Too
late,--the evil was done! The Claes family were the first to beg that
the matter might be allowed to drop.
Marguerite ordered furniture to be brought into the parlor, and the
denuded walls to be hung with silk; and when, a few days after his
seizure, the old father recovered his faculties and found himself once
more in a luxurious room surrounded by all that makes life easy, he
tried to express his belief that his daughter Marguerite had returned.
At that moment she entered the room. When Balthazar caught sight of
her he colored, and his eyes grew moist, though the tears did not
fall. He was able to press his daughter's hand with his cold fingers,
putting into that pressure all the thoughts, all the feelings he no
longer had the power to utter. There was something holy and solemn in
that farewell of the brain which still lived, of the heart which
gratitude revived. Worn out by fruitless efforts, exhausted in the
long struggle with the gigantic problem, desperate perhaps at the
oblivion which awaited his memory, this giant among men was about to
die. His children surrounded him with respectful affection; his dying
eyes were cheered with images of plenty and the touching picture of
his prosperous and noble family. His every look--by which alone he
could manifest his feelings--was unchangeably affectionate; his eyes
acquired such variety of expression that they had, as it were, a
language of light, easy to comprehend.
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