The Alkahest

To a great man, to a father, the situation was intolerable. At his age a man no longer dissimulates in his own family; he became more and more thoughtful, serious, and grieved as the hour approached when he would be forced to meet his civil death. This evening covered one of those crises in the inner life of man which can only be expressed by imagery. The thunderclouds were gathering in the sky, people were laughing in the fields; all felt the heat and knew the storm was coming, but they held up their heads and continued on their way. Monsieur Conyncks was the first to leave the room, conducted by Balthazar to his chamber. During the latter’s absence Pierquin and Monsieur de Solis went away. Marguerite bade the notary good-night with much affection; she said nothing to Emmanuel, but she pressed his hand and gave him a tearful glance. She sent Felicie away, and when Claes returned to the parlor he found his daughter alone.

“My kind father,” she said in a trembling voice, “nothing could have made me leave home but the serious position in which we found ourselves; but now, after much anxiety, after surmounting the greatest difficulties, I return with some chances of deliverance for all of us. Thanks to your name, and to my uncle’s influence, and to the support of Monsieur de Solis, we have obtained for you an appointment under government as receiver of customs in Bretagne; the place is worth, they say, eighteen to twenty thousand francs a year. Our uncle has given bonds as your security. Here is the nomination,” she added, drawing a paper from her bag. “Your life in Douai, in this house, during the coming years of privation and sacrifice would be intolerable to you. Our father must be placed in a situation at least equal to that in which he has always lived. I ask nothing from the salary you will receive from this appointment; employ it as you see fit. I will only beg you to remember that we have not a penny of income, and that we must live on what Gabriel can give us out of his. The town shall know nothing of our inner life. If you were still to live in this house you would be an obstacle to the means my sister and I are about to employ to restore comfort and ease to the home. Have I abused the authority you gave me by putting you in a position to remake your own fortune? In a few years, if you so will, you can easily become the receiver-general.”

“In other words, Marguerite,” said Balthazar, gently, “you turn me out of my own house.”

“I do not deserve that bitter reproach,” replied the daughter, quelling the tumultuous beatings of her heart. “You will come back to us in a manner becoming to your dignity. Besides, father, I have your promise. You are bound to obey me. My uncle has stayed here that he might himself accompany you to Bretagne, and not leave you to make the journey alone.”

“I shall not go,” said Balthazar, rising; “I need no help from any one to restore my property and pay what I owe to my children.”

“It would be better, certainly,” replied Marguerite, calmly. “But now I ask you to reflect on our respective situations, which I will explain in a few words. If you stay in this house your children will leave it, so that you may remain its master.”

“Marguerite!” cried Balthazar.

“In that case,” she said, continuing her words without taking notice of her father’s anger, “it will be necessary to notify the minister of your refusal, if you decide not to accept this honorable and lucrative post, which, in spite of our many efforts, we should never have obtained but for certain thousand-franc notes my uncle slipped into the glove of a lady.”

“My children leave me!” he exclaimed.

“You must leave us or we must leave you,” she said. “If I were your only child, I should do as my mother did, without murmuring against my fate; but my brothers and sister shall not perish beside you with hunger and despair. I promised it to her who died there,” she said, pointing to the place where her mother’s bed had stood. “We have hidden our troubles from you; we have suffered in silence; our strength is gone. My father, we are not on the edge of an abyss, we are at the bottom of it. Courage is not sufficient to drag us out of it; our efforts must not be incessantly brought to nought by the caprices of a passion.”

“My dear children,” cried Balthazar, seizing Marguerite’s hand, “I will help you, I will work, I – ”

“Here is the means,” she answered, showing him the official letter.

“But, my darling, the means you offer me are too slow; you make me lose the fruits of ten years’ work, and the enormous sums of money which my laboratory represents. There,” he said, pointing towards the garret, “are our real resources.”

Marguerite walked towards the door, saying: —

“Father, you must choose.”

“Ah! my daughter, you are very hard,” he replied, sitting down in an armchair and allowing her to leave him.

The next morning, on coming downstairs, Marguerite learned from Lemulquinier that Monsieur Claes had gone out. This simple announcement turned her pale; her face was so painfully significant that the old valet remarked hastily: —

“Don’t be troubled, mademoiselle; monsieur said he would be back at eleven o’clock to breakfast. He didn’t go to bed all night. At two in the morning he was still standing in the parlor, looking through the window at the laboratory. I was waiting up in the kitchen; I saw him; he wept; he is in trouble. Here’s the famous month of July when the sun is able to enrich us all, and if you only would – ”

“Enough,” said Marguerite, divining the thoughts that must have assailed her father’s mind.

A phenomenon which often takes possession of persons leading sedentary lives had seized upon Balthazar; his life depended, so to speak, on the places with which it was identified; his thought was so wedded to his laboratory and to the house he lived in that both were indispensable to him, – just as the Bourse becomes a necessity to a stock-gambler, to whom the public holidays are so much lost time. Here were his hopes; here the heavens contained the only atmosphere in which his lungs could breathe the breath of life. This alliance of places and things with men, which is so powerful in feeble natures, becomes almost tyrannical in men of science and students. To leave his house was, for Balthazar, to renounce Science, to abandon the Problem, – it was death.

Marguerite was a prey to anxiety until the breakfast hour. The former scene in which Balthazar had meant to kill himself came back to her memory, and she feared some tragic end to the desperate situation in which her father was placed. She came and went restlessly about the parlor, and quivered every time the bell or the street-door sounded.

At last Balthazar returned. As he crossed the courtyard Marguerite studied his face anxiously and could see nothing but an expression of stormy grief. When he entered the parlor she went towards him to bid him good-morning; he caught her affectionately round the waist, pressed her to his heart, kissed her brow, and whispered, —

“I have been to get my passport.”

The tones of his voice, his resigned look, his feeble movements, crushed the poor girl’s heart; she turned away her head to conceal her tears, and then, unable to repress them, she went into the garden to weep at her ease. During breakfast, Balthazar showed the cheerfulness of a man who had come to a decision.

“So we are to start for Bretagne, uncle,” he said to Monsieur Conyncks. “I have always wished to go there.”

“It is a place where one can live cheaply,” replied the old man.

“Is our father going away?” cried Felicie.

Monsieur de Solis entered, bringing Jean.

“You must leave him with me to-day,” said Balthazar, putting his son beside him. “I am going away to-morrow, and I want to bid him good-bye.”

Emmanuel glanced at Marguerite, who held down her head. It was a gloomy day for the family; every one was sad, and tried to repress both thoughts and tears. This was not an absence, it was an exile. All instinctively felt the humiliation of the father in thus publicly declaring his ruin by accepting an office and leaving his family, at Balthazar’s age. At this crisis he was great, while Marguerite was firm; he seemed to accept nobly the punishment of faults which the tyrannous power of genius had forced him to commit. When the evening was over, and father and daughter were again alone, Balthazar, who throughout the day had shown himself tender and affectionate as in the first years of his fatherhood, held out his hand and said to Marguerite with a tenderness that was mingled with despair, —

“Are you satisfied with your father?”

“You are worthy of HIM,” said Marguerite, pointing to the portrait of Van Claes.

The next morning Balthazar, followed by Lemulquinier, went up to the laboratory, as if to bid farewell to the hopes he had so fondly cherished, and which in that scene of his toil were living things to him. Master and man looked at each other sadly as they entered the garret they were about to leave, perhaps forever. Balthazar gazed at the various instruments over which his thoughts so long had brooded; each was connected with some experiment or some research. He sadly ordered Lemulquinier to evaporate the gases and the dangerous acids, and to separate all substances which might produce explosions. While taking these precautions, he gave way to bitter regrets, like those uttered by a condemned man before going to the scaffold.

“Here,” he said, stopping before a china capsule in which two wires of a voltaic pile were dipped, “is an experiment whose results ought to be watched. If it succeeds – dreadful thought! – my children will have driven from their home a father who could fling diamonds at their feet. In a combination of carbon and sulphur,” he went on, speaking to himself, “carbon plays the part of an electro-positive substance; the crystallization ought to begin at the negative pole; and in case of decomposition, the carbon would crop into crystals – ”

“Ah! is that how it would be?” said Lemulquinier, contemplating his master with admiration.

“Now here,” continued Balthazar, after a pause, “the combination is subject to the influence of the galvanic battery, which may act – ”

“If monsieur wishes, I can increase its force.”

“No, no; leave it as it is. Perfect stillness and time are the conditions of crystallization – ”

“Confound it, it takes time enough, that crystallization,” cried the old valet impatiently.

“If the temperature goes down, the sulphide of carbon will crystallize,” said Balthazar, continuing to give forth shreds of indistinct thoughts which were parts of a complete conception in his own mind; “but if the battery works under certain conditions of which I am ignorant – it must be watched carefully – it is quite possible that – Ah! what am I thinking of? It is no longer a question of chemistry, my friend; we are to keep accounts in Bretagne.”

Claes rushed precipitately from the laboratory, and went downstairs to take a last breakfast with his family, at which Pierquin and Monsieur de Solis were present. Balthazar, hastening to end the agony Science had imposed upon him, bade his children farewell and got into the carriage with his uncle, all the family accompanying him to the threshold. There, as Marguerite strained her father to her breast with a despairing pressure, he whispered in her ear, “You are a good girl; I bear you no ill-will”; then she darted through the court-yard into the parlor, and flung herself on her knees upon the spot where her mother had died, and prayed to God to give her strength to accomplish the hard task that lay before her. She was already strengthened by an inward voice, sounding in her heart the encouragement of angels and the gratitude of her mother, when her sister, her brother, Emmanuel, and Pierquin came in, after watching the carriage until it disappeared.

CHAPTER XIV

“And now, mademoiselle, what do you intend to do!” said Pierquin

“Save the family,” she answered simply. “We own nearly thirteen hundred acres at Waignies. I intend to clear them, divide them into three farms, put up the necessary buildings, and then let them. I believe that in a few years, with patience and great economy, each of us,” motioning to her sister and brother, “will have a farm of over four-hundred acres, which may bring in, some day, a rental of nearly fifteen thousand francs. My brother Gabriel will have this house, and all that now stands in his name on the Grand-Livre, for his portion. We shall then be able to redeem our father’s property and return it to him free from all encumbrance, by devoting our incomes, each of us, to paying off his debts.”

“But, my dear cousin,” said the lawyer, amazed at Marguerite’s understanding of business and her cool judgment, “you will need at least two hundred thousand francs to clear the land, build your houses, and purchase cattle. Where will you get such a sum?”

“That is where my difficulties begin,” she said, looking alternately at Pierquin and de Solis; “I cannot ask it from my uncle, who has already spent much money for us and has given bonds as my father’s security.”

“You have friends!” cried Pierquin, suddenly perceiving that the demoiselles Claes were “four-hundred-thousand-franc girls,” after all.

Emmanuel de Solis looked tenderly at Marguerite. Pierquin, unfortunately for himself, was a notary still, even in the midst of his enthusiasm, and he promptly added, —

“I will lend you these two hundred thousand francs.”

Marguerite and Emmanuel consulted each other with a glance which was a flash of light to Pierquin; Felicie colored highly, much gratified to find her cousin as generous as she desired him to be. She looked at her sister, who suddenly guessed the fact that during her absence the poor girl had allowed herself to be caught by Pierquin’s meaningless gallantries.

“You shall only pay me five per cent interest,” went on the lawyer, “and refund the money whenever it is convenient to do so; I will take a mortgage on your property. And don’t be uneasy; you shall only have the outlay on your improvements to pay; I will find you trustworthy farmers, and do all your business gratuitously, so as to help you like a good relation.”

Emmanuel made Marguerite a sign to refuse the offer, but she was too much occupied in studying the changes of her sister’s face to perceive it. After a slight pause, she looked at the notary with an amused smile, and answered of her own accord, to the great joy of Monsieur de Solis: —

“You are indeed a good relation, – I expected nothing less of you; but an interest of five per cent would delay our release too long. I shall wait till my brother is of age, and then we will sell out what he has in the Funds.”

Pierquin bit his lip. Emmanuel smiled quietly.

“Felicie, my dear child, take Jean back to school; Martha will go with you,” said Marguerite to her sister. “Jean, my angel, be a good boy; don’t tear your clothes, for we shall not be rich enough to buy you as many new ones as we did. Good-bye, little one; study hard.”

Felicie carried off her brother.

“Cousin,” said Marguerite to Pierquin, “and you, monsieur,” she said to Monsieur de Solis, “I know you have been to see my father during my absence, and I thank you for that proof of friendship. You will not do less I am sure for two poor girls who will be in need of counsel. Let us understand each other. When I am at home I shall receive you both with the greatest of pleasure, but when Felicie is here alone with Josette and Martha, I need not tell you that she ought to see no one, not even an old friend or the most devoted of relatives. Under the circumstances in which we are placed, our conduct must be irreproachable. We are vowed to toil and solitude for a long, long time.”

There was silence for some minutes. Emmanuel, absorbed in contemplation of Marguerite’s head, seemed dumb. Pierquin did not know what to say. He took leave of his cousin with feelings of rage against himself; for he suddenly perceived that Marguerite loved Emmanuel, and that he, Pierquin, had just behaved like a fool.

“Pierquin, my friend,” he said, apostrophizing himself in the street, “if a man said you were an idiot he would tell the truth. What a fool I am! I’ve got twelve thousand francs a year outside of my business, without counting what I am to inherit from my uncle des Racquets, which is likely to double my fortune (not that I wish him dead, he is so economical), and I’ve had the madness to ask interest from Mademoiselle Claes! I know those two are jeering at me now! I mustn’t think of Marguerite any more. No. After all, Felicie is a sweet, gentle little creature, who will suit me much better. Marguerite’s character is iron; she would want to rule me – and – she would rule me. Come, come, let’s be generous; I wish I was not so much of a lawyer: am I never to get that harness off my back? Bless my soul! I’ll begin to fall in love with Felicie, and I won’t budge from that sentiment. She will have a farm of four hundred and thirty acres, which, sooner or later, will be worth twelve or fifteen thousand francs a year, for the soil about Waignies is excellent. Just let my old uncle des Racquets die, poor dear man, and I’ll sell my practice and be a man of leisure, with fifty – thou – sand – francs – a – year. My wife is a Claes, I’m allied to the great families. The deuce! we’ll see if those Courtevilles and Magalhens and Savaron de Savarus will refuse to come and dine with a Pierquin-Claes-Molina-Nourho. I shall be mayor of Douai; I’ll obtain the cross, and get to be deputy – in short, everything. Ha, ha! Pierquin, my boy, now keep yourself in hand; no more nonsense, because – yes, on my word of honor – Felicie – Mademoiselle Felicie Van Claes – loves you!”

When the lovers were left alone Emmanuel held out his hand to Marguerite, who did not refuse to put her right hand into it. They rose with one impulse and moved towards their bench in the garden; but as they reached the middle of the parlor, the lover could not resist his joy, and, in a voice that trembled with emotion, he said, —

“I have three hundred thousand francs of yours.”

“What!” she cried, “did my poor mother entrust them to you? No? then where did you get them?”

“Oh, my Marguerite! all that is mine is yours. Was it not you who first said the word ‘ourselves’?”

“Dear Emmanuel!” she exclaimed, pressing the hand which still held hers; and then, instead of going into the garden, she threw herself into a low chair.

“It is for me to thank you,” he said, with the voice of love, “since you accept all.”

“Oh, my dear beloved one,” she cried, “this moment effaces many a grief and brings the happy future nearer. Yes, I accept your fortune,” she continued, with the smile of an angel upon her lips, “I know the way to make it mine.”

She looked up at the picture of Van Claes as if calling him to witness. The young man’s eyes followed those of Marguerite, and he did not notice that she took a ring from her finger until he heard the words: —

“From the depths of our greatest misery one comfort rises. My father’s indifference leaves me the free disposal of myself,” she said, holding out the ring. “Take it, Emmanuel. My mother valued you – she would have chosen you.”

The young man turned pale with emotion and fell on his knees beside her, offering in return a ring which he always wore.

“This is my mother’s wedding-ring,” he said, kissing it. “My Marguerite, am I to have no other pledge than this?”

She stooped a little till her forehead met his lips.

“Alas, dear love,” she said, greatly agitated, “are we not doing wrong? We have so long to wait!”

“My uncle used to say that adoration was the daily bread of patience, – he spoke of Christians who love God. That is how I love you; I have long mingled my love for you with my love for Him. I am yours as I am His.”

They remained for a few moments in the power of this sweet enthusiasm. It was the calm, sincere effusion of a feeling which, like an overflowing spring, poured forth its superabundance in little wavelets. The events which separated these lovers produced a melancholy which only made their happiness the keener, giving it a sense of something sharp, like pain.

Felicie came back too soon. Emmanuel, inspired by that delightful tact of love which discerns all feelings, left the sisters alone, – exchanging a look with Marguerite to let her know how much this discretion cost him, how hungry his soul was for that happiness so long desired, which had just been consecrated by the betrothal of their hearts.

“Come here, little sister,” said Marguerite, taking Felicie round the neck. Then, passing into the garden they sat down on the bench where generation after generation had confided to listening hearts their words of love, their sighs of grief, their meditations and their projects. In spite of her sister’s joyous tone and lively manner, Felicie experienced a sensation that was very like fear. Marguerite took her hand and felt it tremble.

“Mademoiselle Felicie,” said the elder, with her lips at her sister’s ear. “I read your soul. Pierquin has been here often in my absence, and he has said sweet words to you, and you have listened to them.” Felicie blushed. “Don’t defend yourself, my angel,” continued Marguerite, “it is so natural to love! Perhaps your dear nature will improve his; he is egotistical and self-interested, but for all that he is a good man, and his defects may even add to your happiness. He will love you as the best of his possessions; you will be a part of his business affairs. Forgive me this one word, dear love; you will soon correct the bad habit he has acquired of seeing money in everything, by teaching him the business of the heart.”

Felicie could only kiss her sister.

“Besides,” added Marguerite, “he has property; and his family belongs to the highest and the oldest bourgeoisie. But you don’t think I would oppose your happiness even if the conditions were less prosperous, do you?”

Felicie let fall the words, “Dear sister.”

“Yes, you may confide in me,” cried Marguerite, “sisters can surely tell each other their secrets.”

These words, so full of heartiness, opened the way to one of those delightful conversations in which young girls tell all. When Marguerite, expert in love, reached an understanding of the real state of Felicie’s heart, she wound up their talk by saying: —

“Well, dear child, let us make sure he truly loves you, and – then – ”

“Ah!” cried Felicie, laughing, “leave me to my own devices; I have a model before my eyes.”

“Saucy child!” exclaimed Marguerite, kissing her.

Though Pierquin belonged to the class of men who regard marriage as the accomplishment of a social duty and the means of transmitting property, and though he was indifferent to which sister he should marry so long as both had the same name and the same dower, he did perceive that the two were, to use his own expression, “romantic and sentimental girls,” adjectives employed by commonplace people to ridicule the gifts which Nature sows with grudging hand along the furrows of humanity. The lawyer no doubt said to himself that he had better swim with the stream; and accordingly the next day he came to see Marguerite, and took her mysteriously into the little garden, where he began to talk sentiment, – that being one of the clauses of the primal contract which, according to social usage, must precede the notarial contract.

“Dear cousin,” he said, “you and I have not always been of one mind as to the best means of bringing your affairs to a happy conclusion; but you do now, I am sure, admit that I have always been guided by a great desire to be useful to you. Well, yesterday I spoiled my offer by a fatal habit which the legal profession forces upon us – you understand me? My heart did not share in the folly. I have loved you well; but I have a certain perspicacity, legal perhaps, which obliges me to see that I do not please you. It is my own fault; another has been more successful than I. Well, I come now to tell you, like an honest man, that I sincerely love your sister Felicie. Treat me therefore as a brother; accept my purse, take what you will from it, – the more you take the better you prove your regard for me. I am wholly at your service – WITHOUT INTEREST, you understand, neither at twelve nor at one quarter per cent. Let me be thought worthy of Felicie, that is all I ask. Forgive my defects; they come from business habits; my heart is good, and I would fling myself into the Scarpe sooner than not make my wife happy.”