Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/365

 the sound, rude health of careless folk? Who has drawn dark circles round those eyes and subdued their rustic sprightliness? Would you ever have believed that this forehead could wrinkle, and that the brain of this colossus could ever be agitated? He feels his heart at last! I understand remorse as well as you understand penitence, my dear curé; till now those whom I have observed expected their penalty or were going to endure it in order to be quits with society: they were either resigned or they breathed vengeance; but here is remorse without expiation, remorse pure and simple, greedy for its prey and devouring it.”

“You do not yet know,” said the justice of the peace, stopping Minoret, “that Mademoiselle Mirouët has just refused the hand of your son?”

“But,” said the curé, “be easy, she will prevent his duel with Monsieur de Portenduère.”

“Ah! my wife has succeeded?” said Minoret. “I am very glad, for I could hardly keep alive.”

“Indeed you are so much changed, that you are no longer like yourself,” said the justice.

Minoret looked alternately at Bongrand and the curé to find out whether the priest had been guilty of any indiscretion; but the Abbé Chaperon preserved an impassiveness of countenance, a mournful serenity, that reassured the culprit.

“And it is all the more astonishing,” still pursued the justice of the peace, “because you ought to experience nothing but content. After all, you are seigneur of Le Rouvre, you have added to it Les