Marguerite continued to keep watch over her father’s material comfort,
aided in the sweet task by Emmanuel. The noble girl received from
the hands of love that most envied of all garlands, the wreath that
happiness entwines and constancy keeps ever fresh. No couple ever
afforded a better illustration of the complete, acknowledged, spotless
felicity which all women cherish in their dreams. The union of two
beings so courageous in the trials of life, who had loved each other
through years with so sacred an affection, drew forth the respectful
admiration of the whole community. Monsieur de Solis, who had long held
an appointment as inspector-general of the University, resigned those
functions to enjoy his happiness more freely, and remained at Douai
where every one did such homage to his character and attainments that
his name was proposed as candidate for the Electoral college whenever
he should reach the required age. Marguerite, who had shown herself so
strong in adversity, became in prosperity a sweet and tender woman.
Throughout the following year Claes was grave and preoccupied; and yet,
though he made a few inexpensive experiments for which his ordinary
income sufficed, he seemed to neglect his laboratory. Marguerite
restored all the old customs of the House of Claes, and gave a family
fete every month in honor of her father, at which the Pierquins and the
Conyncks were present; and she also received the upper ranks of
society one day in the week at a “cafe” which became celebrated. Though
frequently absent-minded, Claes took part in all these assemblages and
became, to please his daughter, so willingly a man of the world that the
family were able to believe he had renounced his search for the solution
of the great problem.
Three years went by. In 1828 family affairs called Emmanuel de Solis to
Spain. Although there were three numerous branches between himself
and the inheritance of the house of Solis, yellow fever, old age,
barrenness, and other caprices of fortune, combined to make him the last
lineal descendant of the family and heir to the titles and estates of
his ancient house. Moreover, by one of those curious chances which
seem impossible except in a book, the house of Solis had acquired the
territory and titles of the Comtes de Nourho. Marguerite did not wish
to separate from her husband, who was to stay in Spain long enough to
settle his affairs, and she was, moreover, curious to see the castle
of Casa-Real where her mother had passed her childhood, and the city of
Granada, the cradle of the de Solis family. She left Douai, consigning
the care of the house to Martha, Josette, and Lemulquinier. Balthazar,
to whom Marguerite had proposed a journey into Spain, declined to
accompany her on the ground of his advanced age; but certain experiments
which he had long meditated, and to which he now trusted for the
realization of his hopes were the real reason of his refusal.
The Comte and Comtesse de Solis y Nourho were detained in Spain longer
than they intended. Marguerite gave birth to a son. It was not until the
middle of 1830 that they reached Cadiz, intending to embark for Italy
on their way back to France. There, however, they received a letter from
Felicie conveying disastrous news. Within a few months, their father
had completely ruined himself. Gabriel and Pierquin were obliged to
pay Lemulquinier a monthly stipend for the bare necessaries of the
household. The old valet had again sacrificed his little property to his
master. Balthazar was no longer willing to see any one, and would not
even admit his children to the house. Martha and Josette were dead. The
coachman, the cook, and the other servants had long been dismissed;
the horses and carriages were sold. Though Lemulquinier maintained the
utmost secrecy as to his master’s proceedings, it was believed that the
thousand francs supplied by Gabriel and Pierquin were spent chiefly
on experiments. The small amount of provisions which the old valet
purchased in the town seemed to show that the two old men contented
themselves with the barest necessaries. To prevent the sale of the House
of Claes, Gabriel and Pierquin were paying the interest of the sums
which their father had again borrowed on it. None of his children had
the slightest influence upon the old man, who at seventy years of age
displayed extraordinary energy in bending everything to his will,
even in matters that were trivial. Gabriel, Conyncks, and Pierquin had
decided not to pay off his debts.
This letter changed all Marguerite’s travelling plans, and she
immediately took the shortest road to Douai. Her new fortune and her
past savings enabled her to pay off Balthazar’s debts; but she wished
to do more, she wished to obey her mother’s last injunction and save him
from sinking dishonored to the grave. She alone could exercise enough
ascendancy over the old man to keep him from completing the work
of ruin, at an age when no fruitful toil could be expected from his
enfeebled faculties. But she was also anxious to control him without
wounding his susceptibilities,--not wishing to imitate the children of
Sophocles, in case her father neared the scientific result for which he
had sacrificed so much.
Monsieur and Madame de Solis reached Flanders in the last days of
September, 1831, and arrived at Douai during the morning. Marguerite
ordered the coachman to drive to the house in the rue de Paris, which
they found closed. The bell was loudly rung, but no one answered. A
shopkeeper left his door-step, to which he had been attracted by the
noise of the carriages; others were at their windows to enjoy a sight
of the return of the de Solis family to whom all were attached, enticed
also by a vague curiosity as to what would happen in that house on
Marguerite’s return to it. The shopkeeper told Monsieur de Solis’s
valet that old Claes had gone out an hour before, and that Monsieur
Lemulquinier was no doubt taking him to walk on the ramparts.
Marguerite sent for a locksmith to force the door,--glad to escape a
scene in case her father, as Felicie had written, should refuse to
admit her into the house. Meantime Emmanuel went to meet the old man and
prepare him for the arrival of his daughter, despatching a servant to
notify Monsieur and Madame Pierquin.
When the door was opened, Marguerite went directly to the parlor. Horror
overcame her and she trembled when she saw the walls as bare as if a
fire had swept over them. The glorious carved panellings of Van Huysum
and the portrait of the great Claes had been sold. The dining-room was
empty: there was nothing in it but two straw chairs and a common deal
table, on which Marguerite, terrified, saw two plates, two bowls, two
forks and spoons, and the remains of a salt herring which Claes and his
servant had evidently just eaten. In a moment she had flown through her
father’s portion of the house, every room of which exhibited the same
desolation as the parlor and dining-room. The idea of the Alkahest had
swept like a conflagration through the building. Her father’s bedroom
had a bed, one chair, and one table, on which stood a miserable pewter
candlestick with a tallow candle burned almost to the socket. The house
was so completely stripped that not so much as a curtain remained at
the windows. Every object of the smallest value,--everything, even the
kitchen utensils, had been sold.
Moved by that feeling of curiosity which never entirely leaves us even
in moments of misfortune, Marguerite entered Lemulquinier’s chamber and
found it as bare as that of his master. In a half-opened table-drawer
she found a pawnbroker’s ticket for the old servant’s watch which he had
pledged some days before. She ran to the laboratory and found it filled
with scientific instruments, the same as ever. Then she returned to her
own appartement and ordered the door to be broken open--her father had
respected it!
Marguerite burst into tears and forgave her father all. In the midst
of his devastating fury he had stopped short, restrained by paternal
feeling and the gratitude he owed to his daughter! This proof of
tenderness, coming to her at a moment when despair had reached its
climax, brought about in Marguerite’s soul one of those moral reactions
against which the coldest hearts are powerless. She returned to the
parlor to wait her father’s arrival, in a state of anxiety that was
cruelly aggravated by doubt and uncertainty. In what condition was she
about to see him? Ruined, decrepit, suffering, enfeebled by the fasts
his pride compelled him to undergo? Would he have his reason? Tears
flowed unconsciously from her eyes as she looked about the desecrated
sanctuary. The images of her whole life, her past efforts, her useless
precautions, her childhood, her mother happy and unhappy,--all, even her
little Joseph smiling on that scene of desolation, all were parts of a
poem of unutterable melancholy.
Marguerite foresaw an approaching misfortune, yet she little expected
the catastrophe that was to close her father’s life,--that life at once
so grand and yet so miserable.
The condition of Monsieur Claes was no secret in the community. To the
lasting shame of men, there were not in all Douai two hearts generous
enough to do honor to the perseverance of this man of genius. In the
eyes of the world Balthazar was a man to be condemned, a bad father
who had squandered six fortunes, millions, who was actually seeking the
philosopher’s stone in the nineteenth century, this enlightened century,
this sceptical century, this century!--etc. They calumniated his
purposes and branded him with the name of “alchemist,” casting up to
him in mockery that he was trying to make gold. Ah! what eulogies are
uttered on this great century of ours, in which, as in all others,
genius is smothered under an indifference as brutal a that of the gate
in which Dante died, and Tasso and Cervantes and “tutti quanti.” The
people are as backward as kings in understanding the creations of
genius.
These opinions on the subject of Balthazar Claes filtered, little by
little, from the upper society of Douai to the bourgeoisie, and from
the bourgeoisie to the lower classes. The old chemist excited pity among
persons of his own rank, satirical curiosity among the others,--two
sentiments big with contempt and with the “vae victis” with which the
masses assail a man of genius when they see him in misfortune. Persons
often stopped before the House of Claes to show each other the rose
window of the garret where so much gold and so much coal had been
consumed in smoke. When Balthazar passed along the streets they pointed
to him with their fingers; often, on catching sight of him, a mocking
jest or a word of pity would escape the lips of a working-man or some
mere child. But Lemulquinier was careful to tell his master it was
homage; he could deceive him with impunity, for though the old man’s
eyes retained the sublime clearness which results from the habit of
living among great thoughts, his sense of hearing was enfeebled.
To most of the peasantry, and to all vulgar and superstitious minds,
Balthazar Claes was a sorcerer. The noble old mansion, once named by
common consent “the House of Claes,” was now called in the suburbs and
the country districts “the Devil’s House.” Every outward sign, even the
face of Lemulquinier, confirmed the ridiculous beliefs that were current
about Balthazar. When the old servant went to market to purchase the few
provisions necessary for their subsistence, picking out the cheapest
he could find, insults were flung in as make-weights,--just as butchers
slip bones into their customers’ meat,--and he was fortunate, poor
creature, if some superstitious market-woman did not refuse to sell him
his meagre pittance lest she be damned by contact with an imp of hell.
Thus the feelings of the whole town of Douai were hostile to the grand
old man and to his attendant. The neglected state of their clothes added
to this repulsion; they went about clothed like paupers who have seen
better days, and who strive to keep a decent appearance and are ashamed
to beg. It was probable that sooner or later Balthazar would be insulted
in the streets. Pierquin, feeling how degrading to the family any public
insult would be, had for some time past sent two or three of his own
servants to follow the old man whenever he went out, and keep him
in sight at a little distance, for the purpose of protecting him if
necessary,--the revolution of July not having contributed to make the
citizens respectful.
By one of those fatalities which can never be explained, Claes and
Lemulquinier had gone out early in the morning, thus evading the secret
guardianship of Monsieur and Madame Pierquin. On their way back from
the ramparts they sat down to sun themselves on a bench in the place
Saint-Jacques, an open space crossed by children on their way to school.
Catching sight from a distance of the defenceless old men, whose faces
brightened as they sat basking in the sun, a crowd of boys began to
talk of them. Generally, children’s chatter ends in laughter; on this
occasion the laughter led to jokes of which they did not know the
cruelty. Seven or eight of the first-comers stood at a little distance,
and examined the strange old faces with smothered laughter and remarks
which attracted Lemulquinier’s attention.
“Hi! do you see that one with a head as smooth as my knee?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he was born a Wise Man.”
“My papa says he makes gold,” said another.
The youngest of the troop, who had his basket full of provisions and was
devouring a slice of bread and butter, advanced to the bench and said
boldly to Lemulquinier,--
“Monsieur, is it true you make pearls and diamonds?”
“Yes, my little man,” replied the valet, smiling and tapping him on the
cheek; “we will give you some of you study well.”
“Ah! monsieur, give me some, too,” was the general exclamation.
The boys all rushed together like a flock of birds, and surrounded the
old men. Balthazar, absorbed in meditation from which he was drawn by
these sudden cries, made a gesture of amazement which caused a general
shout of laughter.
“Come, come, boys; be respectful to a great man,” said Lemulquinier.
“Hi, the old harlequin!” cried the lads; “the old sorcerer! you are
sorcerers! sorcerers! sorcerers!”
Lemulquinier sprang to his feet and threatened the crowd with his cane;
they all ran to a little distance, picking up stones and mud. A workman
who was eating his breakfast near by, seeing Lemulquinier brandish his
cane to drive the boys away, thought he had struck them, and took their
part, crying out,--
“Down with the sorcerers!”
The boys, feeling themselves encouraged, flung their missiles at the
old men, just as the Comte de Solis, accompanied by Pierquin’s servants,
appeared at the farther end of the square. The latter were too late,
however, to save the old man and his valet from being pelted with mud.
The shock was given. Balthazar, whose faculties had been preserved by a
chastity of spirit natural to students absorbed in a quest of discovery
that annihilates all passions, now suddenly divined, by the phenomenon
of introsusception, the true meaning of the scene: his decrepit body
could not sustain the frightful reaction he underwent in his feelings,
and he fell, struck with paralysis, into the arms of Lemulquinier, who
brought him to his home on a shutter, attended by his sons-in-law and
their servants. No power could prevent the population of Douai from
following the body of the old man to the door of his house, where
Felicie and her children, Jean, Marguerite, and Gabriel, whom his sister
had sent for, were waiting to receive him.
The arrival of the old man gave rise to a frightful scene; he struggled
less against the assaults of death than against the horror of seeing
that his children had entered the house and penetrated the secret of
his impoverished life. A bed was at once made up in the parlor and every
care bestowed upon the stricken man, whose condition, towards evening,
allowed hopes that his life might be preserved. The paralysis, though
skilfully treated, kept him for some time in a state of semi-childhood;
and when by degrees it relaxed, the tongue was found to be especially
affected, perhaps because the old man’s anger had concentrated all
his forces upon it at the moment when he was about to apostrophize the
children.
This incident roused a general indignation throughout the town. By a
law, up to that time unknown, which guides the affects of the masses,
this event brought back all hearts to Monsieur Claes. He became once
more a great man; he excited the admiration and received the good-will
that a few hours earlier were denied to him. Men praised his patience,
his strength of will, his courage, his genius. The authorities wished
to arrest all those who had a share in dealing him this blow. Too
late,--the evil was done! The Claes family were the first to beg that
the matter might be allowed to drop.
Marguerite ordered furniture to be brought into the parlor, and the
denuded walls to be hung with silk; and when, a few days after his
seizure, the old father recovered his faculties and found himself once
more in a luxurious room surrounded by all that makes life easy, he
tried to express his belief that his daughter Marguerite had returned.
At that moment she entered the room. When Balthazar caught sight of her
he colored, and his eyes grew moist, though the tears did not fall. He
was able to press his daughter’s hand with his cold fingers, putting
into that pressure all the thoughts, all the feelings he no longer had
the power to utter. There was something holy and solemn in that farewell
of the brain which still lived, of the heart which gratitude revived.
Worn out by fruitless efforts, exhausted in the long struggle with the
gigantic problem, desperate perhaps at the oblivion which awaited his
memory, this giant among men was about to die. His children surrounded
him with respectful affection; his dying eyes were cheered with images
of plenty and the touching picture of his prosperous and noble family.
His every look--by which alone he could manifest his feelings--was
unchangeably affectionate; his eyes acquired such variety of expression
that they had, as it were, a language of light, easy to comprehend.
Marguerite paid her father’s debts, and restored a modern splendor to
the House of Claes which removed all outward signs of decay. She never
left the old man’s bedside, endeavoring to divine his every thought and
accomplish his slightest wish.
Some months went by with those alternations of better and worse which
attend the struggle of life and death in old people; every morning his
children came to him and spent the day in the parlor, dining by his
bedside and only leaving him when he went to sleep for the night. The
occupation which gave him most pleasure, among the many with which his
family sought to enliven him, was the reading of newspapers, to which
the political events then occurring gave great interest. Monsieur Claes
listened attentively as Monsieur de Solis read them aloud beside his
bed.
Towards the close of the year 1832, Balthazar passed an extremely
critical night, during which Monsieur Pierquin, the doctor, was summoned
by the nurse, who was greatly alarmed at the sudden change which took
place in the patient. For the rest of the night the doctor remained to
watch him, fearing he might at any moment expire in the throes of inward
convulsion, whose effects were like those of a last agony.
The old man made incredible efforts to shake off the bonds of his
paralysis; he tried to speak and moved his tongue, unable to make a
sound; his flaming eyes emitted thoughts; his drawn features expressed
an untold agony; his fingers writhed in desperation; the sweat stood
out in drops upon his brow. In the morning when his children came to his
bedside and kissed him with an affection which the sense of coming death
made day by day more ardent and more eager, he showed none of his usual
satisfaction at these signs of their tenderness. Emmanuel, instigated by
the doctor, hastened to open the newspaper to try if the usual reading
might not relieve the inward crisis in which Balthazar was evidently
struggling. As he unfolded the sheet he saw the words, “DISCOVERY OF THE
ABSOLUTE,”--which startled him, and he read a paragraph to Marguerite
concerning a sale made by a celebrated Polish mathematician of the
secret of the Absolute. Though Emmanuel read in a low voice, and
Marguerite signed to him to omit the passage, Balthazar heard it.
Suddenly the dying man raised himself by his wrists and cast on his
frightened children a look which struck like lightning; the hairs that
fringed the bald head stirred, the wrinkles quivered, the features were
illumined with spiritual fires, a breath passed across that face and
rendered it sublime; he raised a hand, clenched in fury, and uttered
with a piercing cry the famous word of Archimedes, “EUREKA!”--I have
found.
He fell back upon his bed with the dull sound of an inert body, and
died, uttering an awful moan,--his convulsed eyes expressing to the
last, when the doctor closed them, the regret of not bequeathing to
Science the secret of an Enigma whose veil was rent away,--too late!--by
the fleshless fingers of Death.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Note: The Alkahest is also known as The Quest of the Absolute and is
referred to by that title when mentioned in other addendums.
Casa-Real, Duc de
The Quest of the Absolute
A Marriage Settlement
Chiffreville, Monsieur and Madame
Cesar Birotteau
The Quest of the Absolute
Claes, Josephine de Temninck, Madame
The Quest of the Absolute
A Marriage Settlement
Protez and Chiffreville
The Quest of the Absolute
Cesar Birotteau
Savaron de Savarus
The Quest of the Absolute
Albert Savarus
Savarus, Albert Savaron de
The Quest of the Absolute
Albert Savarus