h
power. Stifling in the clutch of a single thought, he dreamed of the
pomps of Science, of treasures for the human race, of glory for himself.
He suffered as artists suffer in the grip of poverty, as Samson suffered
beneath the pillars of the temple. The result was the same for the two
sovereigns; though the intellectual monarch was crushed by his inward
force, the other by his weakness.

What could Pepita do, singly, against this species of scientific
nostalgia? After employing every means that family life afforded her,
she called society to the rescue, and gave two "cafes" every week. Cafes
at Douai took the place of teas. A cafe was an assemblage which, during
a whole evening, the guests sipped the delicious wines and liqueurs
which overflow the cellars of that ever-blessed land, ate the Flemish
dainties and took their "cafe noir" or their "cafe au lait frappe,"
while the women sang ballads, discussed each other's toilettes, and
related the gossip of the day. It was a living picture by Mieris or
Terburg, without the pointed gray hats, the scarlet plumes, or the
beautiful costumes of the sixteenth century. And yet, Balthazar's
efforts to play the part of host, his constrained courtesy, his forced
animation, left him the next day in a state of languor which showed but
too plainly the depths of the inward ill.

These continual fetes, weak remedies for the real evil, only increased
it. Like branches which caught him as he rolled down the precipice, they
retarded Claes's fall, but in the end he fell the heavier. Though he
never spoke of his former occupations, never showed the least regret for
the promise he had given not to renew his researches, he grew to have
the melancholy motions, the feeble voice, the depression of a sick
person. The ennui that possessed him showed at times in the very manner
with which he picked up the tongs and built fantastic pyramids in the
fire with bits of coal, utterly unconscious of what he was doing. When
night came he was evidently relieved; sleep no doubt released him from
the importunities of thought: the next day he rose wearily to encounter
another day,--seeming to measure time as the tired traveller measures
the desert he is forced to cross.

If Madame Claes knew the cause of this languor she endeavored not to see
the extent of its ravages. Full of courage against the sufferings of the
mind, she was helpless against the generous impulses of the heart. She
dared not question Baltha