Little Ursule’s wet-nurse, the widow of a poor workman with no other than his Christian name and who came from Bougival, had lost her last child when it was six months old, just when the doctor, touched by her distress and knowing her to be an honest good creature, took her as wet-nurse. Penniless, from La Bresse, where her family lived in want, Antoinette Patris, widow of Pierre surnamed De Bougival, attached herself naturally to Ursule as foster mothers attach themselves to their nurslings when they keep them. This blind maternal affection increased with domestic devotion. Anticipating the doctor’s intentions, La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became clean and handy and fell into the old man’s ways. She took particular care of the furniture and the rooms, and, in short, was indefatigable. The doctor not only wanted to keep his private life sacred, but moreover he had reasons for concealing the knowledge of his business from his heirs. So, from the second year of his establishment, he had no one in the house but La Bougival, upon whose discretion he could absolutely depend, and he disguised his real motives under the all-powerful reason of economy. To the great content of his heirs, he became stingy. Without wheedling and by the sole influence of her solicitude and devotion, La Bougival, just forty-three at the time this drama commences, was housekeeper to the doctor and his protégée, the hinge upon which all in the house turned, in short, the trusted servant. They had called her La Bougival
Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/75
