Dinner over, Madame Claes proposed that coffee should be served in the garden, by the bed of tulips which adorned the centre of it.The earthenware pots in which the bulbs were grown (the name of each flower being engraved on slate labels) were sunk in the ground and so arranged as to form a pyramid, at the summit of which rose a certain dragon's-head tulip which Balthazar alone possessed.This flower, named "tulipa Claesiana," combined the seven colors; and the curved edges of each petal looked as though they were gilt.Balthazar's father, who had frequently refused ten thousand florins for this treasure, took such precautions against the theft of a single seed that he kept the plant always in the parlor and often spent whole days in contemplating it.The stem was enormous, erect, firm, and admirably green; the proportions of the plant were in harmony with the proportions of the flower, whose seven colors were distinguishable from each other with the clearly defined brilliancy which formerly gave such fabulous value to these dazzling plants.
"Here you have at least thirty or forty thousand francs' worth of tulips," said the notary, looking alternately at Madame Claes and at the many-colored pyramid.The former was too enthusiastic over the beauty of the flowers, which the setting sun was just then transforming into jewels, to observe the meaning of the notary's words.
"What good do they do you?" continued Pierquin, addressing Balthazar;"you ought to sell them."
"Bah! am I in want of money?" replied Claes, in the tone of a man to whom forty thousand francs was a matter of no consequence.
There was a moment's silence, during which the children made many exclamations.
"See this one, mamma!"
"Oh! here's a beauty!"
"Tell me the name of that one!"
"What a gulf for human reason to sound!" cried Balthazar, raising his hands and clasping them with a gesture of despair."A compound of hydrogen and oxygen gives off, according to their relative proportions, under the same conditions and by the same principle, these manifold colors, each of which constitutes a distinct result."His wife heard the words of his proposition, but it was uttered so rapidly that she did not seize its exact meaning; and Balthazar, as if remembering that she had studied his favorite science, made her a mysterious sign, saying,--"You do not yet understand me, but you will."Then he apparently fell back into the absorbed meditation now habitual to him.
"No, I am sure you do not understand him," said Pierquin, taking his coffee from Marguerite's hand."The Ethiopian can't change his skin, nor the leopard his spots," he whispered to Madame Claes."Have the goodness to remonstrate with him later; the devil himself couldn't draw him out of his cogitation now; he is in it for to-day, at any rate."So saying, he bade good-bye to Claes, who pretended not to hear him, kissed little Jean in his mother's arms, and retired with a low bow.
When the street-door clanged behind him, Balthazar caught his wife round the waist, and put an end to the uneasiness his feigned reverie was causing her by whispering in her ear,--"I knew how to get rid of him."
Madame Claes turned her face to her husband, not ashamed to let him see the tears of happiness that filled her eyes: then she rested her forehead against his shoulder and let little Jean slide to the floor.
"Let us go back into the parlor," she said, after a pause.