The old man made incredible efforts to shake off the bonds of his paralysis; he tried to speak and moved his tongue, unable to make a sound; his flaming eyes emitted thoughts; his drawn features expressed an untold agony; his fingers writhed in desperation; the sweat stood out in drops upon his brow.  In the morning when his children came to his bedside and kissed him with an affection which the sense of coming death made day by day more ardent and more eager, he showed none of his usual satisfaction at these signs of their tenderness.  Emmanuel, instigated by the doctor, hastened to open the newspaper to try if the usual reading might not relieve the inward crisis in which Balthazar was evidently struggling.  As he unfolded the sheet he saw the words, “Discovery of the absolute,”—­which startled him, and he read a paragraph to Marguerite concerning a sale made by a celebrated Polish mathematician of the secret of the Absolute.  Though Emmanuel read in a low voice, and Marguerite signed to him to omit the passage, Balthazar heard it.

Suddenly the dying man raised himself by his wrists and cast on his frightened children a look which struck like lightning; the hairs that fringed the bald head stirred, the wrinkles quivered, the features were illumined with spiritual fires, a breath passed across that face and rendered it sublime; he raised a hand, clenched in fury, and uttered with a piercing cry the famous word of Archimedes, “Eureka!” —­I have found.

He fell back upon his bed with the dull sound of an inert body, and died, uttering an awful moan,—­his convulsed eyes expressing to the last, when the doctor closed them, the regret of not bequeathing to Science the secret of an Enigma whose veil was rent away,—­too late! —­by the fleshless fingers of Death.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Note:  The Alkahest is also known as The Quest of the Absolute and is referred to by that title when mentioned in other addendums.

Casa-Real, Duc de
  The Quest of the Absolute
  A Marriage Settlement

Chiffreville, Monsieur and Madame
  Cesar Birotteau
  The Quest of the Absolute

Claes, Josephine de Temninck, Madame
  The Quest of the Absolute
  A Marriage Settlement

Protez and Chiffreville
  The Quest of the Absolute
  Cesar Birotteau

Savaron de Savarus
  The Quest of the Absolute
  Albert Savarus

Savarus, Albert Savaron de
  The Quest of the Absolute
  Albert Savarus