"
"She swore to her mother this morning," said the notary, "in presence
of Dumay, that she had not exchanged a look or a word with any living
soul."
"Then she loves after my fashion!" exclaimed Butscha.
"And how is that, my poor lad?" asked Madame Latournelle.
"Madame," said the little cripple, "I love alone and afar--oh! as far
as from here to the stars."
"How do you manage it, you silly fellow?" said Madame Latournelle,
laughing.
"Ah, madame!" said Butscha, "what you call my hump is the socket of my
wings."
"So that is the explanation of your seal, is it?" cried the notary.
Butscha's seal was a star, and under it the words "Fulgens, sequar,"
--"Shining One, I follow thee,"--the motto of the house of
Chastillonest.
"A beautiful woman may feel as distrustful as the ugliest," said
Butscha, as if speaking to himself; "Modeste is clever enough to fear
she may be loved only for her beauty."
Hunchbacks are extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for,
according to Nature's plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish.
The curvature or distortion of the spinal column creates in these
outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where the
nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal
conditions,--where they develop, and whence they are emitted, so to
say, in lightning flashes, to energize the interior being.
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