Her woman's pride,
hurt for the first time, made her sound the depths of the unknown
abyss which separated her from the Claes of earlier days. From that
time Balthazar's condition grew rapidly worse. The man formerly so
wrapped up in his domestic happiness, who played for hours with his
children on the parlor carpet or round the garden paths, who seemed
able to exist only in the light of his Pepita's dark eyes, did not
even perceive her pregnancy, seldom shared the family life, and even
forgot his own.
The longer Madame Claes postponed inquiring into the cause of his
preoccupation the less she dared to do so. At the very idea, her blood
ran cold and her voice grew faint. At last the thought occurred to her
that she had ceased to please her husband, and then indeed she was
seriously alarmed. That fear now filled her mind, drove her to
despair, then to feverish excitement, and became the text of many an
hour of melancholy reverie. She defended Balthazar at her own expense,
calling herself old and ugly; then she imagined a generous though
humiliating consideration for her in this secret occupation by which
he secured to her a negative fidelity; and she resolved to give him
back his independence by allowing one of those unspoken divorces which
make the happiness of many a marriage.
Before bidding farewell to conjugal life, Madame Claes made some
attempt to read her husband's heart, and found it closed.
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