From that day forth, Balthazar made no attempt to disguise the
weariness and the depression that assailed him. In the mornings, after
the family breakfast, he played for awhile in the parlor with little
Jean, and talked to his daughters, who were busy with their sewing, or
embroidery or lace-work; but he soon wearied of the play and of the
talk, and seemed at last to get through with them as a duty. When his
wife came down again after dressing, she always found him sitting in
an easy-chair looking blankly at Marguerite and Felicie, quite
undisturbed by the rattle of their bobbins. When the newspaper was
brought in, he read it slowly like a retired merchant at a loss how to
kill the time. Then he would get up, look at the sky through the
window panes, go back to his chair and mend the fire drearily, as
though he were deprived of all consciousness of his own movements by
the tyranny of ideas.
Madame Claes keenly regretted her defects of education and memory. It
was difficult for her to sustain an interesting conversation for any
length of time; perhaps this is always difficult between two persons
who have said everything to each other, and are forced to seek for
subjects of interest outside the life of the heart, or the life of
material existence. The life of the heart has its own moments of
expansion which need some stimulus to bring them forth; discussions of
material life cannot long occupy superior minds accustomed to decide
promptly; and the mere gossip of society is intolerable to loving
natures.
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