Before the summer was over Marie was expecting another baby. Her confinement would take place in February. It came upon us like a bolt from the blue. It was now necessary to strain every effort to make port before the fatal day dawned.
My novel appeared in November. It was an enormous success. Money was plentiful, we were saved!
I had reached the goal. I breathed freely. I had made my way; I was appreciated at last and hailed with acclamations as a master. The years of trouble and black care were over; we were looking forward to the birth of this child with great joy. We christened it in anticipation and bought Christmas presents for it. My wife was happy and proud of her condition, and our intimate friends fell into the habit of asking how "the little chap" was, just as if he had already arrived.
Famous now and content with my success, I determined to rehabilitate Marie and save her ruined career. To achieve this I planned a play in four acts, and offered it to the Royal Theatre. It contained a sympathetic part in which she had every chance of reconquering the public.
On the very day of her confinement I heard that the play was accepted and that she had been cast for the principal part.
Everything was well in the best of all worlds; the broken tie between me and my family was firmly reknitted by the birth of the baby. The good time, the spring-time of my life had arrived. There was bread in the house, and even wine. The mother, the beloved, the adored, was taking new pleasure in life, and had regained all her former beauty. The indifference and neglect with which she had treated her first baby were transformed into the tenderest care for the newborn infant.
[VI]
Summer had come again. I was in a position to ask for a few months' leave, which I purported spending with my—family in the solitude of one of the green islands on the shores of the Stockholm Archipelago.
I was beginning to reap the harvest of my scientific researches. My treatise was read by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in the Institut de France. I was elected a member of several foreign scientific societies, and the Imperial Russian Geographical Society conferred its medal upon me.