"
She saw her husband's eyes grow moist, and she flung herself
despairingly at his feet, raising up to him her supplicating hands.
"My friend," she cried, "refrain awhile from these researches; let us
economize, let us save the money that may enable you to take them up
hereafter,--if, indeed, you cannot renounce this work. Oh! I do not
condemn it; I will heat your furnaces if you ask it; but I implore
you, do not reduce our children to beggary. Perhaps you cannot love
them, Science may have consumed your heart; but oh! do not bequeath
them a wretched life in place of the happiness you owe them.
Motherhood has sometimes been too weak a power in my heart; yes, I
have sometimes wished I were not a mother, that I might be closer to
your soul, your life! And now, to stifle my remorse, must I plead the
cause of my children before you, and not my own?"
Her hair fell loose and floated over her shoulders, her eyes shot
forth her feelings as though they had been arrows. She triumphed over
her rival. Balthazar lifted her, carried her to the sofa, and knelt at
her feet.
"Have I caused you such grief?" he said, in the tone of a man waking
from a painful dream.
"My poor Claes! yes, and you will cause me more, in spite of
yourself," she said, passing her hand over his hair. "Sit here beside
me," she continued, pointing to the sofa. "Ah! I can forget it all
now, now that you come back to us; all can be repaired--but you will
not abandon me again? say that you will not! My noble husband, grant
me a woman's influence on your heart, that influence which is so
needful to the happiness of suffering artists, to the troubled minds
of great men.
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