“My dear,” he said, “you would not understand what I am about.  I am studying chemistry, and I am perfectly happy.”

Things went from bad to worse.  Claes became more taciturn and more invisible to his family.  He was slovenly in dress and untidy in his habits.  Only his servant Lemulquinier, or Mulquinier, as he was often called, was allowed to enter the attic and share his master’s secrets.  Mme. Claes had a rival.  It was science.

One day she went to the garret, but Claes repulsed her with wrath and roughness.

“My experiment is absolutely spoilt,” he cried vehemently.  “In another minute I might have resolved nitrogen.”

II.—­The Riddle of Existence

Josephine consulted Claes’s notary, M. Pierquin, a young man and a relative of the family.  He looked into matters, and found that Claes owed a hundred thousand francs to a firm of chemists in Paris.  He warned Josephine that ruin was certain if this state of things continued.  Hitherto she had loved husband more than children; now the mother was roused in her, and for her children’s sakes she determined to act.  She had sold her diamonds to provide for the housekeeping, since for six months Claes had given her nothing; she had sent away the governess; she had economised in a hundred directions.  Now she must act against her husband.  But her children came between her and her true life, since her true life was Balthazar’s.  She loved him with a sublime passion which could sacrifice everything except her children.

One Sunday, after vespers, in 1812, she sent for her husband, and awaited him at a window of one of the lower rooms, which looked on the garden.  Tears were in her eyes.  As she sat there, suddenly over her head sounded the footsteps of Claes, making her start.  No one could have heard that slow and dragging step unmoved.  One wondered if it were a living thing.

He entered the apartment, thin, round-shouldered, with disordered long hair, his cravat awry, his clothes stained and torn.

“Are you so absorbed in your work, Balthazar?” said Josephine.  “It is thirty-three Sundays since you have been either to vespers or mass.”

“Vespers?” he questioned, vaguely.  Then added:  “Ah, the children have been to church,” and walked to the window and looked at the tulips.  As he stood there, he said to himself:  “But yes, why shouldn’t they combine in a given time?”

His poor wife asked herself in despair, “Is he going mad?” Then, rousing herself, she called him by his name.  Without paying heed to her he coughed and went to one of the spittoons beside the wainscot.

“Monsieur, I speak to you!”

“What of that?” he demanded, turning swiftly.  She became deadly white.

“Forgive me, dear,” she whispered, and cried:  “Ah, this is killing me!”

Tears in her eyes roused Claes out of his reverie.  He took her into his arms, pushed open a door, and sprang lightly up the staircase.  Finding the door of her apartment locked, he laid her gently in an armchair.