Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/61

 Crémière, Massin and Minoret-Levrault, exceedingly vulgar people, were mercilessly summed up by the doctor from the first two months during which they tried to encompass, not so much the uncle, as the inheritance. People who are guided by instinct have this disadvantage compared to people of ideas, that they are at once found out; instinct’s inspirations are too natural, and appeal too much to the eye not to be immediately perceived; whilst, to be fathomed, the conceptions of intellect demand an equal intelligence on both sides. After having bought the gratitude of his heirs, and having in some degree closed their mouths, the wily doctor alleged his occupations, habits, and the attentions required by the little Ursule as an excuse to avoid receiving them, without, however, forbidding them the house. He liked to dine alone, he went to bed and rose late, he had come to his native country in search of rest and solitude. These caprices of an old man appeared sufficiently natural, and his heirs contented themselves with calling upon him every Sunday between one and four o’clock, weekly visits which he tried to stop by saying to them:

“Do not come to see me unless you want me.”

The doctor, without refusing to grant consultations in serious cases, especially for the poor, would not become physician to the little hospital at Nemours, and declared that he would no longer practise his profession.

“I have killed people enough,” he said laughingly