CHAPTER VI.
Night had closed in when Dame Catherina, bright, affable, and smiling, reappeared in the principal room, carrying a magnificent copper candlestick, shining like gold.
The illustrious Dr. Mathéus, awaiting the arrival of the peasants, had emptied the bottle of wolxheim, and meditated a superb address, based on the judicious principles of the wise and learned Aristotle; but the entrance of Mother Windling suddenly changed the direction of his impressive and luminous ideas.
She had put on her handsome large-flowered petticoat, her little red silk fichu, and her Sunday cap, with broad black ribbons spread out like the wings of a butterfly.
The illustrious philosopher was dazzled; he silently contemplated the plump arms, the well-rounded bust, the bright eyes, and the truly provoking briskness of the widow.
Dame Catherina speedily remarked this admiring expression in the good man’s moistened eyes, and her full rosy lips shaped themselves into a tender smile.
“I’ve kept you waiting a long time, Doctor,” she said, spreading a white cloth over the table; “yes, a very long time,” she repeated, with a mellow look that penetrated to the depths of Mathéus’ bashful soul.
“Take care, Frantz, take care of what you are about!” he said to himself: “remember your high mission, and do not suffer yourself to be charmed by this seductive creature.”
But he felt an indescribable kind of thrill run down his spine, and dropped his eyelids in spite of himself.
Dame Catherina was radiant.
“How timid he is!” she said to herself; “how he blushes! Ah, if I could give him a little courage! No matter; he is still green—and he’s very well made. All will be right.”
At that moment Coucou Peter entered, carrying a dishful of smoking puddings, laughing heartily, and with the merriest face that ever was seen.
“Ah, Doctor Frantz!” he cried; “ah, Doctor Frantz, what a scent! What a taste! All blood, bacon-fat, and cream! Fancy, Papa Mathéus, I’ve already gobbled up one half an ell long, and that’s only given me an appetite!”
As he spoke he deposited his large dish upon the table, with an air of adoration; then, spreading himself against the wall, he untied his cravat, opened his waistcoat, undid the three top buttons of his breeches, to make himself quite at ease, and breathed a profound sigh.
Fat Soffayel followed him with plates, covers, and a big loaf of mixed wheat and rye, just out of the oven; she ranged all in neat order, and Coucou Peter, taking up a large horn-handled knife, cried—
“Now, Dame Windling, sit you down by the Doctor. Ha! ha! ha! A happy meeting!”
Then, turning up his sleeves, he sliced up the pudding, and, raising a piece on his long fork, placed it on Mathéus’s plate.
“Master Frantz,” he said, “introduce me that into your organism, and then tell me what you think of it.”
At the same moment he noticed that the bottle was empty, and uttered an exclamation of surprise—
“Soffayel! don’t you know that black-pudding likes to swim?”
The servant, ashamed of her forgetfulness, hurried away to the cellar; but in the kitchen she met Tapihans, and said to him, in a bantering tone—
“Aha!—poor Tapihans, poor Tapihans! The cuckoo sings in the house; you’d better go and look for another nest!”
Directly afterwards, Tapihans, yellow and pale, with pointed nose, long ears, and a cotton cap on the top of his head, a hunch on his back, and his hands tucked in the pockets of his grey waistcoat, appeared in the doorway.
“Ah! is that you, Tapihans?” cried Coucou Peter; “you’ve come just in time to see us eat.”
The little man advanced into the very middle of the room, and for some seconds looked at the company, but mostly at the illustrious Doctor and the widow, who did not deign even to turn her head towards him. His nose seemed to swell visibly; then, parting his lips, he said—
“Good evening, Dame Catherina.”
“Good evening,” she replied, swallowing a piece of pudding.
The miller did not stir from his place, and watched the Doctor, who watched him, thinking: “This man cannot belong to any but the fox species—a race given to plunder and possessed of little delicacy; moreover, he is attacked by a never-dying worm; his pale complexion, sharp cheek-bones, and keen eyes are bad signs.”
After making these observations, he drank a glass of wolxheim, which appeared to him delicious.
“So you’re not married yet, Tapihans?” cried Coucou Peter, between two mouthfuls of pudding.
The little man returned no answer, but pressed his lips closer together.
“A piece more pudding, Doctor,” said the widow, with a tender look; “a little piece more.”
“You are very good, my dear madam,” replied the illustrious philosopher, visibly affected by the delicate attentions and kindness of this excellent creature.
Indeed, Dame Catherina filled his glass, turned upon him her most flattering looks, and every now and then, resting her hand upon his knee, leaned towards him and whispered in his ear—
“Ah, Doctor Frantz, how happy I am to know you!”
To which the good man responded—
“And I also, my dear madam; believe me, I feel deeply sensible of your cordial hospitality. You are truly good, and if I can contribute to your improvement it will be with the greatest pleasure.”
These little side conversations made Tapihans turn pale; at last, he moved from where he stood, seated himself in a corner of the room, near the fireplace, and striking on the table, called out in a shrill voice—
“A mug of wine!”
“Soffayel, go and get this man a cup of wine,” said the widow carelessly.
“This man!” repeated the miller; “is it of me you are speaking, Mother Windling? Perhaps you don’t happen to know me?”
“I’ll call you Tapihans as much as you like,” replied Dame Catherina sharply; “but don’t bother me.”
Tapihans said nothing more; but he drank off three mugs of wine one after the other, hammering on the table, and calling—
“Another mug!—and look sharp in bringing it!”
“I say, old fellow,” cried Coucou Peter, raising his voice, “you’re really not married yet, then?”
“Suppose I’m not, Coucou Peter, what then?” replied the miller, with a bitter smile. “We can’t go about the country like barefoot vagabonds who have nothing to eat in their own houses; we have to take care of our means, to look after what we’ve got, to cultivate our lands and gather in our harvests. We want to find wives amongst us; but women like better to throw themselves at the head of the first scamp that goes by—people that nobody knows from Adam or Eve, or about whom too much is known; individuals who fill their purses at the expense of the poor, and blow into a clarionet to pay their shot. You know something about that, friend Coucou Peter. We’ve a good deal to put up with, but we have the consolation of being able to say, ‘This is my meadow; this is my mill; this is my vine.’”
Coucou Peter, nonplussed for a moment, quickly recovered his ordinary assurance, and replied—
“Meadows! mills! vines!—very good, Tapihans, very good—but that’s not all; you still want a presentable face; people marry faces; they like them to be plump, rosy, fresh-looking—something in my style,” he said, stroking his cheeks and rolling his eyes impudently. “Women haven’t always mills before their noses!”
“Ha! ha! ha!” cried Mother Windling, slapping him on the shoulder; “how you always make me laugh!”
By this time Mathéus, having finished his meal, drank one more glass of wolxheim in short sips, wiped his mouth, and turned slowly towards Tapihans.
“Friend,” he said to him, “attend closely to what I tell you: it is not meadows, gardens, or houses that have to be considered when one marries; but races—that is to say, families of carnivorous, frugivorous, herbivorous, graminivorous, insectivorous, omnivorous, or other animals which it would take too long to mention here—which must be taken into account in considering the use of life. Observe: pigeons do not pair with buzzards, foxes with cats, goats with birds; well! it must be the same with men, for if you examine the matter from the psychologico-anthropo-zoological point of view, the only true method—because it is the only one that is universal—you will observe that there are species of men as well as species of animals. It is very simple: we all come from one animal, as I have demonstrated in the twenty-third chapter of the eighth volume of my Palingenesis: read that work, and you will be convinced of it. Now, then, we must mix and combine races with judicious attention; it is the special mission of humanity, which is the general meeting-place, the fusion of all types, submitted to a new force, which I call will. Let us still proceed by analogy: the race of deer and that of hares, for example, might form a happy mixture, while those of wolves and sheep could not produce anything but a kind of monsters, at once stupid and ferocious, cowardly and cruel! Alas! how many of these sad alliances do we not see in the world! Nothing but fortune is now consulted, and that is very wrong! Now, as particularly regards you, my friend—I do not advise you to marry. Your health——”
But Tapihans, pale with rage, would not allow him to finish.
“What!” he roared; “do you dare to say that I resemble a wolf?”
And, using all his force, he flung his jug at Mathéus. Fortunately the illustrious philosopher, with his habitual prudence, moved quickly, so that the missile struck Coucou Peter full in the stomach, and caused him to utter a dolorous groan.
Before Mathéus had recovered from his amazement, Tapihans had opened the door and fled. Dame Catherina rushed and seized a broomstick, and, standing on her doorstep, was heard calling down the street—
“Blackguard! come back if you dare! Wretch! to insult honourable people in my house! Was ever seen the like!”
She then returned indoors, flew to Mathéus, begged him to drink a glass of wine, sprinkled his temples with cold water, and consoled him in all sorts of ways.
Coucou Peter sighed, and exclaimed, in plaintive tones—
“My organism is very ill, very ill! Soffayel, my dear Soffayel, make haste and refill the bottle, or I shall faint.”
At the end of a quarter of an hour Mathéus came to himself, and murmured—
“This man evidently belongs to the race of beasts of prey; he is capable of returning with a hatchet, or some other instrument of the kind!”
“Only let him come back!” cried the stout widow, doubling her fist in a threatening manner; “only let him come back!”
But it was in vain she said that, for Frantz Mathéus’s eyes turned ceaselessly towards the door, and the fear natural to his timid species made him blind to all Dame Catherina’s allurements.
Coucou Peter, having no further excuse for getting the bottle refilled, and feeling uncomfortable in the stomach, proposed going to bed. Everybody agreed with him, for it was late; the windows of the principal room were all dark, and not the least sound was heard out of doors.
Therefore Mother Windling took up the candlestick from the table, told Soffayel to shut the shutters, and begged Mathéus to be good enough to follow her.
They ascended the winding stairs at the back of the kitchen, and everywhere Mathéus saw order and wise economy; the passages were lined with great cupboards, and in these cupboards, which Dame Catherina had taken care to open, he saw tall piles of carefully-folded linen, red-bordered tablecloths, napkins, hemp, and flax. Farther on, grain spread to dry on wide floors; here clover, colza, lucern grass; in another place, wheat, barley, oats; it was a true store of abundance.
At last Mother Windling conducted him into a large, well-furnished bedroom, in which there were two chests of drawers, the tops of which were laden with magnificent Lunéville chinaware, and Walerysthâl glass. It contained also a canopied bedstead, as high as the Tower of Babel, and two handsome Saint Quirin looking-glasses.
Darting a last look at Mathéus, and pressing his hand timidly—
“I hope you’ll sleep well, Doctor,” she said, casting down her eyes, “and have no bad dreams.” She smiled, and contemplated the good man for a few seconds longer; then she closed the door, and left the illustrious philosopher.
Coucou Peter, according to his custom, had gone to sleep in the barn.