I have thought of
a last experiment, after which nothing more is possible. If, this
time, I do not find the Absolute, I must renounce the search. Come to
my arms, my darling child; I will make you the happiest woman upon
earth. You give me glory; you bring me back to happiness; you bestow
the power to heap treasures upon my children--yes! I will load you
with jewels, with wealth."
He kissed his daughter's forehead, took her hands and pressed them,
and testified his joy by fondling caresses which to Marguerite seemed
almost obsequious. During the dinner he thought only of her; he looked
at her eagerly with the assiduous devotion displayed by a lover to his
mistress: if she made a movement, he tried to divine her wish, and
rose to fulfil it; he made her ashamed by the youthful eagerness of
his attentions, which were painfully out of keeping with his premature
old age. To all these cajoleries, Marguerite herself presented the
contrast of actual distress, shown sometimes by a word of doubt,
sometimes by a glance along the empty shelves of the sideboards in the
dining-room.
"Well, well," he said, following her eyes, "in six months we shall
fill them again with gold, and marvellous things. You shall be like a
queen. Bah! nature herself will belong to us, we shall rise above all
created beings--through you, you my Marguerite! Margarita," he said,
smiling, "thy name is a prophecy. 'Margarita' means a pearl.
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