Sometimes,
blaming herself for compliance with a passion whose object was futile
and condemned by the Church, she would rise, go to the window on the
courtyard and gaze with terror at the chimney of the laboratory. If
the smoke were rising, an expression of despair came into her face, a
conflict of thoughts and feelings raged in her heart and mind. She
beheld her children's future fleeing in that smoke, but--was she not
saving their father's life? was it not her first duty to make him
happy? This last thought calmed her for a moment.
She obtained the right to enter the laboratory and remain there; but
even this melancholy satisfaction was soon renounced. Her sufferings
were too keen when she saw that Balthazar took no notice of her, or
seemed at times annoyed by her presence; in that fatal place she went
through paroxysms of jealous impatience, angry desires to destroy the
building,--a living death of untold miseries. Lemulquinier became to
her a species of barometer: if she heard him whistle as he laid the
breakfast-table or the dinner-table, she guessed that Balthazar's
experiments were satisfactory, and there were prospects of a coming
success; if, on the other hand, the man were morose and gloomy, she
looked at him and trembled,--Balthazar must surely be dissatisfied.
Mistress and valet ended by understanding each other, notwithstanding
the proud reserve of the one and the reluctant submission of the
other.
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