CHAPTER IV.
His delight may be imagined when he saw himself safe from Jean-Claude and all the others. The distant cries of the village soon died on his ears, and gave place to the vast silence of the forest.
Then the good man, praising God for all things, let his bridle fall on Bruno’s neck, and tranquilly ascended the hill of Saverne.
The sun was high when he reached the road; but though the heat struck full upon the nape of his neck, though perspiration trickled down his spine, and Bruno stopped from time to time to crop a few tufts of grass by the wayside, the illustrious philosopher perceived nothing of it. He already beheld himself in the theatre of his triumphs, going from city to city, from village to village, overthrowing sophists, and planting throughout the world the beneficent germs of anthropo-zoology.
“Frantz Mathéus,” he cried, “you are truly predestined! For you alone was reserved the glory of making the human race happy, and of diffusing the eternal light! See these broad-spread lands, these towns, these farms, these hamlets, these cottages—they await your coming! Everywhere the need is felt of a new doctrine, founded on the three kingdoms of nature; everywhere men are moving in doubt and uncertainty. Frantz, I tell you this without vanity, but also without false modesty, the Being of beings has His eye fixed on you! March! march! and your name, like that of Pythagoras, of Moses, of Confucius, and of the most sublime lawgivers, will be repeated from echo to echo to the end of time!”
The illustrious Doctor was reasoning thus in all the sincerity of his soul, and descending the side of the Falberg under the shadow of the firs, when merry shouts, peals of laughter, and the rasping sounds of a violin, drew him from his profound meditations.
He was then about two leagues from Graufthal, in front of the Dripping Pan public-house, where the inhabitants of St.-Jean des Choux came to eat bacon omelettes, and to dance with their sweethearts. A number of people were there: mowers in their shirt-sleeves, and peasant-girls of the neighbourhood in short petticoats, whirling like the wind round the arbour. They raised the leg, stamped, and made passes, double passes, triple passes, and shouted enough to crack the clouds.
Coucou Peter, the fiddler, the famous Coucou Peter, welcomed in all the beershops, breweries, and taverns of Alsace—the good, the jovial Coucou Peter—was seated on a barrel of beer in a recess of the garden, in his big drugget jacket, garnished with steel buttons the size of crown-pieces, with fresh-coloured, plump-looking cheeks, and his hat surmounted by a cock’s feather. He was scraping with full elbow-power an old country waltz, and formed in himself the whole orchestra of the Dripping Pan. Wine, beer, and kirschwasser flowed on the tables, and vigorous kisses, quite openly given, stimulated the universal enjoyment.
In spite of all his cares for the future of the world and of civilisation, Frantz Mathéus could not withhold his admiration from this pleasant sight. He pulled up behind the arbour, and laughed heartily at the little kissings and lovemakings which he discovered through the hornbeam hedge. But while the good man was giving himself up to these curious observations, the fiddler suddenly stopped in the midst of a flourish, sprang from his barrel, and cried, in a ringing voice—
“Ha! ha! ha!—the Doctor! Good Doctor Frantz! Hi, there! Make way for me, that I may bring you the inventor of the peregrination of souls and the transformation of men into potatoes!”
It must be understood that the illustrious philosopher had committed the imprudence of communicating his psychologico-anthropo-zoological meditations to Coucou Peter, who had no fear of compromising the system by disrespectful allusions.
“Ho, Dr. Mathéus!” he cried, coming out of his retreat, “you’ve come in the nick of time. Hey for jollity!”
And throwing his hat into the air, he leaped the ditch, climbed over the paling, and seized Bruno by the bridle.
There was a general hurrah, for all the good people present knew Mathéus.
“Come in, Doctor! Take a glass of wine, Doctor!—no, a glass of kirschwasser—this way, Doctor!”
One took him by the collar, another by the arm, a third by the tail of his coat; and they shouted, and the women laughed, till poor Frantz did not know which way to turn.
Bruno was led into the shade, and a feed of oats given him, and two minutes afterwards the illustrious philosopher found himself seated between Petrus Brentz the gamekeeper, and Tobie Müller, the landlord of the Dripping Pan. Before him danced Coucou Peter, now on one leg, now on the other, and playing the famous Hopser of Lutzelstein with a seductive energy that was truly amazing.
“Take my jug,” cried Tobie.
“Doctor, you’ll drink out of my glass, won’t you?” cried little Suzel. And her lips, parted with a soft smile, showed her little snow-white teeth.
“Yes, my dear,” stammered the good man, whose eyes sparkled with happiness; “yes, with pleasure.”
Some one clapped him on the shoulder.
“Have you breakfasted yet, Doctor?”
“Not yet, my friend.”
“Hi, Maître Tobie! A bacon omelette for the Doctor!”
At last, at the end of a few minutes everybody had returned to their places: the young girls, their arms resting on the table, and their hands entwined in those of their sweethearts; the old papas in front of their mugs of beer, the stout mothers against the hornbeam hedge. Coucou Peter once more gave the signal for the dance, and the waltzing recommenced with greater spirit than ever.
The illustrious philosopher would have liked to have begun to preach then and there, but he saw that youth given up to pleasure was not in a condition to listen to his words with all desirable attention.
In the interval between the galops Coucou Peter returned to the table to empty his glass, and cried—
“Doctor Frantz, your legs must be stiff! Take one of these pretty little pullets, and off with you both! Look at little Grédel yonder—how neatly she’s made, how appetising! What a waist! what eyes! what pretty little feet! Grédel, come here! Doesn’t your heart prompt you?”
The young peasant approached smiling, and looking charming in her black cap and velvet bodice dotted all over with glittering spangles.
“What do you want, Coucou Peter?” she asked archly.
“What do I want?” said the fiddler, taking her by the chin, which was round, rosy, and smooth as a peach: “what do I want? Ah! if I were only still twenty! If we were only twenty, papa Mathéus!”
He placed his hand on his stomach, and sighed as if his heart were bursting.
Grédel drooped her eyes, and murmured, in a timid voice—
“You’re laughing at me, Coucou Peter—I know you are—you’re laughing at me!”
“Laughing! laughing!—say rather crying, my pretty Grédel. Ah! if I were still only twenty, as I said before, then indeed I would laugh, Grédel!”
For a moment he remained silent, with a melancholy air: then he turned towards Mathéus, who was blushing up to his eyes, and cried—
“That reminds me, Doctor Frantz—where the deuce are you off to so early in the morning? You must have started at daybreak to be over here before noon.”
“I am going to preach my doctrine,” replied Mathéus, in an ingenuous and natural tone.
“Your doctrine!” cried Coucou Peter, opening his big eyes; “your doctrine!”
For a few seconds he remained wondering; but presently, bursting into a roar of laughter, he cried—
“Ha! ha! ha! that’s a good joke—a good joke! Ha! ha! ha! Doctor Frantz, I should never have thought you were so funny!”
“What do you find to laugh at? Have not I told you a hundred times at Graufthal that I should start sooner or later? It all seems to me perfectly natural.”
“But you’re not going about like that?”
“Certainly I am.”
“You are going to announce your peregrination of souls, your transformation of plants into animals, and animals into men?”
“Yes, with many other not less remarkable things which I have not had time to tell you of.”
“But, I say, you’ve put some money in your pocket, at all events? That’s a very important article in preaching.”
“I!” cried Mathéus, carried away by a noble pride; “I have not brought with me a liard—not a kreutzer! When one is possessed of the truth, one is always rich enough.”
“One is always rich enough!” repeated the fiddler; “that’s a good idea! a capital idea!”
The peasants gathered about them, and without understanding this scene, saw plainly by Coucou Peter’s face that something extraordinary was passing.
Suddenly the fiddler began to dance, waved his hat gaily, and exclaimed—
“I’m in with it! It’ll just suit me!” Then, turning to the crowd, astonished at his strange antics, he cried—“Look well at me, you there! I’m the prophet Coucou Peter! Ha! ha! ha! you don’t in the least understand the meaning of it? Nor more do I! This is my master; we’re going to preach through the universe! I shall march in front! crin-crin! crin-crin! crin-crin! A crowd assembles—we announce the peregrination of souls—the public feels flattered and—off we go! We eat well, drink well—sleep here, gad there—and off, and off, and off we go!”
He leaped, he laughed, he wriggled, in short, as if the deuce were in him.
“Papa Mathéus,” he cried, “I’m with you—I’ll never leave you any more!”
The illustrious Doctor could not believe that he was in earnest, but he was no longer left in doubt when he saw Coucou Peter mount upon his barrel and cry in a loud voice—
“This is to let you know that, instead of flying away to heaven as in the olden times, the souls of men and women return into the bodies of animals, and those of animals into plants, trees, and vegetables, according to their conduct; and that, instead of coming into the world by means of Adam and Eve, as many people say, we have first been cabbages, radishes, fishes, or other one or two legged animals—which is much simpler and easier to be believed. It is the illustrious Dr. Frantz Mathéus, my master, who has discovered these things, and you will oblige us by so informing your friends and acquaintances.”
With that, Coucou Peter came down from his barrel, waved his hat, and gravely placed himself beside Mathéus, crying, “Master, I abandon all to follow you!”
Mathéus, softened by the white wine he had drunk, shed gentle tears.
“Coucou Peter,” he cried, “I proclaim you, in the face of heaven, my first disciple! You shall be the foundation-stone of the new edifice built upon the three kingdoms of nature. Your words have found an echo in my heart; I see that you are worthy to consecrate your life to this noble cause.”
And he kissed him on both cheeks.
The peasants were all astonished at this scene; however, when they saw the fiddler putting his violin into his bag, a vague murmur arose, and, but for their respect for Frantz, they would have been very angry. The illustrious philosopher rose and said to them—
“My children, we have passed many years together; most of you I have seen grow up under my eyes; others have been my friends. You know that I have done for you all it was in my power to do; I have never spared trouble to be of service to you, nor care, nor my small fortune, the fruit of my father’s hard toil! Henceforth the universe claims me; I owe myself to humanity; let us part good friends, and think sometimes of Frantz Mathéus, who has loved you so well!”
Tears choked his utterance as he pronounced these last words, and he had to be assisted to his horse, so greatly was the good man affected.
Everybody wept, and regretted this excellent physician—the father of the poor, the consoler of the unfortunate. They watched him slowly going away, his head buried between his hands; nobody spoke a word or uttered a cry, for fear of adding to his sorrow, and all felt that they were suffering an irreparable loss.
Coucou Peter, with his hat cocked upon his ear, and his bag over his shoulder, followed the doctor, looking as proud as a cock. Now and then he turned, and seemed to say, “I laugh at all of you now! I’m a prophet!—the prophet Coucou Peter—with an off, and an off, and an off we go!”