Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/77

 Massin, and Minoret, since these distinctions between namesakes are only necessary in Gâtinais,—these three families, too busy to create a new centre, visited one another as they do in all small towns. The postmaster used to give a big dinner on his son’s birthday, a ball at the Carnival, and another on the anniversaries of his wedding, when he invited all the bourgeoisie of Nemours. The tax-gatherer also summoned his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the justice of the peace, “too poor” he said, “to rush into such extravagances,” lived in a very small way in a house in the middle of the Grand’Rue, part of which, the ground floor, was let to his sister, directress of the post-office, another of the doctor’s kindnesses. However, during the year, these three heirs or their wives met in the town, out walking, in the market in the morning, on their doorsteps, or, on Sundays, after mass, in the square, as just now; so that they used to see each other every day. Now, for the last three years particularly, the doctor’s age, his avarice and his fortune warranted allusions or direct remarks referring to the inheritance, which ended by spreading from place to place and making the doctor and his heirs equally far-famed. For six months past, not a week went by without the friends or neighbors of the Minoret heirs speaking to them, with secret envy, “of the day when the old man’s eyes being closed, his coffers would open.”

“It’s no use Doctor Minoret being a doctor and settling with death, God only is eternal,” said one.