She noted with
terror the slow changes which deteriorated that face, once, to her
eyes, sublime through love: the life of the soul was retreating from
it; the structure remained, but the spirit was gone. Sometimes the
eyes were glassy, and seemed as if they had turned their gaze and were
looking inward. When the children had gone to bed, and the silence and
solitude oppressed her, Pepita would say, "My friend, are you ill?"
and Balthazar would make no answer; or if he answered, he would come
to himself with a quiver, like a man snatched suddenly from sleep, and
utter a "No" so harsh and grating that it fell like a stone on the
palpitating heart of his wife.
Though she tried to hide this strange state of things from her
friends, Madame Claes was obliged sometimes to allude to it. The
social world of Douai, in accordance with the custom of provincial
towns, had made Balthazar's aberrations a topic of conversation, and
many persons were aware of certain details that were still unknown to
Madame Claes. Disregarding the reticence which politeness demanded, a
few friends expressed to her so much anxiety on the subject that she
found herself compelled to defend her husband's peculiarities.
"Monsieur Claes," she said, "has undertaken a work which wholly
absorbs him; its success will eventually redound not only to the honor
of the family but to that of his country."
This mysterious explanation was too flattering to the ambition of a
town whose local patriotism and desire for glory exceed those of other
places, not to be readily accepted, and it produced on all minds a
reaction in favor of Balthazar.
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