THE POET AND THE PEASANT
FROM THE FRENCH OF EMILE SOUVESTRE
A young man was walking through a forest, and in spite of the approach of night, in spite of the mist that grew denser every moment, he was walking slowly, paying no heed either to the weather or to the hour.
His dress of green cloth, his buckskin gaiters, and the gun slung across his shoulder might have caused him to be taken for a sportsman, had not the book that half protruded from his game-bag betrayed the dreamer, and proved that Arnold de Munster was less occupied with observing the track of wild game than in communing with himself.
For some moments his mind had been filled with thoughts of his family and of the friends he had left in Paris. He remembered the studio that he had adorned with fantastic engravings, strange paintings, curious statuettes; the German songs that his sister had sung, the melancholy verses that he had repeated in the subdued light of the evening lamps, and the long talks in which every one confessed his inmost feelings, in which all the mysteries of thought were discussed and translated into impassioned or graceful words! Why had he abandoned these choice pleasures to bury himself in the country?
He was aroused at last from his meditations by the consciousness that the mist had changed into rain and was beginning to penetrate his shooting-coat. He was about to quicken his steps, but in looking around him he saw that he had lost his way, and he tried vainly to determine the direction he must take. A first attempt only succeeded in bewildering him still more. The daylight faded, the rain fell more heavily, and he continued to plunge at random into unknown paths.
He had begun to be discouraged, when the sound of bells reached him through the leafless trees. A cart driven by a big man in a blouse had appeared at an intersecting road and was coming toward the one that Arnold had just reached.
Arnold stopped to wait for the man and asked him if he were far from Sersberg.
“Sersberg!” repeated the carter; “you don’t expect to sleep there to-night?”
“Pardon me, but I do,” answered the young man.