Fourteen years after their marriage, in the year 1809, a change appeared in Balthazar, but so gradually that Mme. Claes did not at first question it. He became thoughtful, reflective, silent, preoccupied. When Josephine Claes noticed this change, it was too late for her to ask questions; she waited for Balthazar to speak. She began to fear. Balthazar, whose whole heaven had lain in the happiness of the family life, who had loved to play with his children, to attend to his tulips, to sun himself in the dark eyes of Josephine, seemed now to forget the existence of them all. He was indifferent to everything.
People who questioned her were put off with the brave story that Balthazar had a great work in hand, which would bring fame one day to his native town. Josephine's hazard was founded on truth. Workmen had been engaged for some time in the garret of the house, and there Claes spent the greater part of his time. But the poor lady was to learn the full truth from the neighbours she had attempted to hoodwink. They asked her if she meant to see herself and her children ruined, adding that her husband was spending a fortune on scientific instruments, machinery, books, and materials in a search for the Philosopher's Stone.
Humiliated that the neighbours should know more than she did, and terrified by the prospect in front of her, Josephine at last spoke to her husband.
"My dear," he said, "you would not understand what I am about. I am studying chemistry, and I am perfectly happy."
Things went from bad to worse. Claes became more taciturn and more invisible to his family. He was slovenly in dress and untidy in his habits. Only his servant Lemulquinier, or Mulquinier, as he was often called, was allowed to enter the attic and share his master's secrets. Mme. Claes had a rival. It was science.
One day she went to the garret, but Claes repulsed her with wrath and roughness.
"My experiment is absolutely spoilt," he cried vehemently. "In another minute I might have resolved nitrogen."
II.--The Riddle of Existence
Josephine consulted Claes's notary, M. Pierquin, a young man and a relative of the family. He looked into matters, and found that Claes owed a hundred thousand francs to a firm of chemists in Paris. He warned Josephine that ruin was certain if this state of things continued. Hitherto she had loved husband more than children; now the mother was roused in her, and for her children's sakes she determined to act. She had sold her diamonds to provide for the housekeeping, since for six months Claes had given her nothing; she had sent away the governess; she had economised in a hundred directions. Now she must act against her husband. But her children came between her and her true life, since her true life was Balthazar's. She loved him with a sublime passion which could sacrifice everything except her children.
One Sunday, after vespers, in 1812, she sent for her husband, and awaited him at a window of one of the lower rooms, which looked on the garden. Tears were in her eyes. As she sat there, suddenly over her head sounded the footsteps of Claes, making her start. No one could have heard that slow and dragging step unmoved. One wondered if it were a living thing.