slight illness: the doctor had to bleed him twice. When he was up, everyone in the course of time noticed a change in him. Minoret used to walk alone, and would often go through the streets like a man disquieted. He seemed absent-minded when listening, he who had never had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, in the Grande-Rue, he met the justice of the peace, who was doubtless going to fetch Ursule in order to escort her to Madame de Portenduère’s, where the whist-party had recommenced.