第42章

The next day Monsieur de Solis despatched his nephew, armed with letters of introduction, to Amsterdam, where Emmanuel, delighted to do a service to the Claes family, succeeded in selling all the pictures in the gallery to the noted bankers Happe and Duncker for the ostensible sum of eighty-five thousand Dutch ducats and fifteen thousand more which were paid over secretly to Madame Claes.The pictures were so well known that nothing was needed to complete the sale but an answer from Balthazar to the letter which Messieurs Happe and Duncker addressed to him.Emmanuel de Solis was commissioned by Claes to receive the price of the pictures, which were thereupon packed and sent away secretly, to conceal the sale from the people of Douai.

Towards the end of September, Balthazar paid off all the sums that he had borrowed, released his property from encumbrance, and resumed his chemical researches; but the House of Claes was deprived of its noblest ornament.Blinded by his passion, the master showed no regret;he felt so sure of repairing the loss that in selling the pictures he reserved the right of redemption.In Josephine's eyes a hundred pictures were as nothing compared to domestic happiness and the satisfaction of her husband's mind; moreover, she refilled the gallery with other paintings taken from the reception-rooms, and to conceal the gaps which these left in the front house, she changed the arrangement of the furniture.

When Balthazar's debts were all paid he had about two hundred thousand francs with which to carry on his experiments.The Abbe de Solis and his nephew took charge secretly of the fifteen thousand ducats reserved by Madame Claes.To increase that sum, the abbe sold the Dutch ducats, to which the events of the Continental war had given a commercial value.One hundred and sixty-five thousand francs were buried in the cellar of the house in which the abbe and his nephew resided.

Madame Claes had the melancholy happiness of seeing her husband incessantly busy and satisfied for nearly eight months.But the shock he had lately given her was too severe; she sank into a state of languor and debility which steadily increased.Balthazar was now so completely absorbed in science that neither the reverses which had overtaken France, nor the first fall of Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, drew him from his laboratory; he was neither husband, father, nor citizen,--solely chemist.

Towards the close of 1814 Madame Claes declined so rapidly that she was no longer able to leave her bed.Unwilling to vegetate in her own chamber, the scene of so much happiness, where the memory of vanished joys forced involuntary comparisons with the present and depressed her, she moved into the parlor.The doctors encouraged this wish by declaring the room more airy, more cheerful, and therefore better suited to her condition.The bed in which the unfortunate woman ended her life was placed between the fireplace and a window looking on the garden.There she passed her last days, sacredly occupied in training the souls of her young daughters, striving to leave within them the fire of her own.Conjugal love, deprived of its manifestations, allowed maternal love to have its way.The mother now seemed the more delightful because her motherhood had blossomed late.Like all generous persons, she passed through sensitive phases of feeling that she mistook for remorse.Believing that she had defrauded her children of the tenderness that should have been theirs, she sought to redeem those imaginary wrongs; bestowing attentions and tender cares which made her precious to them; she longed to make her children live, as it were, within her heart; to shelter them beneath her feeble wings; to cherish them enough in the few remaining days to redeem the time during which she had neglected them.The sufferings of her mind gave to her words and her caresses a glowing warmth that issued from her soul.Her eyes caressed her children, her voice with its yearning intonations touched their hearts, her hand showered blessings on their heads.