During the first period of his essays, his wife tries to
have confidence in his final success, herself studies all sorts of
learned treatises, in order to be able to converse with him suitably
and to encourage him in his work; but, at last, unable to delude her
own mind any longer, she weeps with her children over the approaching
destruction of their home, and the grief wears her out and kills her.
Luckily the daughter, Marguerite, is made of sterner stuff than her
mother. And, with her brother, she toils to pay her father's debts and
to keep the home together. At the end, Claes himself dies, still
absorbed in his chimera, and his last words are an endeavour to
formulate the marvellous revelation which his disordered brain
persuades him he has now received.
"'Eureka!' he cried with a shrill voice, and fell back on his bed with
a thud. In passing away, he uttered a frightful groan, and his
convulsed eyes, until the doctors closed them, spoke his regret not to
have been able to bequeath to science the key of a mystery whose veil
had been tardily torn aside under the gaunt fingers of Death."
The _Search for the Absolute_ may be classed with _Eugenie Grandet_ in
the category of the novelist's best creations.
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