When night had almost fallen, Balthazar said to his wife in
a voice of emotion,--
"Let us go upstairs."
Long before English manners and customs had consecrated the wife's
chamber as a sacred spot, that of a Flemish woman was impenetrable.
The good housewives of the Low Countries did not make it a symbol of
virtue. It was to them a habit contracted from childhood, a domestic
superstition, rendering the bedroom a delightful sanctuary of tender
feelings, where simplicity blended with all that was most sweet and
sacred in social life. Any woman in Madame Claes's position would have
wished to gather about her the elegances of life, but Josephine had
done so with exquisite taste, knowing well how great an influence the
aspect of our surroundings exerts upon the feelings of others. To a
pretty creature it would have been mere luxury, to her it was a
necessity. No one better understood the meaning of the saying, "A
pretty woman is self-created,"--a maxim which guided every action of
Napoleon's first wife, and often made her false; whereas Madame Claes
was ever natural and true.
Though Balthazar knew his wife's chamber well, his forgetfulness of
material things had lately been so complete that he felt a thrill of
soft emotion when he entered it, as though he saw it for the first
time. The proud gaiety of a triumphant woman glowed in the splendid
colors of the tulips which rose from the long throats of Chinese vases
judiciously placed about the room, and sparkled in the profusion of
lights whose effect can only be compared to a joyous burst of martial
music.
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