Ursule Mirouët (Tomlinson translation)/Part II/8
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Although public opinion in the little town had acknowledged Ursule’s perfect innocence, she was recovering but slowly. In a state of bodily prostration which left both soul and spirit free, she became the seat of phenomena, the effects of which were moreover terrible, and of such a nature as to engross science, had science been admitted into any such confidence. Ten days after Madame de Portenduère’s visit, Ursule had a dream which presented the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in the moral facts as in the physical circumstances, so to speak. The late Minoret, her godfather, appeared to her and made signs to her to go with him; she dressed herself, followed him out into the night as far as the house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found the most trifling things as they had been on the day of her godfather’s death. The old man wore the clothes he had on the day before his death, his face was pale, and his movements made no sound at all; nevertheless, Ursule heard his voice perfectly, although it was feeble and like the repetition of a distant echo. The doctor led his ward into the study in the Chinese pavilion, where he made her raise the marble top of the little piece of Boule furniture, just as she had raised it on the day of his death; but, instead of finding nothing there, she saw the letter that her godfather had told her to go and fetch; she opened it, and read it, as well as the will in favor of Savinien.
“The letters of the handwriting,” she said to the curé, “were shining as if they had been traced with the sun’s rays, they burnt my eyes.”
When she looked at her uncle to thank him, she saw a kindly smile upon his colorless lips. And then, in its weak but clear voice, the spectre showed her Minoret in the passage listening to the secret, going to unscrew the lock and taking the packet of papers. Then, with his right hand, he seized his ward and forced her to walk with the step of the dead in order to follow Minoret to the post-house. Ursule went through the town, entered the post-house and Zélie’s old room, where the spectre made her look at the despoiler unsealing the letters, reading them and burning them.
“He could only make the third match light to burn the papers,” said Ursule, “and he buried the remains in the ashes. Afterward, my godfather brought me back to our house and I saw Monsieur Minoret-Levrault creeping into the library, whence he took, in the third volume of the Pandects, the three bonds, each twelve thousand francs a year, as well as the value of the arrears in banknotes. My godfather then said to me: ‘He is the author of the tortures which have laid you at Death’s door; but God wills that you should be happy. You will not die yet, you will marry Savinien! If you love me, if you love Savinien, you will demand your fortune from my nephew. Will you swear it to me?’”
Shining like the Saviour during His transfiguration, Minoret’s spirit had then, such was Ursule’s state of oppression, caused her such distress of mind that she promised to do all that her uncle wished in order to stop the nightmare. She had wakened standing in the middle of her room, facing her godfather’s portrait which she had placed there since her illness. She got back into bed, went to sleep again after strong agitation of spirit, and remembered this singular vision upon waking; but she did not dare to mention it. Her exquisite judgment and delicacy revolted at the thought of revealing a dream having for aim and cause her pecuniary interests; she naturally attributed it to the chatter with which La Bougival had sent her to sleep, which had been all about her godfather’s generosity to her and the certainty that her nurse still had in that respect. But the dream returned, with aggravations which made it exceedingly dreadful. The second time, her godfather’s icy hand was laid on her shoulder, causing her the most cruel pain, an indefinable sensation. “You must obey the dead!” he said in sepulchral tones.
“And tears,” she said, “fell from his white and vacant eyes.”
The third time, the dead man took her by her long plaits and showed her Minoret talking with Goupil and promising him money if he would take Ursule to Sens. Ursule then resolved to relate her three dreams to the Abbé Chaperon.
“Monsieur le Curé,” she said to him one evening, “do you believe that the dead can re-appear?”
“My child, sacred history, secular and modern history, give several instances of testimony on this subject; but the Church has never made an Article of Faith of it; and as to science, in France, it scorns it.”
“What do you think?”
“God’s power, my child, is infinite.”
“Did my godfather ever speak to you about that kind of thing?”
“Yes, often. He had changed his opinion on those matters. His conversion dates from the day, so he has told me twenty times, upon which a woman in Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you had put before Saint-Savinien’s day in your almanac.”
Ursule gave a piercing cry that made the priest shiver; she remembered the scene when, upon his return to Nemours, her godfather had read her mind and had taken away her almanac.
“If that is so,” she said, “my visions are quite possible. My godfather has appeared to me as Jesus did to His disciples. He is enveloped in golden light, he speaks! I wanted to ask you to say a mass for the repose of his soul and implore the help of God so as to stop these apparitions, which tire me out.”
She narrated her three dreams and their most trifling details, insisting upon the absolute truth of the facts, the facility of her movements, and the somnambulism of an inner self, which, she said, moved about under the spirit’s guidance with the greatest ease.
The priest, knowing Ursule’s truthfulness, was not a little surprised at the accurate description of the room formerly occupied by Zélie Minoret in her post-house, in which Ursule had never been, and of which, in fact, she had never even heard.
“By what means can these strange apparitions take place?” said Ursule. “What did my godfather think of it?”
“Your godfather, my child, went by hypothesis. He had admitted the existence of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are a production peculiar to man, if they subsist upon a life which is their own, they might have shapes that are imperceptible to our outward senses, but perceptible to our inward senses when they are in certain conditions. And so your godfather’s ideas may envelop you, and perhaps you have invested them with his semblance. Then, if Minoret has committed these acts, they resolve themselves into ideas; for all action is the result of several ideas. Now, if ideas move in the spiritual world your spirit must have perceived them by penetrating into it. These phenomena are not more extraordinary than those of memory, and those of memory are as surprising and unaccountable as those of the perfume of plants, which may be the ideas of the plant.”
“Dear me! how you enlarge the world! But to hear a corpse speak, to see it walking and acting, is that possible?”
“In Sweden,” replied the Abbé Chaperon, “Swedenborg has clearly proved that he communicated with the dead. However, come into the library and you will read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, who was beheaded at Toulouse, and certainly was not the man to invent idle tales, an adventure that is almost similar to yours and which had happened a hundred years before, at Cardan.”
Ursule and the curé went up to the first story, and the old man picked her out a small edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of L’Histoire de Henri de Montmorency, written by a contemporary ecclesiastic who had known the prince.
“Read it,” said the curé, giving her the volume at pages 175 and 176. “Your godfather often read this passage, and look, here still is some of his snuff.”
“And he himself is no more!” said Ursule, taking the book and reading this passage:
“The siege of Privas was remarkable on account of the loss of several persons in command; two major-generals died there, to wit, the Marquis d’Uxelles, from a wound he received in the outworks, and the Marquis de Porte, from a musketshot in the head. The day he was killed he was to have been made Marshal of France. About the time the marquis died, the Duc de Montmorency, who was asleep in his tent, was awakened by a voice resembling that of the marquis, which was bidding him farewell. The affection he felt for so near a relation led him to attribute the illusion of this dream to the power of his imagination; the labors of the night which he had spent, as was his wont, in the trenches, caused him to fall asleep again without any apprehension. But the same voice disturbed him once more, and the phantom, that he had seen only in his sleep, compelled him to wake again and to distinctly hear the same words it had uttered before disappearing. The duke then recollected that one day when they were listening to the philosopher Pitrat discoursing upon the separation of the soul from the body, they had promised to say good-bye to each other if the first who happened to die was permitted to do so. Upon which, unable to overcome the dread of the truth of this warning, he promptly sent one of his servants to the marquis’s quarters, which were some distance from his own. But, before his man could return, the king sent to tell him, through persons who were best calculated to comfort him, of the misfortune he had feared.
“I leave it to the doctors to quarrel over the reason of this event, which I have heard related by the Duc de Montmorency several times, and which I thought so marvelous and probable as to be worth quoting.”“But then,” said Ursule, “what ought I to do?”
“My child,” replied the curé, “it is a question of such serious things and such that would be so advantageous to yourself that you should maintain absolute silence. Now that you have confided the secrets of this apparition to me, perhaps it will not occur again. Moreover, you are now strong enough to go to church; so, to-morrow, you will go there to return thanks to God and pray Him to give your godfather peace. You may also rest assured that you have placed your secret in discreet keeping.”
“If you only knew my terrors when I go to sleep again! the looks my godfather gives me! The last time, he hung on to my dress to see me longer. I woke up with tears streaming down my face.”
“Do not worry, he will not return,” said the curé.
Without losing an instant, the Abbé Chaperon went to Minoret’s and begged him to give him a moment’s interview in the Chinese pavilion, only stipulating that they should be alone.
“Nobody can hear us?” said the Abbé Chaperon.
“No one,” replied Minoret.
“Monsieur, my character is well known to you,” said the old man, fixing a gentle but watchful glance upon Minoret’s face. “I have to speak about the gravest and most extraordinary things, which concern you alone and about which you may be sure I shall preserve the closest secrecy, but it is impossible that I should not inform you of them. When your uncle was alive, there used to be there,” said the priest, pointing to the spot where it had stood, “a small Boule sideboard with a marble top,”—Minoret grew livid,—“and, underneath this marble, your uncle had put a letter for his ward—”
And the curé related, without omitting the slightest incident, Minoret’s own conduct to Minoret himself. The former postmaster, upon hearing the detail of the two matches that went out before kindling, felt his hair rising on his scalp.
“Who could have invented such nonsense?” he said to the curé in a choking voice when the recital was over.
“The dead man himself!”
This reply gave Minoret something of a shock, as he too used to see the doctor in his dreams.
“God is very kind, Monsieur le Curé, to perform miracles on my account,” rejoined Minoret, whose peril inspired him with the only joke he made in all his life.
“All that God does is natural,” answered the priest.
“Your phantasmagoria does not frighten me,” said the giant, somewhat recovering his presence of mind.
“I have not come to frighten you, dear monsieur, for I would not mention this to a living soul,” said the curé, “you alone know the truth. It is a matter between you and God.”
“Look here, Monsieur le Curé, do you believe me capable of such a horrible abuse of confidence?”
“I only believe in those crimes that are confessed to me and repented of,” said the priest, in apostolic tones.
“A crime?” cried Minoret.
“A crime that is awful in its consequences.”
“How?”
“By escaping human justice. Crimes that are not atoned for here below will be in the next life. God Himself avenges innocence.”
“Do you believe that God troubles Himself about these trifles?”
“Did He not see every detail in the universe at a glance, as you take in a whole landscape with your eye, He would not be God.”
“Monsieur le Curé, do you give me your word that you have only been given these details by my uncle?”
“Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursule to repeat them to her. Worn out by her dreams, she has confided these revelations to me in secret, and considers them so devoid of reason that she will never mention them. And so you may be easy on that point.”
“But I am easy in every way, Monsieur Chaperon.”
“I hope so,” said the old priest “Even though I might call these dream warnings absurd, I should still deem it necessary to inform you of them, on account of the singularity of the details. You are an honest man, and have gained your handsome fortune too lawfully to want to add to it by theft Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and would be too much tortured by remorse. We have within us a feeling of right, in the most civilized as well as in the most uncivilized man, which will not permit us to peacefully enjoy any good that is wrongfully acquired according to the laws of the society in which we live, for well constituted societies are modeled upon the rules imposed upon mankind by God Himself. In this, communities are of divine origin. Man does not discover ideas, he does not invent forms, he imitates the eternal relations that surround him on all sides. And so, see what happens: no criminal going to the scaffold with the power of taking the secret of his crimes with him, allows his head to be cut off before he has made the confession to which he is impelled by some mysterious power. Therefore, my dear Monsieur Minoret, if you are at ease, I shall go away feeling happy.”
Minoret was so stupefied that he did not show the curé out. When he thought he was quite alone, he flew into an apoplectic rage; he gave vent to the wildest blasphemies, and called Ursule the most odious names.
“Well, what has she done to you?” said his wife, who had tiptoed back after having shown out the curé.
For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, intoxicated with rage and exasperated by his wife’s ceaseless questions, gave her such a beating that, when she fell covered with bruises, he was obliged to pick her up in his arms and, feeling thoroughly ashamed, to put her to bed himself. He had a slight illness: the doctor had to bleed him twice. When he was up, everyone in the course of time noticed a change in him. Minoret used to walk alone, and would often go through the streets like a man disquieted. He seemed absent-minded when listening, he who had never had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, in the Grande-Rue, he met the justice of the peace, who was doubtless going to fetch Ursule in order to escort her to Madame de Portenduère’s, where the whist-party had recommenced.
“Monsieur Bongrand, I have something rather important to say to my cousin,” he said, taking the justice by the arm, “and I am glad to see you, you may be able to advise her.”
They found Ursule practising; she rose with a cold and stately manner upon seeing Minoret.
“My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to talk business with you,” said the justice of the peace. “By-the-bye, do not forget to give me your bonds; I am going to Paris, and will collect yours and La Bougival’s dividends.”
“Cousin,” said Minoret, “our uncle had accustomed you to greater comfort than you now have.”
“One can be very happy with little money,” she said.
“I was thinking that money might increase your happiness,” rejoined Minoret, “and I was coming to offer some to you, out of respect for my uncle’s memory.”
“There was a simple way of showing your respect for him,” said Ursule severely. “You might have left his house as it was and sold it to me, for you only raised it to so high a price in the hopes of finding some treasure—”
“Well,” said Minoret, evidently depressed, “if you had twelve thousand francs a year, you would be in a position to marry more advantageously.”
“I have not got it.”
“But if I were to give it to you, on condition that you bought an estate in Brittany, the native country of Madame de Portenduère, who would then consent to your marriage with her son—?”
“Monsieur Minoret,” said Ursule, “I have no right at all to so large a sum and I could not accept it from you. We are very slightly related and still less friends. I have already suffered too much from the miseries of calumny to wish to give rise to scandal. What have I done to deserve this money? Upon what grounds do you make me such a present? These questions, which I have the right to ask you, will be answered by everyone according to his own interpretation, it would be considered as reparation for some injury, and I would not accept any. Your uncle did not bring me up with ignoble feelings. One should not accept anything but from one’s friends: I could not feel affection for you, and I should necessarily be ungrateful. I do not wish to run the risk of wanting in gratitude.”
“You refuse?” cried the giant, who could not conceive the idea of anyone being able to refuse a fortune.
“I refuse,” repeated Ursule.
“But what is your reason for offering mademoiselle such a fortune?” asked the old lawyer, looking fixedly at Minoret, “you have an idea; have you an idea?”
“Well, the idea of sending her away from Nemours so that my son should leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her.”
“Well then, we will see,” replied the justice of the peace, securing his spectacles. “Give us time to think it over.”
He accompanied Minoret as far as his house, all the time commending his anxiety for Désiré’s future, rather blaming Ursule’s precipitation and promising to make her listen to reason. As soon as Minoret had got home, Bongrand went to the postmaster, borrowed his horse and gig, hurried to Fontainebleau, asked for the deputy and was told that he must be spending the evening at the sub-prefect’s. The justice of the peace, delighted, called there. Désiré was playing a game of whist with the prosecutor’s wife, the sub-prefect’s wife and the colonel of the regiment then in garrison.
“I have come to tell you good news,” said Monsieur Bongrand to Désiré, “you love your cousin Ursule Mirouët, and your father is no longer opposed to your marriage.”
“I love Ursule Mirouët?” cried Désiré, laughing, “why do you assume it to be Ursule Mirouët? I recollect having sometimes seen this little girl, who is certainly very beautiful, at the house of the late Minoret, my great-uncle; but she is extremely religious; and if, like everyone else, I have done justice to her charms, I have never had my head turned by this rather insipid blonde,” said he, smiling at the sub-prefect’s wife,—she was a piquant brunette, according to the old expression of the last century.—“Where do you come from, my dear Monsieur Bongrand? Everyone knows that my father is lord paramount of forty-eight thousand francs a year in property lying round his Château du Rouvre, and all the world knows that I have forty-eight thousand permanent and financial reasons for not loving the ward of the court If I were to marry an insignificant girl, these ladies would take me for an idiot.”
“Then you have never tormented your father on the subject of Ursule?”
“Never.”
“You hear this, Monsieur le Procureur du Roi?” said the justice of the peace to this magistrate, who had been listening to them, and whom he led into an embrasure, where they stood talking about a quarter of an hour. An hour afterward, the justice of the peace, having returned to Nemours and to Ursule’s house, sent La Bougival to fetch Minoret, who came immediately.
“Mademoiselle—” said Bongrand to Minoret as he came in.
“Accepts?’ said Minoret interrupting him.
“No, not yet,” replied the justice, feeling his spectacles, “she has had scruples as to your son’s condition, for she has been very badly treated in regard to a similar passion, and knows the cost of tranquillity. Can you swear to her that your son is madly in love with her, and that you have no other motive than that of protecting our dear Ursule from any fresh goupilleries?”
“Oh! I swear,” said Minoret.
“Stop! Papa Minoret!” said the justice of the peace, removing one of his hands from his trousers-pocket to tap Minoret on the shoulder, making him start. “Do not take a false oath so lightly.”
“A false oath?”
“It is either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, at the sub-prefect’s, before four persons and the public prosecutor, that he has never thought of his cousin Ursule Mirouët. Then you have other reasons for offering her such an enormous capital? I saw that you were making rash assertions, and went myself to Fontainebleau.”
Minoret stood dumfounded at his own stupidity.
“But there is no harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in offering to help a relation in a marriage which seems likely to make her happy, and in finding pretexts for overcoming her modesty.”
Minoret, to whom danger had suggested an almost plausible excuse, wiped his forehead, which was covered with big beads of perspiration.
“You know my motives for refusing,” answered Ursule, “and I beg you not to come here again. Monsieur de Portenduère, without confiding his reasons to me, entertains feelings of scorn and even hatred towards you, which forbid me to receive you. My happiness is my entire fortune, I do not blush to confess it; and so I will not endanger it, as Monsieur de Portenduère is only waiting until I come of age, to marry me.”
“The proverb, ‘Money does everything’ is indeed untrue,” said great fat Minoret, looking at the justice of the peace, whose observing eyes made him very uncomfortable.
He got up and left, but outside he found the atmosphere as oppressive as in the little parlor.
“And yet there must be an end to all this,” he said to himself as he reached home.
“Your bond, my child?” said the justice of the peace, somewhat astonished at Ursule’s serenity after so strange an incident.
When she brought her own and La Bougival’s bonds, Ursule found the justice striding up and down.
“Have you any idea of the object of that great booby’s proceedings?” he said.
“None that I can tell,” she replied.
Monsieur Bongrand looked at her in surprise.
“Then we have the same idea,” he answered. “Here, keep the numbers of these two bonds in case I should lose them; one should always take that precaution.”
Bongrand then himself wrote down the number of Ursule’s and of her nurse’s bond on a card.
“Good-bye, my child; I shall be away two days, but I shall be here on the third for my sitting.”