第24章

"See that little fellow!" he exclaimed to the notary."Doesn't such a pretty creature make you long to marry? Take my word for it, my dear Pierquin, family happiness consoles a man for everything.Up, up!" he cried, tossing Jean into the air; "down, down! up! down!"The child laughed with all his heart as he went alternately to the ceiling and down to the carpet.The mother turned away her eyes that she might not betray the emotion which the simple play caused her,--simple apparently, but to her a domestic revolution.

"Let me see how you can walk," said Balthazar, putting his son on the floor and throwing himself on a sofa near his wife.

The child ran to its father, attracted by the glitter of the gold buttons which fastened the breeches just above the slashed tops of his boots.

"You are a darling!" cried Balthazar, kissing him; "you are a Claes, you walk straight.Well, Gabriel, how is Pere Morillon?" he said to his eldest son, taking him by the ear and twisting it."Are you struggling valiantly with your themes and your construing? have you taken sharp hold of mathematics?"Then he rose, and went up to the notary with the affectionate courtesy that characterized him.

"My dear Pierquin," he said, "perhaps you have something to say to me." He took his arm to lead him to the garden, adding, "Come and see my tulips."Madame Claes looked at her husband as he left the room, unable to repress the joy she felt in seeing him once more so young, so affable, so truly himself.She rose, took her daughter round the waist and kissed her, exclaiming:--"My dear Marguerite, my darling child! I love you better than ever to-day."

"It is long since I have seen my father so kind," answered the young girl.

Lemulquinier announced dinner.To prevent Pierquin from offering her his arm, Madame Claes took that of her husband and led the way into the next room, the whole family following.

The dining-room, whose ceiling was supported by beams and decorated with paintings cleaned and restored every year, was furnished with tall oaken side-boards and buffets, on whose shelves stood many a curious piece of family china.The walls were hung with violet leather, on which designs of game and other hunting objects were stamped in gold.Carefully arranged here and there above the shelves, shone the brilliant plumage of strange birds, and the lustre of rare shells.The chairs, which evidently had not been changed since the beginning of the sixteenth century, showed the square shape with twisted columns and the low back covered with a fringed stuff, common to that period, and glorified by Raphael in his picture of the Madonna della Sedia.The wood of these chairs was now black, but the gilt nails shone as if new, and the stuff, carefully renewed from time to time, was of an admirable shade of red.

The whole life of Flanders with its Spanish innovations was in this room.The decanters and flasks on the dinner-table, with their graceful antique lines and swelling curves, had an air of respectability.The glasses were those old goblets with stems and feet which may be seen in the pictures of the Dutch or Flemish school.The dinner-service of faience, decorated with raised colored figures, in the manner of Bernard Palissy, came from the English manufactory of Wedgwood.The silver-ware was massive, with square sides and designs in high relief,--genuine family plate, whose pieces, in every variety of form, fashion, and chasing, showed the beginnings of prosperity and the progress towards fortune of the Claes family.The napkins were fringed, a fashion altogether Spanish; and as for the linen, it will readily be supposed that the Claes's household made it a point of honor to possess the best.

All this service of the table, silver, linen, and glass, were for the daily use of the family.The front house, where the social entertainments were given, had its own especial luxury, whose marvels, being reserved for great occasions, wore an air of dignity often lost to things which are, as it were, made common by daily use.Here, in the home quarter, everything bore the impress of patriarchal use and simplicity.And--for a final and delightful detail--a vine grew outside the house between the windows, whose tendrilled branches twined about the casements.

"You are faithful to the old traditions, madame," said Pierquin, as he received a plate of that celebrated thyme soup in which the Dutch and Flemish cooks put little force-meat balls and dice of fried bread.

"This is the Sunday soup of our forefathers.Your house and that of my uncle des Racquets are the only ones where we still find this historic soup of the Netherlands.Ah! pardon me, old Monsieur Savaron de Savarus of Tournai makes it a matter of pride to keep up the custom;but everywhere else old Flanders is disappearing.Now-a-days everything is changing; furniture is made from Greek models; wherever you go you see helmets, lances, shields, and bows and arrows!

Everybody is rebuilding his house, selling his old furniture, melting up his silver dishes, or exchanging them for Sevres porcelain,--which does not compare with either old Dresden or with Chinese ware.Oh! as for me, I'm Flemish to the core; my heart actually bleeds to see the coppersmiths buying up our beautiful inlaid furniture for the mere value of the wood and the metal.The fact is, society wants to change its skin.Everything is being sacrificed, even the old methods of art.

When people insist on going so fast, nothing is conscientiously done.