Ursula

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Honoré de Balzac. Ursula

CHAPTER I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS

CHAPTER II. THE RICH UNCLE

CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR’S FRIENDS

CHAPTER IV. ZELIE

CHAPTER V. URSULA

CHAPTER VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM

CHAPTER VII. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION

CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFERENCE

CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE

CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE

CHAPTER XI. SAVINIEN SAVED

CHAPTER XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE

CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS

CHAPTER XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED

CHAPTER XV. THE DOCTOR’S WILL

CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES

CHAPTER XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS

CHAPTER XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE

CHAPTER XIX. APPARITIONS

CHAPTER XX. REMORSE

CHAPTER XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS VERY EASILY STOLEN

ADDENDUM

Отрывок из книги

Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been built on the farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place will lose its present aspect of graceful originality.

In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting one fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at a glance the whole of what is called in his business a “ruban de queue.” The month of September was displaying its treasures; the atmosphere glowed above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the blue of the sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault (for that was the post master’s name) was obliged to shade his eyes with one hand to keep them from being dazzled. With the air of a man who was tired of waiting, he looked first to the charming meadows which lay to the right of the road where the aftermath was springing up, then to the hill-slopes covered with copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours to Bouron. He could hear in the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on the road were echoed back from the hills, the trot of his own horses and the crack of his postilion’s whip.

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“Try opium,” she replied.

Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between large villages and cities those who do not go to mass stand about in the square or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of church service was a weekly exchange, to which the owners of property scattered over a radius of some miles resorted.

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