And he ran to the old man, loosened his cravat and unfastened the collar of his shirt, striking him in the palms of his hands. But the sudden faintness was but momentary; almost immediately himself again, Phellion gathered his son to his heart, and holding him long in his embrace, he said, in a voice broken by the tears that came to put an end to this shock of joy:—
“Felix, my noble son! so great in heart, so great in mind!”
The bell had been rung by Minard with magisterial force, and with such an accent that the whole household was alarmed, and came running in.
“It is nothing, it is nothing,” said Phellion to the servants, sending them away. But almost at the same moment, seeing his wife, who now entered the room, he resumed his habitual solemnity.
“Madame Phellion,” he said, pointing to Felix, “how many years is it since you brought that young man into the world?”
Madame Phellion, bewildered by the question, hesitated a moment, and then said:—
“Twenty-five years next January.”
“Have you not thought, until now, that God had amply granted your maternal desires by making this child of your womb an honest man, a pious son, and by gifting him for mathematics, that Science of sciences, with an aptitude sufficiently remarkable?”
“I have,” said Madame Phellion, understanding less and less what her husband was coming to.
“Well,” continued Phellion, “you owe to God an additional thanksgiving, for He has granted that you be the mother of a man of genius; his toil, which lately we rebuked, and which made us fear for the reason of our child, was the way—the rough and jagged way—by which men come to fame.”