When the door was opened, Marguerite went directly to the parlor.
Horror overcame her and she trembled when she saw the walls as bare as
if a fire had swept over them. The glorious carved panellings of
Van Huysum and the portrait of the great Claes had been sold. The
dining-room was empty: there was nothing in it but two straw chairs and
a common deal table, on which Marguerite, terrified, saw two plates, two
bowls, two forks and spoons, and the remains of a salt herring which
Claes and his servant had evidently just eaten. In a moment she had
flown through her father's portion of the house, every room of which
exhibited the same desolation as the parlor and dining-room. The idea
of the Alkahest had swept like a conflagration through the building.
Her father's bedroom had a bed, one chair, and one table, on which
stood a miserable pewter candlestick with a tallow candle burned
almost to the socket. The house was so completely stripped that not so
much as a curtain remained at the windows. Every object of the
smallest value,--everything, even the kitchen utensils, had been sold.
Moved by that feeling of curiosity which never entirely leaves us even
in moments of misfortune, Marguerite entered Lemulquinier's chamber
and found it as bare as that of his master. In a half-opened
table-drawer she found a pawnbroker's ticket for the old servant's
watch which he had pledged some days before.
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