Balthazar was again so absorbed that he did not notice Josephine’s
condition. He took Jean upon his knee and trotted him mechanically,
pondering, no doubt, the problem he now had the means of solving. He saw
them bring the footbath to his wife, who was still in the parlor,
too weak to rise from the low chair in which she was lying; he gazed
abstractedly at his daughters now attending on their mother, without
inquiring the cause of their tender solicitude. When Marguerite or
Jean attempted to speak aloud, Madame Claes hushed them and pointed to
Balthazar. Such a scene was of a nature to make a young girl think; and
Marguerite, placed as she was between her father and mother, was old
enough and sensible enough to weigh their conduct.
There comes a moment in the private life of every family when the
children, voluntarily or involuntarily, judge their parents. Madame
Claes foresaw the dangers of that moment. Her love for Balthazar
impelled her to justify in Marguerite’s eyes conduct that might, to the
upright mind of a girl of sixteen, seem faulty in a father. The very
respect which she showed at this moment for her husband, making
herself and her condition of no account that nothing might disturb his
meditation, impressed her children with a sort of awe of the paternal
majesty. Such self-devotion, however infectious it might be, only
increased Marguerite’s admiration for her mother, to whom she was more
particularly bound by the close intimacy of their daily lives. This
feeling was based on the intuitive perception of sufferings whose causes
naturally occupied the young girl’s mind. No human power could have
hindered some chance word dropped by Martha, or by Josette, from
enlightening her as to the real reasons for the condition of her home
during the last four years. Notwithstanding Madame Claes’s reserve,
Marguerite discovered slowly, thread by thread, the clue to the domestic
drama. She was soon to be her mother’s active confidante, and later,
under other circumstances, a formidable judge.
Madame Claes’s watchful care now centred upon her eldest daughter,
to whom she endeavored to communicate her own self-devotion towards
Balthazar. The firmness and sound judgment which she recognized in
the young girl made her tremble at the thought of a possible struggle
between father and daughter whenever her own death should make the
latter mistress of the household. The poor woman had reached a point
where she dreaded the consequences of her death far more than death
itself. Her tender solicitude for Balthazar showed itself in the
resolution she had this day taken. By freeing his property from
encumbrance she secured his independence, and prevented all future
disputes by separating his interests from those of her children. She
hoped to see him happy until she closed her eyes on earth, and she
studied to transmit the tenderness of her own heart to Marguerite,
trusting that his daughter might continue to be to him an angel of
love, while exercising over the family a protecting and conservative
authority. Might she not thus shed the light of her love upon her dear
ones from beyond the grave? Nevertheless, she was not willing to lower
the father in the eyes of his daughter by initiating her into the secret
dangers of his scientific passion before it became necessary to do so.
She studied Marguerite’s soul and character, seeking to discover if the
girl’s own nature would lead her to be a mother to her brothers and her
sister, and a tender, gentle helpmeet to her father.
Madame Claes’s last days were thus embittered by fears and mental
disquietudes which she dared not confide to others. Conscious that the
recent scene had struck her death-blow, she turned her thoughts wholly
to the future. Balthazar, meanwhile, now permanently unfitted for the
care of property or the interests of domestic life, thought only of the
Absolute.
The heavy silence that reigned in the parlor was broken only by the
monotonous beating of Balthazar’s foot, which he continued to trot,
wholly unaware that Jean had slid from his knee. Marguerite, who was
sitting beside her mother and watching the changes on that pallid,
convulsed face, turned now and again to her father, wondering at his
indifference. Presently the street-door clanged, and the family saw the
Abbe de Solis leaning on the arm of his nephew and slowly crossing the
court-yard.
“Ah! there is Monsieur Emmanuel,” said Felicie.
“That good young man!” exclaimed Madame Claes; “I am glad to welcome
him.”
Marguerite blushed at the praise that escaped her mother’s lips. For
the last two days a remembrance of the young man had stirred mysterious
feelings in her heart, and wakened in her mind thoughts that had lain
dormant. During the visit made by the Abbe de Solis to Madame Claes on
the occasion of his examining the pictures, there happened certain of
those imperceptible events which wield so great an influence upon life;
and their results were sufficiently important to necessitate a brief
sketch of the two personages now first introduced into the history of
this family.
It was a matter of principle with Madame Claes to perform the duties
of her religion privately. Her confessor, who was almost unknown in the
family, now entered the house for the second time only; but there, as
elsewhere, every one was impressed with a sort of tender admiration at
the aspect of the uncle and his nephew.
The Abbe de Solis was an octogenarian, with silvery hair, and a withered
face from which the vitality seemed to have retreated to the eyes.
He walked with difficulty, for one of his shrunken legs ended in a
painfully deformed foot, which was cased in a species of velvet bag, and
obliged him to use a crutch when the arm of his nephew was not at hand.
His bent figure and decrepit body conveyed the impression of a delicate,
suffering nature, governed by a will of iron and the spirit of religious
purity. This Spanish priest, who was remarkable for his vast learning,
his sincere piety, and a wide knowledge of men and things, had been
successively a Dominican friar, the “grand penitencier” of Toledo,
and the vicar-general of the archbishopric of Malines. If the French
Revolution had not intervened, the influence of the Casa-Real family
would have made him one of the highest dignitaries of the Church;
but the grief he felt for the death of the young duke, Madame Claes’s
brother, who had been his pupil, turned him from active life, and he now
devoted himself to the education of his nephew, who was made an orphan
at an early age.
After the conquest of Belgium, the Abbe de Solis settled at Douai to be
near Madame Claes. From his youth up he had professed an enthusiasm for
Saint Theresa which, together with the natural bent of his mind, led
him to the mystical time of Christianity. Finding in Flanders, where
Mademoiselle Bourignon and the writings of the Quietists and Illuminati
made the greatest number of proselytes, a flock of Catholics devoted to
those ideas, he remained there,--all the more willingly because he
was looked up to as a patriarch by this particular communion, which
continued to follow the doctrines of the Mystics notwithstanding the
censures of the Church upon Fenelon and Madame Guyon. His morals were
rigid, his life exemplary, and he was believed to have visions. In spite
of his own detachment from the things of life, his affection for his
nephew made him careful of the young man’s interests. When a work of
charity was to be done, the old abbe put the faithful of his flock
under contribution before having recourse to his own means; and his
patriarchal authority was so well established, his motives so pure, his
discernment so rarely at fault, that every one was ready to answer
his appeal. To give an idea of the contrast between the uncle and the
nephew, we may compare the old man to a willow on the borders of a
stream, hollowed to a skeleton and barely alive, and the young man to a
sweet-brier clustering with roses, whose erect and graceful stems spring
up about the hoary trunk of the old tree as if they would support it.
Emmanuel de Solis, rigidly brought up by his uncle, who kept him at his
side as a mother keeps her daughter, was full of delicate sensibility,
of half-dreamy innocence,--those fleeting flowers of youth which bloom
perennially in souls that are nourished on religious principles. The old
priest had checked all sensuous emotions in his pupil, preparing him for
the trials of life by constant study and a discipline that was almost
cloisteral. Such an education, which would launch the youth unstained
upon the world and render him happy, provided he were fortunate in his
earliest affections, had endowed him with a purity of spirit which gave
to his person something of the charm that surrounds a maiden. His modest
eyes, veiling a strong and courageous soul, sent forth a light that
vibrated in the soul as the tones of a crystal bell sound their
undulations on the ear. His face, though regular, was expressive, and
charmed the eye with its clear-cut outline, the harmony of its
lines, and the perfect repose which came of a heart at peace. All was
harmonious. His black hair, his brown eyes and eyebrows, heightened
the effect of a white skin and a brilliant color. His voice was such as
might have been expected from his beautiful face; and something feminine
in his movements accorded well with the melody of its tones and with
the tender brightness of his eyes. He seemed unaware of the charm he
exercised by his modest silence, the half-melancholy reserve of his
manner, and the respectful attentions he paid to his uncle.
Those who saw the young man as he watched the uncertain steps of the
old abbe, and altered his own to suit their devious course, looking
for obstructions that might trip his uncle’s feet and guiding him to
a smoother way, could not fail to recognize in Emmanuel de Solis the
generous nature which makes the human being a divine creation. There
was something noble in the love that never criticised his uncle, in
the obedience that never cavilled at the old man’s orders; it seemed as
though there were prophecy in the gracious name his godmother had given
him. When the abbe gave proof of his Dominican despotism, in their own
home or in the presence of others, Emmanuel would sometimes lift his
head with so much dignity, as if to assert his metal should any other
man assail him, that men of honor were moved at the sight like artists
before a glorious picture; for noble sentiments ring as loudly in the
soul from living incarnations as from the imagery of art.
Emmanuel had accompanied his uncle when the latter came to examine the
pictures of the House of Claes. Hearing from Martha that the Abbe de
Solis was in the gallery, Marguerite, anxious to see so celebrated a
man, invented an excuse to join her mother and gratify her curiosity.
Entering hastily, with the heedless gaiety young girls assume at times
to hide their wishes, she encountered near the old abbe, clothed in
black and looking decrepit and cadaverous, the fresh, delightful face
of a young man. The naive glances of the youthful pair expressed their
mutual astonishment. Marguerite and Emmanuel had no doubt seen each
other in their dreams. Both lowered their eyes and raised them again
with one impulse; each, by the action, made the same avowal. Marguerite
took her mother’s arm, and spoke to her to cover her confusion and
find shelter under the maternal wing, turning her neck with a swan-like
motion to keep sight of Emmanuel, who still supported his uncle on his
arm. The light was cleverly arranged to give due value to the pictures,
and the half-obscurity of the gallery encouraged those furtive glances
which are the joy of timid natures. Neither went so far, even in
thought, as the first note of love; yet both felt the mysterious trouble
which stirs the heart, and is jealously kept secret in our youth from
fastidiousness or modesty.
The first impression which forces a sensibility hitherto suppressed
to overflow its borders, is followed in all young people by the same
half-stupefied amazement which the first sounds of music produce upon a
child. Some children laugh and think; others do not laugh till they have
thought; but those whose hearts are called to live by poetry or love,
listen stilly and hear the melody with a look where pleasure
flames already, and the search for the infinite begins. If, from an
irresistible feeling, we love the places where our childhood first
perceived the beauties of harmony, if we remember with delight the
musician, and even the instrument, that taught them to us, how much more
shall we love the being who reveals to us the music of life? The first
heart in which we draw the breath of love,--is it not our home, our
native land? Marguerite and Emmanuel were, each to each, that Voice of
music which wakes a sense, that hand which lifts the misty veil, and
reveals the distant shores bathed in the fires of noonday.
When Madame Claes paused before a picture by Guido representing an
angel, Marguerite bent forward to see the impression it made upon
Emmanuel, and Emmanuel looked at Marguerite to compare the mute thought
on the canvas with the living thought beside him. This involuntary and
delightful homage was understood and treasured. The old abbe gravely
praised the picture, and Madame Claes answered him, but the youth and
the maiden were silent.
Such was their first meeting: the mysterious light of the picture
gallery, the stillness of the old house, the presence of their elders,
all contributed to trace upon their hearts the delicate lines of this
vaporous mirage. The many confused thoughts that surged in Marguerite’s
mind grew calm and lay like a limpid ocean traversed by a luminous ray
when Emmanuel murmured a few farewell words to Madame Claes. That voice,
whose fresh and mellow tone sent nameless delights into her heart,
completed the revelation that had come to her,--a revelation which
Emmanuel, were he able, should cherish to his own profit; for it often
happens that the man whom destiny employs to waken love in the heart
of a young girl is ignorant of his work and leaves it unfinished.
Marguerite bowed confusedly; her true farewell was in the glance which
seemed unwilling to lose so pure and lovely a vision. Like a child
she wanted her melody. Their parting took place at the foot of the old
staircase near the parlor; and when Marguerite re-entered the room she
watched the uncle and the nephew till the street-door closed upon them.
Madame Claes had been so occupied with the serious matters which caused
her conference with the abbe that she did not on this occasion observe
her daughter’s manner. When Monsieur de Solis came again to the house
on the occasion of her illness, she was too violently agitated to notice
the color that rushed into Marguerite’s face and betrayed the tumult of
a virgin heart conscious of its first joy. By the time the old abbe was
announced, Marguerite had taken up her sewing and appeared to give it
such attention that she bowed to the uncle and nephew without looking at
them. Monsieur Claes mechanically returned their salutation and left
the room with the air of a man called away by his occupations. The good
Dominican sat down beside Madame Claes and looked at her with one of
those searching glances by which he penetrated the minds of others; the
sight of Monsieur Claes and his wife was enough to make him aware of a
catastrophe.
“My children,” said the mother, “go into the garden; Marguerite, show
Emmanuel your father’s tulips.”
Marguerite, half abashed, took Felicie’s arm and looked at the young
man, who blushed and caught up little Jean to cover his confusion. When
all four were in the garden, Felicie and Jean ran to the other side,
leaving Marguerite, who, conscious that she was alone with young de
Solis, led him to the pyramid of tulips, arranged precisely in the same
manner year after year by Lemulquinier.
“Do you love tulips?” asked Marguerite, after standing for a moment in
deep silence,--a silence Emmanuel seemed little disposed to break.
“Mademoiselle, these flowers are beautiful, but to love them we must
perhaps have a taste of them, and know how to understand their beauties.
They dazzle me. Constant study in the gloomy little chamber in which I
live, close to my uncle, makes me prefer those flowers that are softer
to the eye.”
Saying these words he glanced at Marguerite; but the look, full as it
was of confused desires, contained no allusion to the lily whiteness,
the sweet serenity, the tender coloring which made her face a flower.
“Do you work very hard?” she asked, leading him to a wooden seat with
a back, painted green. “Here,” she continued, “the tulips are not so
close; they will not tire your eyes. Yes, you are right, those colors
are dazzling; they give pain.”
“Do I work hard?” replied the young man after a short silence, as he
smoothed the gravel with his foot. “Yes; I work at many things. My uncle
wished to make me a priest.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Marguerite, naively.
“I resisted; I felt no vocation for it. But it required great courage
to oppose my uncle’s wishes. He is so good, he loves me so much! Quite
recently he bought a substitute to save me from the conscription--me, a
poor orphan!”
“What do you mean to be?” asked Marguerite; then, immediately checking
herself as though she would unsay the words, she added with a pretty
gesture, “I beg your pardon; you must think me very inquisitive.”
“Oh, mademoiselle,” said Emmanuel, looking at her with tender
admiration, “except my uncle, no one ever asked me that question. I am
studying to be a teacher. I cannot do otherwise; I am not rich. If I
were principal of a college-school in Flanders I should earn enough to
live moderately, and I might marry some single woman whom I could love.
That is the life I look forward to. Perhaps that is why I prefer a
daisy in the meadows to these splendid tulips, whose purple and gold
and rubies and amethysts betoken a life of luxury, just as the daisy is
emblematic of a sweet and patriarchal life,--the life of a poor teacher
like me.”
“I have always called the daisies marguerites,” she said.
Emmanuel colored deeply and sought an answer from the sand at his feet.
Embarrassed to choose among the thoughts that came to him, which he
feared were silly, and disconcerted by his delay in answering, he said
at last, “I dared not pronounce your name”--then he paused.
“A teacher?” she said.
“Mademoiselle, I shall be a teacher only as a means of living: I shall
undertake great works which will make me nobly useful. I have a strong
taste for historical researches.”
“Ah!”
That “ah!” so full of secret thoughts added to his confusion; he gave a
foolish laugh and said:--
“You make me talk of myself when I ought only to speak of you.”
“My mother and your uncle must have finished their conversation, I
think,” said Marguerite, looking into the parlor through the windows.
“Your mother seems to me greatly changed,” said Emmanuel.
“She suffers, but she will not tell us the cause of her sufferings; and
we can only try to share them with her.”
Madame Claes had, in fact, just ended a delicate consultation which
involved a case of conscience the Abbe de Solis alone could decide.
Foreseeing the utter ruin of the family, she wished to retain, unknown
to Balthazar who paid no attention to his business affairs, part of the
price of the pictures which Monsieur de Solis had undertaken to sell in
Holland, intending to hold it secretly in reserve against the day when
poverty should overtake her children. With much deliberation, and after
weighing every circumstance, the old Dominican approved the act as one
of prudence. He took his leave to prepare at once for the sale, which
he engaged to make secretly, so as not to injure Monsieur Claes in the
estimation of others.
The next day Monsieur de Solis despatched his nephew, armed with letters
of introduction, to Amsterdam, where Emmanuel, delighted to do a service
to the Claes family, succeeded in selling all the pictures in the
gallery to the noted bankers Happe and Duncker for the ostensible sum of
eighty-five thousand Dutch ducats and fifteen thousand more which were
paid over secretly to Madame Claes. The pictures were so well known that
nothing was needed to complete the sale but an answer from Balthazar to
the letter which Messieurs Happe and Duncker addressed to him. Emmanuel
de Solis was commissioned by Claes to receive the price of the pictures,
which were thereupon packed and sent away secretly, to conceal the sale
from the people of Douai.
Towards the end of September, Balthazar paid off all the sums that he
had borrowed, released his property from encumbrance, and resumed his
chemical researches; but the House of Claes was deprived of its noblest
ornament. Blinded by his passion, the master showed no regret; he felt
so sure of repairing the loss that in selling the pictures he reserved
the right of redemption. In Josephine’s eyes a hundred pictures were
as nothing compared to domestic happiness and the satisfaction of her
husband’s mind; moreover, she refilled the gallery with other paintings
taken from the reception-rooms, and to conceal the gaps which these left
in the front house, she changed the arrangement of the furniture.
When Balthazar’s debts were all paid he had about two hundred thousand
francs with which to carry on his experiments. The Abbe de Solis and his
nephew took charge secretly of the fifteen thousand ducats reserved by
Madame Claes. To increase that sum, the abbe sold the Dutch ducats, to
which the events of the Continental war had given a commercial value.
One hundred and sixty-five thousand francs were buried in the cellar of
the house in which the abbe and his nephew resided.
Madame Claes had the melancholy happiness of seeing her husband
incessantly busy and satisfied for nearly eight months. But the shock
he had lately given her was too severe; she sank into a state of languor
and debility which steadily increased. Balthazar was now so completely
absorbed in science that neither the reverses which had overtaken
France, nor the first fall of Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons,
drew him from his laboratory; he was neither husband, father, nor
citizen,--solely chemist.
Towards the close of 1814 Madame Claes declined so rapidly that she
was no longer able to leave her bed. Unwilling to vegetate in her own
chamber, the scene of so much happiness, where the memory of vanished
joys forced involuntary comparisons with the present and depressed her,
she moved into the parlor. The doctors encouraged this wish by declaring
the room more airy, more cheerful, and therefore better suited to her
condition. The bed in which the unfortunate woman ended her life was
placed between the fireplace and a window looking on the garden. There
she passed her last days, sacredly occupied in training the souls of
her young daughters, striving to leave within them the fire of her own.
Conjugal love, deprived of its manifestations, allowed maternal love
to have its way. The mother now seemed the more delightful because her
motherhood had blossomed late. Like all generous persons, she passed
through sensitive phases of feeling that she mistook for remorse.
Believing that she had defrauded her children of the tenderness that
should have been theirs, she sought to redeem those imaginary wrongs;
bestowing attentions and tender cares which made her precious to them;
she longed to make her children live, as it were, within her heart; to
shelter them beneath her feeble wings; to cherish them enough in the few
remaining days to redeem the time during which she had neglected them.
The sufferings of her mind gave to her words and her caresses a glowing
warmth that issued from her soul. Her eyes caressed her children, her
voice with its yearning intonations touched their hearts, her hand
showered blessings on their heads.