The Alkahest, Honoré de Balzac [life books to read .txt] 📗

man were morose and gloomy, she looked at him and trembled,--Balthazar must surely be dissatisfied. Mistress and valet ended by understanding each other, notwithstanding the proud reserve of the one and the reluctant submission of the other.

Feeble and defenceless against the terrible prostrations of thought, the poor woman at last gave way under the alternations of hope and despair which increased the distress of the loving wife, and the anxieties of the mother trembling for her children. She now practised the doleful silence which formerly chilled her heart, not observing the gloom that pervaded the house, where whole days went by in that melancholy parlor without a smile, often without a word. Led by sad maternal foresight, she trained her daughters to household work, and tried to make them skilful in womanly employments, that they might have the means of living if destitution came. The outward calm of this quiet home covered terrible agitations. Towards the end of the summer Balthazar had used the money derived from the diamonds, and was twenty thousand francs in debt to Messieurs Protez and Chiffreville.

In August, 1813, about a year after the scene with which this history begins, although Claes had made a few valuable experiments, for which, unfortunately, he cared but little, his efforts had been without result as to the real object of his researches. There came a day when he ended the whole series of experiments, and the sense of his impotence crushed him; the certainty of having fruitlessly wasted enormous sums of money drove him to despair. It was a frightful catastrophe. He left the garret, descended slowly to the parlor, and threw himself into a chair in the midst of his children, remaining motionless for some minutes as though dead, making no answer to the questions his wife pressed upon him. Tears came at last to his relief, and he rushed to his own chamber that no one might witness his despair.

Josephine followed him and drew him into her own room, where, alone with her, Balthazar gave vent to his anguish. These tears of a man, these broken words of the hopeless toiler, these bitter regrets of the husband and father, did Madame Claes more harm than all her past sufferings. The victim consoled the executioner. When Balthazar said to her in a tone of dreadful conviction: "I am a wretch; I have gambled away the lives of my children, and your life; you can have no happiness unless I kill myself,"--the words struck home to her heart; she knew her husband's nature enough to fear he might at once act out the despairing wish: an inward convulsion, disturbing the very sources of life itself, seized her, and was all the more dangerous because she controlled its violent effects beneath a deceptive calm of manner.

"My friend," she said, "I have consulted, not Pierquin, whose friendship does not hinder him from feeling some secret satisfaction at our ruin, but an old man who has been as good to me as a father. The Abbe de Solis, my confessor, has shown me how we can still save ourselves from ruin. He came to see the pictures. The value of those in the gallery is enough to pay the sums you have borrowed on your property, and also all that you owe to Messieurs Protez and Chiffreville, who have no doubt an account against you."

Claes made an affirmative sign and bowed his head, the hair of which was now white.

"Monsieur de Solis knows the Happe and Duncker families of Amsterdam; they have a mania for pictures, and are anxious, like all parvenus, to display a luxury which ought to belong only to the old families: he thinks they will pay the full value of ours. By this means we can recover our independence, and out of the purchase money, which will amount to over one hundred thousand ducats, you will have enough to continue the experiments. Your daughters and I will be content with very little; we can fill up the empty frames with other pictures in course of time and by economy; meantime you will be happy."

Balthazar raised his head and looked at his wife with a joy that was mingled with fear. Their roles were changed. The wife was the protector of the husband. He, so tender, he, whose heart was so at one with his Pepita's, now held her in his arms without perceiving the horrible convulsion that made her palpitate, and even shook her hair and her lips with a nervous shudder.

"I dared not tell you," he said, "that between me and the Unconditioned, the Absolute, scarcely a hair's breadth intervenes. To gasify metals, I only need to find the means of submitting them to intense heat in some centre where the pressure of the atmosphere is nil,--in short, in a vacuum."

Madame Claes could not endure the egotism of this reply. She expected a passionate acknowledgment of her sacrifices--she received a problem in chemistry! The poor woman left her husband abruptly and returned to the parlor, where she fell into a chair between her frightened daughters, and burst into tears. Marguerite and Felicie took her hands, kneeling one on each side of her, not knowing the cause of her grief, and asking at intervals, "Mother, what is it?"

"My poor children, I am dying; I feel it."

The answer struck home to Marguerite's heart; she saw, for the first time on her mother's face, the signs of that peculiar pallor which only comes on olive-tinted skins.

"Martha, Martha!" cried Felicie, "come quickly; mamma wants you."

The old duenna ran in from the kitchen, and as soon as she saw the livid hue of the dusky skin usually high-colored, she cried out in Spanish,--

"Body of Christ! madame is dying!"

Then she rushed precipitately back, told Josette to heat water for a footbath, and returned to the parlor.

"Don't alarm Monsieur Claes; say nothing to him, Martha," said her mistress. "My poor dear girls," she added, pressing Marguerite and Felicie to her heart with a despairing action; "I wish I could live long enough to see you married and happy. Martha," she continued, "tell Lemulquinier to go to Monsieur de Solis and ask him in my name to come here."

The shock of this attack extended to the kitchen. Josette and Martha, both devoted to Madame Claes and her daughters, felt the blow in their own affections. Martha's dreadful announcement,--"Madame is dying; monsieur must have killed her; get ready a mustard-bath,"--forced certain exclamations from Josette, which she launched at Lemulquinier. He, cold and impassive, went on eating at the corner of a table before one of the windows of the kitchen, where all was kept as clean as the boudoir of a fine lady.

"I knew how it would end," said Josette, glancing at the valet and mounting a stool to take down a copper kettle that shone like gold. "There's no mother could stand quietly by and see a father amusing himself by chopping up a fortune like his into sausage-meat."

Josette, whose head was covered by a round cap with crimped borders, which made it look like a German nut-cracker, cast a sour look at Lemulquinier, which the greenish tinge of her prominent little eyes made almost venomous. The old valet shrugged his shoulders with a motion worthy of Mirobeau when irritated; then he filled his large mouth with bread and butter sprinkled with chopped onion.

"Instead of thwarting monsieur, madame ought to give him more money," he said; "and then we should soon be rich enough to swim in gold. There's not the thickness of a farthing between us and--"

"Well, you've got twenty thousand francs laid by; why don't you give 'em to monsieur? he's your master, and if you are so sure of his doings--"

"You don't know anything about them, Josette. Mind your pots and pans, and heat the water," remarked the old Fleming, interrupting the cook.

"I know enough to know there used to be several thousand ounces of silver-ware about this house which you and your master have melted up; and if you are allowed to have your way, you'll make ducks and drakes of everything till there's nothing left."

"And monsieur," added Martha, entering the kitchen, "will kill madame, just to get rid of a woman who restrains him and won't let him swallow up everything he's got. He's possessed by the devil; anybody can see that. You don't risk your soul in helping him, Mulquinier, because you haven't got any; look at you! sitting there like a bit of ice when we are all in such distress; the young ladies are crying like two Magdalens. Go and fetch Monsieur l'Abbe de Solis."

"I've got something to do for monsieur. He told me to put the laboratory in order," said the valet. "Besides, it's too far--go yourself."

"Just hear the brute!" cried Martha. "Pray who is to give madame her foot-bath? do you want her to die? she has got a rush of blood to the head."

"Mulquinier," said Marguerite, coming into the servants' hall, which adjoined the kitchen, "on your way back from Monsieur de Solis, call at Dr. Pierquin's house and ask him to come here at once."

"Ha! you've got to go now," said Josette.

"Mademoiselle, monsieur told me to put the laboratory in order," said Lemulquinier, facing the two women and looking them down, with a despotic air.

"Father," said Marguerite, to Monsieur Claes who was just then descending the stairs, "can you let Mulquinier do an errand for us in town?"

"Now you're forced to go, you old barbarian!" cried Martha, as she heard Monsieur Claes put Mulquinier at his daughter's bidding.

The lack of good-will and devotion shown by the old valet for the family whom he served was a fruitful cause of quarrel between the two women and Lemulquinier, whose cold-heartedness had the effect of increasing the loyal attachment of Josette and the old duenna.

This dispute, apparently so paltry, was destined to influence the future of the Claes family when, at a later period, they needed succor in misfortune.


CHAPTER VIII

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