“Can you repeat it?”
“Yes.”
Minoret took out his pencil and wrote at the woman’s dictation the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbé Chaperon:
“O God, if Thou art pleased with Thy handmaid, who adores Thee and beseeches Thee with all love and fervor, who strives not to wander from Thy holy commandments, who would gladly die, as Thy Son died, to glorify Thy Name, who would fain live under Thy shadow. Thou to whom all hearts are open, grant me the mercy that my godfather’s eyes may be unsealed, lead him into the way of life, and give him Thy grace, that he may dwell in Thee during his latter days; preserve him from all ill, and let me suffer in his stead! Holy Saint Ursule, my beloved patron Saint, and Thou, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Archangels, and Saints in Paradise, hear me; join your intercessions to mine, and have pity on us!”
The clairvoyant so exactly imitated the child’s innocent gestures and saintly aspirations that Doctor Minoret’s eyes filled with tears.
“Does she say anything more?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Repeat it.”
“ ‘Dear godfather! Whom will he play backgammon with in Paris?’—She has blown out her light, lays down her head, and goes to sleep.—She is gone off! She looks so pretty in her little nightcap!”
Minoret took leave of the Great Unknown, shook hands with Bouvard, ran downstairs, and hurried off to a stand of coaches, which at that time existed under the gateway of a mansion since demolished to make way for the Rue d’Alger. He there found a driver, and asked him if he would set out forthwith for Fontainebleau. The price having been agreed on, the old man, made young again, set out that very minute. As agreed, he let the horse rest at Essonne, then drove on till they picked up the Nemours diligence, and dismissed his coachman.
He reached home by about five in the morning, and went to bed amid the wreck of all his former notions of physiology, of nature, and of metaphysics; and he slept till nine, he was so tired by his expedition.
On waking, the doctor, quite sure that no one had crossed the threshold since his return, proceeded to verify the facts, not without an invincible dread. He himself had forgotten the difference between the two banknotes, and the displacement of the two volumes of the Pandects. The somnambulist had seen rightly. He rang for La Bougival.
“Tell Ursule to come to speak to me,” said he, sitting down in the middle of the library.
The girl came at once, flew to his side, and kissed him; the doctor took her on his knee, where, as she sat, her fine fair tresses mingled with her old friend’s white hair.
“You have something to say to me, godfather?”
“Yes. But promise me, on your soul, to reply frankly, unequivocally, to my questions.”
Ursule blushed to the roots of her hair.
“Oh! I will ask you nothing that you cannot answer,” he went on, seeing the bashfulness of first love clouding the hitherto childlike clearness of her lovely eyes.
“Speak, godfather.”
“With what thought did you end your evening prayers last night; and at what hour did you say them?”
“It was a quarter-past nine, or half-past.”
“Well, repeat now your last prayer.”
The young girl hoped that her voice might communicate her faith to the unbeliever; she rose, knelt down, and clasped her hands fervently; a radiant look beamed in her face, she glanced at the old man, and said:
“What I asked God last night I prayed for again this morning, and shall still ask till He grants it me.”
Then she repeated the prayer with fresh and emphatic expression; but, to her great surprise, her godfather interrupted her, ending it himself.
“Well, Ursule,” said the doctor, drawing her on to his knees again, “and as you went to sleep with your head on the pillow, did you not say, ‘Dear godfather! Whom will he play backgammon with in Paris?’ ”
Ursule started to her feet as though the trump of Judgment had sounded in her ears; she gave a cry of terror; her dilated eyes stared at the old man with fixed horror.
“Who are you, godfather? Where did you get such a power?” she asked, fancying that as he did not believe in God, he must have made a compact with the angel of hell.
“What did you sow in the garden yesterday?”
“Mignonette, sweet peas, balsams—”
“And larkspurs to end with?”
She fell on her knees.
“Do not terrify me, godfather!—But you were here, were you not?”
“Am I not always with you,” replied the doctor in jest, to spare the innocent child’s reason.
“Let us go to your room.” Then he gave her his arm and went upstairs.
“Your knees are quaking, dear friend,” said she.
“Yes; I feel quite overset.”
“Do you at last believe in God?” she exclaimed, with innocent gladness, though the tears rose to her eyes.
The old man looked round the neat and simple room he had arranged for Ursule. On the floor was an inexpensive green drugget, which she kept exquisitely clean; on the walls a paper with a pale-gray ground and a pattern of roses with their green leaves; there were white cotton curtains, with a pink border, to the windows looking on the courtyard; between the windows, below a tall mirror, a console of gilt wood with a marble slab, on which stood a blue Sèvres vase for flowers; and opposite the fireplace, a pretty
