The Alkahest | Page 8

had been respected
and allowed to keep the brown tones of the native Dutch oak.
In the four corners of this parlor were truncated columns, supporting
candelabra exactly like those on the mantle-shelf; and a round table
stood in the middle of the room. Along the walls card-tables were
symmetrically placed. On two gilded consoles with marble slabs there
stood, at the period when this history begins, two glass globes filled

with water, in which, above a bed of sand and shells, red and gold and
silver fish were swimming about. The room was both brilliant and
sombre. The ceiling necessarily absorbed the light and reflected none.
Although on the garden side all was bright and glowing, and the
sunshine danced upon the ebony carvings, the windows on the
court-yard admitted so little light that the gold threads in the
lapis-lazuli scarcely glittered on the opposite wall. This parlor, which
could be gorgeous on a fine day, was usually, under the Flemish skies,
filled with soft shadows and melancholy russet tones, like those shed
by the sun on the tree-tops of the forests in autumn.
It is unnecessary to continue this description of the House of Claes, in
other parts of which many scenes of this history will occur: at present,
it is enough to make known its general arrangement.


CHAPTER II
Towards the end of August, 1812, on a Sunday evening after vespers, a
woman was sitting in a deep armchair placed before one of the
windows looking out upon the garden. The sun's rays fell obliquely
upon the house and athwart the parlor, breaking into fantastic lights on
the carved panellings of the wall, and wrapping the woman in a
crimson halo projected through the damask curtains which draped the
window. Even an ordinary painter, had he sketched this woman at this
particular moment, would assuredly have produced a striking picture of
a head that was full of pain and melancholy. The attitude of the body,
and that of the feet stretched out before her, showed the prostration of
one who loses consciousness of physical being in the concentration of
powers absorbed in a fixed idea: she was following its gleams in the far
future, just as sometimes on the shores of the sea, we gaze at a ray of
sunlight which pierces the clouds and draws a luminous line to the
horizon.
The hands of this woman hung nerveless outside the arms of her chair,

and her head, as if too heavy to hold up, lay back upon its cushions. A
dress of white cambric, very full and flowing, hindered any judgment
as to the proportions of her figure, and the bust was concealed by the
folds of a scarf crossed on the bosom and negligently knotted. If the
light had not thrown into relief her face, which she seemed to show in
preference to the rest of her person, it would still have been impossible
to escape riveting the attention exclusively upon it. Its expression of
stupefaction, which was cold and rigid despite hot tears that were
rolling from her eyes, would have struck the most thoughtless mind.
Nothing is more terrible to behold than excessive grief that is rarely
allowed to break forth, of which traces were left on this woman's face
like lava congealed about a crater. She might have been a dying mother
compelled to leave her children in abysmal depths of wretchedness,
unable to bequeath them to any human protector.
The countenance of this lady, then about forty years of age and not
nearly so far from handsome as she had been in her youth, bore none of
the characteristics of a Flemish woman. Her thick black hair fell in
heavy curls upon her shoulders and about her cheeks. The forehead,
very prominent, and narrow at the temples, was yellow in tint, but
beneath it sparkled two black eyes that were capable of emitting flames.
Her face, altogether Spanish, dark skinned, with little color and pitted
by the small-pox, attracted the eye by the beauty of its oval, whose
outline, though slightly impaired by time, preserved a finished elegance
and dignity, and regained at times its full perfection when some effort
of the soul restored its pristine purity. The most noticeable feature in
this strong face was the nose, aquiline as the beak of an eagle, and so
sharply curved at the middle as to give the idea of an interior
malformation; yet there was an air of indescribable delicacy about it,
and the partition between the nostrils was so thin that a rosy light shone
through it. Though the lips, which were large and curved, betrayed the
pride of noble birth, their expression was one of kindliness and natural
courtesy.
The beauty of this vigorous yet feminine face might indeed be