The Alkahest

ndedness and chose to think itself in the way, or that Madame Claes’s secret anxieties made her less agreeable than before, certain it is that she no longer saw any but her int

whose gates, like those of other fortified places, were closed at night, it was impossible to send into the country, and the unhappy woman could only wait and suffer till morning. Balthazar, who had forgotten the hour at which the gates closed, would come tranquilly home next day, quite unmindful of the tortures

it? Can I not

ience of her youth had taught her to understand the polite pity of the world. Resolved not to undergo it a second time,

uisite nicety of Flemish life. At first Josephine endeavored, in concert with Balthazar’s valet, Lemulquinier, to repair the daily devastation of his clothing, but even that she was

overed her rival in a Science that allured her husband from her: torments of jealousy preyed upon her heart and renewed her love. What could she do against Science? Should she combat that tyrannous, unyielding, growing power? Could she kill an invisible rival? Could a woman, limit

ermined to slip secretly into the mysterious laboratory of seduction, and obtain the right to be there always. Lemulquinier alone had that right, and she meant to share it with him; but to prevent his witnessing the contention with her husband which she feared at the outset, she waited for a

fe she encountered Balthazar’s anger. She had hardly opened the door before he sprang upon her, s

are still alive!” h

er Madame Claes, who saw her husband standi

s though prostrated. “The saints have saved your life! By what chance was it

ave been happy!

e could I forgive for that terrible disappointment. I was

ed the laboratory

poor woman as she re-entered he

of the man she loves. More forbearing than we, these divine creatures do not let us know when the language of their souls is not understood by us; they shrink from letting us feel the superior

’s powerlessness and humiliated the feelings by which she lived. She was ignorant; and she had reached a point where her ignorance parted her from her husband. Worse than all, last and keenest torture, he was risking his life, he was often in danger — near her, yet far away, and she might not share, nor even know,

e upon the family of Claes, before it reached the species of at

with them. Nevertheless, Josephine did not hear without distress that her husband had borrowed three hundred thousand francs upon his property. The apparent authenticity of the transaction, the rumors and conjectures spread t

sieur Claes has not

ily as the Pierquins of Douai. Since the marriage the latter, though strangers to the Claes, claimed them as cousins. Monsieur Pierquin, a you

own. He told her that it was probably that her husband owed considerable sums of money to the house which furnished him with chemicals. That house, after making inquiries as to the fortune and credit of Monsieur Claes, accepted

Though some articles, entered in commercial and scientific terms, were unintelligible to them, they were frightened to see entries of precious metals and diamonds of all kinds, though in small quantities. The large sum total of the debt was explained by the multi

ses from the knowledge of the people of Douai, lest they should declare the whole thing a mania; but Pierquin replied that he had already delayed to the very last moment the notarial deeds which the importance of the sum borrowed necessitated, in order not to lessen the respect in which Monsieur Claes was held. He then revealed the full extent of the evil, telling her plainly that if she could not find means to pre

nly to religious ideas of a future existence? Why do they so ably foresee the catastrophes of fortune and the crises of fate? Perhaps the sentiment which unites them to the men they love gives them a sense by which they weigh force, measure faculties, understand tastes, passions, vices, virtues. The perpetual study of these causes in the midst of which they live gives them, no doubt, the fat

e. But what was he really seeking? Up to this time maternal feeling and conjugal love had been so mingled in the heart of this woman that the children, equally beloved by husband and wife, had never come between them. Suddenly she found herself at times more mother than wife, though hitherto she had been more wife than mother. However ready she had been

f his fortune, after the disinterestedness he had shown to her for many happy years? Was she to judge his purposes? And yet her conscience, in keeping with the spirit of the law, told her that parents were the depositaries and guardians of p

e were they in their habits, so proud in their feelings; no provision for that modern innovation had therefore been made at the House of Claes, and Balthazar was obliged to have his stable and coach-house in a building opposite to his own house: his present occupations allowed him no time to superintend that portion of his establishment, which belongs exclusively to men. Madame Claes suppressed the whole expense of equip

linas, the Van Ostron-Temnincks, and the Casa-Reals. A few days before the one on which this story opens, the money derived from the sale of the diamonds had been exhausted. On the very day, at three o’clock

e interest on the sums he has borrowed. If he cuts the wood on them he destroys your last chance of safety in the future. My cousin Balthazar owes at this moment thirty thousand francs to the house of Protez and Chiffreville. How can you pay them? What will you live on? If Claes persists in sending for reagents, retorts, voltaic b

ry’s arm, and said in a tone

oming struggle with her husband terrified her; in her eyes he was so great, so majestic, that the mere prospect of his anger made her tremble as at a vision of the divine wrath. She must now depart from the submission she had sacredly practised as a wife. The interests of her children compelled her to oppose, in his most cherished tastes, the man she idolized. Must she not daily force him back to common matters from the higher realms of Science; drag him forcibly from a smiling future and plunge him into a material

e had had no children, she would bravely and joyously have welcomed the new destiny her husband was making for her. Women who are brought up in opulence are quick to feel the emptiness of material enjoyments; and when their hearts, more wearied than withered, have once learned the happiness of a constant i

ing them to keep perfectly quiet, and despatched a message to her husband, through Lemulquinier, saying that she wished to see him. But although the old valet did his best to make his master leave the laboratory, Balthazar scarcely heeded him. Madame Claes thus gained time for reflection.

at issued as if distilled from that bald brow. Under the shock of this impression she wished to die. But when she heard the callous voice, uttering a scientific wish at the moment when her heart was breaking, her courage came back to her; she resolved to struggle with that awful power which had torn a lover from

into the brain of this woman, and the feelings under the weight of which her heart was crushed as her husband slowly crossed the room towards the garden-door. Most women know that agony of inward deliberation in which Madame Claes wa

o her fears. When she saw Balthazar about to leave the room, her impulse was to spring towards him; then a cruel thought restrained her — she should stand before him! would she not seem ridiculo

thaz

n it. This man, who took no thought of other persons, never forgot the inveterate habit of using those boxes. To poor Josephine, unable to find a reason for this singularity, the constant care which her husband took of

I am speaki

uickly, and casting a look of reviving intelligence

ise and put out her hand to him, but her strength gave way and

rms, he opened the door upon the little antechamber, and ran so rapidly up the ancient wooden staircase that his wife’s dress having caught on the jaws of one of the griffins that s

ir, saying to himself, “My Go

ing her eyes. “This is the first time for a long,

aes, “the key! — her

e door, Balthazar laid his wife on a sofa, and left the room to stop the frightened servants

aid, sitting down beside her, an

onger. Only, I would I had the power of God t

ssed her once more upon the forehead. “Do you not give me the greatest o

our lives as your voice now drives out the misery of my he

h do you spe

d, we are

ess. Yesterday, in searching for a far more important secret, I think I found the means of crystallizing carbon, the substance of the diamond. Oh, my dear wife! in a few days’ time you will for

all to-night, dear friend. I suffered from too

remind me of this promise. To-night I desire to leave my work, my researches, and return

e what it is you

you cannot un

u. I have read Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Chaptal, Nollet, Rouelle, Berthollet, Gay-Lussac, Spallanzani, Leuwenhoek, Galvan

her feet, and shedding tears of tender feeling that made he

ar these words from your lips and to see you thus.” Then, hearing her daughter’s step in the a

me. If he stays to dinner we need some table-l

s and gave them to the young girl, pointing to the mah

t of the Graindorge lin

end, go into your own room; do me the kindness to dress for dinner, Pierquin will be with us. Come, take off this ragged clothing; see those stains! Is it mur

f communication, forgetting that it was locked

come and help me dress; I don’t want Martha

tion, exclaiming: “Good-evening, my child; how pretty you are in your musli

arguerite, running into her mother’s

led for the fame and fortune of his family: he thinks he has atta

in our joy, for the servants have been so grieved to see h

te, I want to speak to

lor, playin

Gabriel a

hem in th

seen them in flower this year, and he may take a fancy to look at them after din