Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/69

 bearing with them the solution to the riddle without allowing it to be fathomed, through pride, disdain or vengeance perhaps, having none but God for confidant and comforter. Monsieur de Jordy saw no one at Nemours—where, like the doctor, he had come to die in peace—but the curé, always at the disposal of his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduère, who used to go to bed at nine o’clock. And so, tired out, he ended by going to bed early, in spite of the thorns with which his pillow was stuffed. So it was a piece of good luck for the doctor as well as for the captain, to meet a man who had seen the same society, and who spoke the same language, with whom to exchange ideas, and who went to bed late. Once Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbé Chaperon and Minoret had spent the first evening together, they experienced such pleasure from it, that the priest and the soldier returned every evening at nine o’clock, when, little Ursule having gone to bed, the old man found himself at liberty. And all three stayed up until twelve or one o’clock.