Marguerite sent for a locksmith to force the door,--glad to escape a scene in case her father, as Felicie had written, should refuse to admit her into the house.Meantime Emmanuel went to meet the old man and prepare him for the arrival of his daughter, despatching a servant to notify Monsieur and Madame Pierquin.
When the door was opened, Marguerite went directly to the parlor.
Horror overcame her and she trembled when she saw the walls as bare as if a fire had swept over them.The glorious carved panellings of Van Huysum and the portrait of the great Claes had been sold.The dining-room was empty: there was nothing in it but two straw chairs and a common deal table, on which Marguerite, terrified, saw two plates, two bowls, two forks and spoons, and the remains of a salt herring which Claes and his servant had evidently just eaten.In a moment she had flown through her father's portion of the house, every room of which exhibited the same desolation as the parlor and dining-room.The idea of the Alkahest had swept like a conflagration through the building.
Her father's bedroom had a bed, one chair, and one table, on which stood a miserable pewter candlestick with a tallow candle burned almost to the socket.The house was so completely stripped that not so much as a curtain remained at the windows.Every object of the smallest value,--everything, even the kitchen utensils, had been sold.
Moved by that feeling of curiosity which never entirely leaves us even in moments of misfortune, Marguerite entered Lemulquinier's chamber and found it as bare as that of his master.In a half-opened table-drawer she found a pawnbroker's ticket for the old servant's watch which he had pledged some days before.She ran to the laboratory and found it filled with scientific instruments, the same as ever.Then she returned to her own appartement and ordered the door to be broken open--her father had respected it!
Marguerite burst into tears and forgave her father all.In the midst of his devastating fury he had stopped short, restrained by paternal feeling and the gratitude he owed to his daughter! This proof of tenderness, coming to her at a moment when despair had reached its climax, brought about in Marguerite's soul one of those moral reactions against which the coldest hearts are powerless.She returned to the parlor to wait her father's arrival, in a state of anxiety that was cruelly aggravated by doubt and uncertainty.In what condition was she about to see him? Ruined, decrepit, suffering, enfeebled by the fasts his pride compelled him to undergo? Would he have his reason?
Tears flowed unconsciously from her eyes as she looked about the desecrated sanctuary.The images of her whole life, her past efforts, her useless precautions, her childhood, her mother happy and unhappy, --all, even her little Joseph smiling on that scene of desolation, all were parts of a poem of unutterable melancholy.
Marguerite foresaw an approaching misfortune, yet she little expected the catastrophe that was to close her father's life,--that life at once so grand and yet so miserable.
The condition of Monsieur Claes was no secret in the community.To the lasting shame of men, there were not in all Douai two hearts generous enough to do honor to the perseverance of this man of genius.In the eyes of the world Balthazar was a man to be condemned, a bad father who had squandered six fortunes, millions, who was actually seeking the philosopher's stone in the nineteenth century, this enlightened century, this sceptical century, this century!--etc.They calumniated his purposes and branded him with the name of "alchemist," casting up to him in mockery that he was trying to make gold.Ah! what eulogies are uttered on this great century of ours, in which, as in all others, genius is smothered under an indifference as brutal a that of the gate in which Dante died, and Tasso and Cervantes and "tutti quanti." The people are as backward as kings in understanding the creations of genius.
These opinions on the subject of Balthazar Claes filtered, little by little, from the upper society of Douai to the bourgeoisie, and from the bourgeoisie to the lower classes.The old chemist excited pity among persons of his own rank, satirical curiosity among the others,--two sentiments big with contempt and with the "vae victis" with which the masses assail a man of genius when they see him in misfortune.
Persons often stopped before the House of Claes to show each other the rose window of the garret where so much gold and so much coal had been consumed in smoke.When Balthazar passed along the streets they pointed to him with their fingers; often, on catching sight of him, a mocking jest or a word of pity would escape the lips of a working-man or some mere child.But Lemulquinier was careful to tell his master it was homage; he could deceive him with impunity, for though the old man's eyes retained the sublime clearness which results from the habit of living among great thoughts, his sense of hearing was enfeebled.
To most of the peasantry, and to all vulgar and superstitious minds, Balthazar Claes was a sorcerer.The noble old mansion, once named by common consent "the House of Claes," was now called in the suburbs and the country districts "the Devil's House." Every outward sign, even the face of Lemulquinier, confirmed the ridiculous beliefs that were current about Balthazar.When the old servant went to market to purchase the few provisions necessary for their subsistence, picking out the cheapest he could find, insults were flung in as make-weights, --just as butchers slip bones into their customers' meat,--and he was fortunate, poor creature, if some superstitious market-woman did not refuse to sell him his meagre pittance lest she be damned by contact with an imp of hell.