Honoré de Balzac

“ MY DEAR URSULE,
“Your letter breaks my heart, because you have needlessly given yourself much pain, and because, for the first time, our hearts have ceased their understanding. If you are not my wife it is because I cannot yet marry without my mother’s consent. After all, is not eight thousand francs a year in a pretty cottage on the banks of the Loing a fortune? We calculated that with La Bougival we should save five thousand francs a year! ”

“ You love your son, you want to establish him as befits the name he bears, and you encourage his fancy for a penniless and ambitious young girl, by receiving at your house one Ursule, daughter of a military bandsman; whilst you could marry him to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, whose two uncles, Messieurs le Marquis de Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, each possessing thirty thousand francs a year, intend to settle it upon their niece in her marriage contract so as to avoid leaving their fortune to that old fool, Monsieur du Rouvre, who squanders everything. ”

“ If Savinien is made happy and rich by another, I have just enough to pay my dowry to the convent which I shall enter at once. There should no more be two loves in a woman’s heart than there are two Masters in Heaven. A religious life would have attractions for me.”
“He could not let his mother go alone to Le Rouvre,” said the good priest gently. ”

“ Put your trust in God; but remember also that you have two devoted friends in the kind justice of the peace and myself.”
“That is a great deal,” she said, accompanying the curé as far as the threshold of the entrance, stretching her neck like a bird looking out of its nest, still hoping to see Savinien.
Just then, Minoret and Goupil, returning from some walk in the fields, stopped in passing, and the doctor’s heir said to Ursule:
“What is the matter with you, cousin? for we are always cousins, are we not? You seem altered.” ”

“ If justice could not always punish, she would end by knowing all and would keep good account. Minoret had reached a great goal. Henceforth indisputable proprietor of the Château du Rouvre, one of the finest in Le Gâtinais, he combined an income of forty odd thousand francs, with beautiful and rich estates around the park. The colossus could defy Goupil. In fact, he expected to live in the country, where the recollection of Ursule would not trouble him any more. ”

“ His fortune, though already suitable, is nothing compared to that which he will give you when you are his wife. One day you will be received at Court as the wife of a minister, and one of the highest in the land. As he can see you every day without your being able to see him, put one of La Bougival’s pots of carnations in the window; in this way you will have told him that he may call.”
Ursule burnt this letter without mentioning it to Savinien. Two days after she received another letter, thus worded:
“You were wrong, dear Ursule, not to answer him who loves you better than his life. ”

“ If I do not have you alive I will have you dead. To your refusal you may attribute the misfortunes which will overtake none but yourself.
“From him who loves you and to whom you will belong some day.” ”

“ If you want her to live, make haste to yield her to one who loves her more than you do; for he has turned musician and artist to please her, and would rather see her dead than know her to be your wife.”
At that time the Nemours doctor came three times a day to see Ursule, whom these occult persecutions had placed in peril of death. Feeling herself thrust into a slough by some infernal hand, this sweet young girl maintained a martyr’s attitude ”

“ Madame de Sérizy, Clementine du Rouvre’s aunt, who has just lost her only son in the Algerian campaign, will doubtless also adopt her niece. Some one who wishes you well believes that Savinien would be accepted.”
This is the letter written to Ursule:
“DEAR URSULE,
“In Nemours there is a young man who worships you, who cannot see you working at your windows without an emotion which proves to him that his love is for life. This young man is gifted with a will of iron and a perseverance that nothing discourages ”

“ She had refused all letters from the post But, without her being able to guess by what witchcraft the thing had happened, a few moments after the departure of Savinien, whom she had watched turning from the Rue des Bourgeois into the Grand’Rue, she had found a paper on her armchair on which was written: “Tremble! the despised lover will be worse than a tiger.” ”