第44章

Balthazar came to her bedside, took her hand, saw the misleading color on her cheek, and to him she seemed well.When he asked, "My dear wife, how are you to-day?" she answered, "Better, dear friend," and made him think she would be up and recovered on the morrow.His preoccupation was so great that he accepted this reply, and believed the illness of which his wife was dying a mere indisposition.Dying to the eyes of the world, in his alone she was living.

A complete separation between husband and wife was the result of this year.Claes slept in a distant chamber, got up early in the morning, and shut himself into his laboratory or his study.Seeing his wife only in presence of his daughters or of the two or three friends who came to visit them, he lost the habit of communicating with her.These two beings, formerly accustomed to think as one, no longer, unless at rare intervals, enjoyed those moments of communion, of passionate unreserve which feed the life of the heart; and finally there came a time when even these rare pleasures ceased.Physical suffering was now a boon to the poor woman, helping her to endure the void of separation, which might have killed her had she been truly living.Her bodily pain became so great that there were times when she was joyful in the thought that he whom she loved was not a witness of it.She lay watching Balthazar in the evening hours, and knowing him happy in his own way, she lived in the happiness she had procured for him,--a shadowy joy, and yet it satisfied her.She no longer asked herself if she were loved, she forced herself to believe it; and she glided over that icy surface, not daring to rest her weight upon it lest it should break and drown her soul in a gulf of awful nothingness.

No events stirred the calm of this existence; the malady that was slowly consuming Madame Claes added to the household stillness, and in this condition of passive gloom the House of Claes reached the first weeks of the year 1816.Pierquin, the lawyer, was destined, at the close of February, to strike the death-blow of the fragile woman who, in the words of the Abbe de Solis, was well-nigh without sin.

"Madame," said Pierquin, seizing a moment when her daughters could not hear the conversation, "Monsieur Claes has directed me to borrow three hundred thousand francs on his property.You must do something to protect the future of your children."Madame Claes clasped her hands and raised her eyes to the ceiling;then she thanked the notary with a sad smile and a kindly motion of her head which affected him.

His words were the stab that killed her.During that day she had yielded herself up to sad reflections which swelled her heart; she was like the wayfarer walking beside a precipice who loses his balance and a mere pebble rolls him to the depth of the abyss he had so long and so courageously skirted.When the notary left her, Madame Claes told Marguerite to bring writing materials; then she gathered up her remaining strength to write her last wishes.Several times she paused and looked at her daughter.The hour of confidence had come.

Marguerite's management of the household since her mother's illness had amply fulfilled the dying woman's hopes that Madame Claes was able to look upon the future of the family without absolute despair, confident that she herself would live again in this strong and loving angel.Both women felt, no doubt, that sad and mutual confidences must now be made between them; the daughter looked at the mother, the mother at the daughter, tears flowing from their eyes.Several times, as Madame Claes rested from her writing, Marguerite said: "Mother?"then she dropped as if choking; but the mother, occupied with her last thoughts, did not ask the meaning of the interrogation.At last, Madame Claes wished to seal the letter; Marguerite held the taper, turning aside her head that she might not see the superscription.

"You can read it, my child," said the mother, in a heart-rending voice.

The young girl read the words, "To my daughter Marguerite.""We will talk to each other after I have rested awhile," said Madame Claes, putting the letter under her pillow.

Then she fell back as if exhausted by the effort, and slept for several hours.When she woke, her two daughters and her two sons were kneeling by her bed and praying.It was Thursday.Gabriel and Jean had been brought from school by Emmanuel de Solis, who for the last six months was professor of history and philosophy.

"Dear children, we must part!" she cried."You have never forsaken me, never! and he who--"She stopped.

"Monsieur Emmanuel," said Marguerite, seeing the pallor on her mother's face, "go to my father, and tell him mamma is worse."Young de Solis went to the door of the laboratory and persuaded Lemulquinier to make Balthazar come and speak to him.On hearing of the urgent request of the young man, Claes answered, "I will come.""Emmanuel," said Madame Claes when he returned to her, "take my sons away, and bring your uncle here.It is time to give me the last sacraments, and I wish to receive them from his hand."When she was alone with her daughters she made a sign to Marguerite, who understood her and sent Felicie away.

"I have something to say to you myself, dear mamma," said Marguerite who, not believing her mother so ill as she really was, increased the wound Pierquin had given."I have had no money for the household expenses during the last ten days; I owe six months' wages to the servants.Twice I have tried to ask my father for money, but did not dare to do so.You don't know, perhaps, that all the pictures in the gallery have been sold, and all the wines in the cellar?""He never told me!" exclaimed Madame Claes."My God! thou callest me to thyself in time! My poor children! what will become of them?"She made a fervent prayer, which brought the fires of repentance to her eyes.