During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursule almost always spent the morning at the curé’s house. The old doctor divined the Abbé’s intention; he wanted to make Ursule herself an invincible argument. The unbeliever, beloved by his goddaughter as though she were his own child, would believe in her simplicity, and be attracted by the touching effects of religion in the soul of a girl whose love, like the trees of the tropical forest, was always loaded with flowers and fruit, always fresh, and always fragrant. A beautiful life is more powerful than the most cogent arguments. It is impossible to resist the charm of certain images, and the doctor’s eyes filled with tears, he knew not why, when he saw the child of his heart set out for church dressed in a frock of white gauze, with white satin shoes, graced with white ribbons, a fillet of white round her head tied on one side with a large bow, her hair rippling in a thousand waves over her pretty white shoulders, her bodice trimmed with a pleating mixed with narrow bows, her eyes shining like stars, from new hopes, loving her godfather all the more since her soul had risen to God. When he perceived the idea of eternity supplying nourishment to the soul hitherto wrapped in the darkness of childhood, as the sun brings life to the world after the night is past, he felt vexed to remain alone at home, still without knowing why. Seated on the balcony steps, his eyes remained long fixed on the bars of the gate through which his godchild had passed, saying, “Why are you not coming too, godfather? Am I to be happy without you?”
Though shaken to the foundations, the encyclopedist’s pride did not at once give way. However, he went out to look at the little procession, and saw his little Ursule radiant with exaltation under her veil. She flashed an inspired look at him, which struck to the stoniest corner of his heart, the spot closed against God. Still the deist was firm. “Mummery!” he said to himself. “To imagine that if a Maker of worlds exists, such an Organizer of infinitude can trouble Himself about this foolish trumpery!”
He laughed, and pursued his walk along the heights which overhang the road through the Gatinais, where the church bells, ringing loud peals, announced the gladness of many a home.
The clatter of backgammon is intolerable to those who do not know the game, one of the most difficult that exist. Not to disturb his little girl—whose extreme delicacy of ear and nerves did not allow of her enduring this rattle and their talk without apparent meaning—the curé, old Jordy during his lifetime, and Doctor Minoret postponed their game till the child was in bed or out walking. It often happened that it was unfinished when she came in again, and she then submitted with the best possible grace, and sat down by the window to sew. She disliked the game, which at the beginning is no doubt dry and dull, to many minds repellent, and so difficult to master, that those who have not become accustomed to it in their youth find it almost impossible to learn in later life.
Now on the evening after her first communion, when Ursule came back to her guardian and found him alone for that day, she set the backgammon board in front of the old man.
“Now, whose throw will it be?” said she.
“Ursule,” said the doctor, “is it not sinful to make game of your godfather on the very day of your first communion?”
“I am not making game,” said she, seating herself. “I must think of your pleasure—you who are always thinking of mine. Whenever Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me, he gave me a lesson in backgammon, and he has given me so many that I am prepared to beat you. You will not have to put yourself to inconvenience for me. I have conquered every difficulty, not to interfere with your amusement, and I really like the rattle of the dice.”
Ursule won the game. The curé came in, taking them by surprise, and enjoyed her triumph.
Next day Minoret, who had hitherto refused to allow the girl to learn music, went to Paris, bought a piano, and made arrangements with a mistress at Fontainebleau, submitting to the annoyance which Ursule’s constant practising could not fail to cause him. One of his lost friend Jordy’s phrenological prognostics proved true—the girl became an excellent musician. The doctor, proud of his goddaughter, now got an old German named Schmucke, a learned professor of music, to come from Paris once a week, and paid the cost of an art which he had at first contemned as perfectly useless in home-life. Unbelievers do not love music, that heavenly language worked out by Catholicism, which found the names of the seven notes in one of its hymns. Each note is called by the first syllable of the first seven lines of the hymn to Saint John.
The impression produced on the old man by Ursule’s first communion, though vivid, was transient. The calm contentment which acts of resolution and prayer
