"
Claes made an affirmative sign and bowed his head, the hair of which
was now white.
"Monsieur de Solis knows the Happe and Duncker families of Amsterdam;
they have a mania for pictures, and are anxious, like all parvenus, to
display a luxury which ought to belong only to the old families: he
thinks they will pay the full value of ours. By this means we can
recover our independence, and out of the purchase money, which will
amount to over one hundred thousand ducats, you will have enough to
continue the experiments. Your daughters and I will be content with
very little; we can fill up the empty frames with other pictures in
course of time and by economy; meantime you will be happy."
Balthazar raised his head and looked at his wife with a joy that was
mingled with fear. Their roles were changed. The wife was the
protector of the husband. He, so tender, he, whose heart was so at one
with his Pepita's, now held her in his arms without perceiving the
horrible convulsion that made her palpitate, and even shook her hair
and her lips with a nervous shudder.
"I dared not tell you," he said, "that between me and the
Unconditioned, the Absolute, scarcely a hair's breadth intervenes. To
gasify metals, I only need to find the means of submitting them to
intense heat in some centre where the pressure of the atmosphere is
nil,--in short, in a vacuum."
Madame Claes could not endure the egotism of this reply.
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