A priest might have thought him inspired by
the word of God; an artist would have hailed him as a great master; an
enthusiast would have taken him for a seer of the Swedenborgian faith.
At the present moment, the dilapidated, uncouth, and ruined clothes
that he wore contrasted strangely with the graceful elegance of the
woman who was sadly admiring him. Deformed persons who have intellect,
or nobility of soul, show an exquisite taste in their apparel. Either
they dress simply, convinced that their charm is wholly moral, or they
make others forget their imperfections by an elegance of detail which
diverts the eye and occupies the mind. Not only did this woman possess
a noble soul, but she loved Balthazar Claes with that instinct of the
woman which gives a foretaste of the communion of angels. Brought up
in one of the most illustrious families of Belgium, she would have
learned good taste had she not possessed it; and now, taught by the
desire of constantly pleasing the man she loved, she knew how to
clothe herself admirably, and without producing incongruity between
her elegance and the defects of her conformation. The bust, however,
was defective in the shoulders only, one of which was noticeably much
larger than the other.
She looked out of the window into the court-yard, then towards the
garden, as if to make sure she was alone with Balthazar, and presently
said, in a gentle voice and with a look full of a Flemish woman's
submissiveness,--for between these two love had long since driven out
the pride of her Spanish nature:--
"Balthazar, are you so very busy? this is the thirty-third Sunday
since you have been to mass or vespers.
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