Conscious of her deformity, intimidated by the future, she became in the purity of her soul a coquette. She dissimulated her feelings, became exacting, and hid from her lover the passion of joy which was consuming her; indeed, she only revealed her true self after marriage had shown her the steadfast nobility of her husband's character, when she could no longer doubt of his affection. He loved her with fidelity and ardour. She realised all his ideals, and no consideration of duty entered into their passionate affection. She was Spanish, and had the secret of charm in her variety of attraction; ill-educated though she was, like most daughters of Spanish noblemen, she was engaging and bewildering in the force of her own nature and the religion of her absorbing love. In society she was dull; for her husband alone she was enchanting. No couple could have been happier.
They had four children, two boys and two girls; the eldest a girl named Marguerite.
Fourteen years after their marriage, in the year 1809, a change appeared in Balthazar, but so gradually that Mme. Claes did not at first question it. He became thoughtful, reflective, silent, preoccupied. When Josephine Claes noticed this change, it was too late for her to ask questions; she waited for Balthazar to speak. She began to fear. Balthazar, whose whole heaven had lain in the happiness of the family life, who had loved to play with his children, to attend to his tulips, to sun himself in the dark eyes of Josephine, seemed now to forget the existence of them all. He was indifferent to everything.
People who questioned her were put off with the brave story that Balthazar had a great work in hand, which would bring fame one day to his native town. Josephine's hazard was founded on truth. Workmen had been engaged for some time in the garret of the house, and there Claes spent the greater part of his time. But the poor lady was to learn the full truth from the neighbours she had attempted to hoodwink. They asked her if she meant to see herself and her children ruined, adding that her husband was spending a fortune on scientific instruments, machinery, books, and materials in a search for the Philosopher's Stone.
Humiliated that the neighbours should know more than she did, and terrified by the prospect in front of her, Josephine at last spoke to her husband.
"My dear," he said, "you would not understand what I am about. I am studying chemistry, and I am perfectly happy."
Things went from bad to worse. Claes became more taciturn and more invisible to his family. He was slovenly in dress and untidy in his habits. Only his servant Lemulquinier, or Mulquinier, as he was often called, was allowed to enter the attic and share his master's secrets. Mme. Claes had a rival. It was science.
One day she went to the garret, but Claes repulsed her with wrath and roughness.
"My experiment is absolutely spoilt," he cried vehemently. "In another minute I might have resolved nitrogen."
II.--The Riddle of Existence
Josephine consulted Claes's notary, M. Pierquin, a young man and a relative of the family. He looked into matters, and found that Claes owed a hundred thousand francs to a firm of chemists in Paris. He warned Josephine that ruin was certain if this state of things continued. Hitherto she had loved husband more than children; now the mother was roused in her, and for her children's sakes she determined to act. She had sold her diamonds to provide for the housekeeping, since for six months Claes had given her nothing; she had sent away the governess; she had economised in a hundred directions. Now she must act against her husband. But her children came between her and her true life, since her true life was Balthazar's. She loved him with a sublime passion which could sacrifice everything except her children.
One Sunday, after vespers, in 1812, she sent for her husband, and awaited him at a window of one of the lower rooms, which looked on the garden. Tears were in her eyes. As she sat there, suddenly over her head sounded the footsteps of Claes, making her start. No one could have heard that slow and dragging step unmoved. One wondered if it were a living thing.
He entered the apartment, thin, round-shouldered, with disordered long hair, his cravat awry, his clothes stained and torn.
"Are you so absorbed in your work, Balthazar?" said Josephine. "It is thirty-three Sundays since you have been either to vespers or mass."
"Vespers?" he questioned, vaguely. Then added: "Ah, the children have been to church," and walked to the window and looked at the tulips. As he stood there, he said to himself: "But yes, why shouldn't they combine in a given time?"
His poor wife asked herself in despair, "Is he going mad?" Then, rousing herself, she called him by his name. Without paying heed to her he coughed and went to one of the spittoons beside the wainscot.
"Monsieur, I speak to you!"
"What of that?" he demanded, turning swiftly. She became deadly white.
"Forgive me, dear," she whispered, and cried: "Ah, this is killing me!"
Tears in her eyes roused Claes out of his reverie. He took her into his arms, pushed open a door, and sprang lightly up the staircase. Finding the door of her apartment locked, he laid her gently in an armchair.
"Thank you, dear," she murmured. "I have not been so near your heart for a long time."
Her loveliness postponed disaster. Enamoured by her beauty, rescued to humanity, Claes returned for a brief interval to the family life, and was adorable to his wife, charming to his children. When they were alone together, Josephine questioned him as to his secret work, telling him that she had begun to study chemistry in order that she might share his life. Touched by this devotion, Claes declared his secret. A Polish officer had come to their house in 1809, and had discussed chemistry with Claes. The result of the conversations had set Claes to search for the single element out of which all things are perhaps composed. The Polish officer had confided certain secrets to him, saying: "You are a disciple of Lavoisier; you are wealthy, you are free; I will give you my idea. The Primitive Element must be common to oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. Force must be the common principle of positive and negative electricity. Demonstrate these two hypotheses, and you will hold in your hands the First Cause, the solution of the great riddle of existence."
As Claes rattled away, Josephine suddenly exclaimed, against her wilclass="underline" "So it was this man, who spent but one night with us, that stole your love from me and your children! Did he make the Sign of the Cross? Did you observe him closely? He was Satan! Only the devil could have stolen you from me. Ever since his visit you have ceased to be father and husband."
"Do you rebuke me," Balthazar asked, "for being superior to common men?"
And he poured out a tale of his achievements. In the height of his passion for her Josephine had never seen his face so shining with enthusiasm as it was now. Tears came into her eyes.
"I have combined chlorine and nitrogen," he rhapsodised; "I have analysed endless substances. I have analysed tears! Tears are nothing more than phosphate of lime, chloride of sodium, mucus, and water."
He ran on till she cried upon him to stop.
"You horrify me," she said, "with your blasphemies. What my love is----"
"Spiritualised matter, given off," replied Claes; "the secret, no doubt, of the Absolute. If I am the first to find it out! Think of it! I will make metals and diamonds. What Nature does I will do."
"You trespass on God!" Josephine exclaimed impatiently. "You deny God! Ah, God has a force which you will never exercise!"
"What is that?" he demanded.
"Motion. Analysis is one thing, creation is another," she said. Her pleadings were successful. Balthazar abandoned his researches, and the family removed to the country. He was awakened by his wife's love to the knowledge that he had brought his fortune to the verge of ruin. He promised to abandon his experiments. As some amends, he threw himself into preparations for a great ball at the Maison Claes in honour of his wedding day. The festivity was saddened by the news of disaster to the Grand Army at Beresina. One of the letters that arrived that day was from the Polish officer, dying of his wounds, who sent Claes, as a legacy, some of his ideas for discovering the Absolute. No one danced; the fête was gloomy; only Marguerite shone like a lovely flower on the anxious company. When the guests departed, Balthazar showed Josephine the letter from the Pole. She did everything a woman could do to distract his thoughts. She made the home life enchanting. She entertained. She introduced the movement of the world into the great house. In vain. Her husband's ennui was terrible to behold. "I release you from your promise," she said to him one day.