When the meal was finished, she conducted Mathéus into his little bedroom, turned the bedclothes down herself, and satisfied herself that his cotton nightcap was under the pillow.
All was white, clean, neatly arranged; the china washhand-basin on the stand, the ewer of fresh water in the basin, the little glass shining between the two windows; the bookcase, containing the Anthropo-Zoology, in sixteen volumes, some Latin authors, and books of medicine carefully dated; everywhere might be recognised the attentive care of the vigilant housewife.
After having convinced herself that everything was in its place, Martha opened the door and wished her master “good night” in a voice so touching that the illustrious philosopher felt heartrent. He would have liked to have thrown himself upon the excellent woman’s neck, and said to her, “Martha—my good Martha—you cannot imagine how much Frantz Mathéus admires your courage and resignation. He predicts for you the highest future destiny!” That is what he would have liked to have said; but fear of a too pathetic scene calmed his deep emotion, and he contented himself by again gently enjoining her to give a double feed of oats to Bruno, and to wake him at daybreak.
The good woman went slowly away, and the illustrious Doctor Mathéus, happy in this first triumph, lay down in his feather-bed.
For a long time he could not close an eye; he recapitulated all the events of this memorable day, and the sublime consequences of the anthropo-zoological system; images, invocations, prosopopœia, linked themselves one with another in his luminous mind, until at last his eyelids drooped, and he sank into a profound sleep.
CHAPTER III.
The pale rays of dawn were dimly lighting the little town of Graufthal when Frantz Mathéus opened his eyes; the red cock of his neighbour Christina Bauer awoke him with its matutinal crow at the moment when Socrates and Pythagoras were placing crowns of imperishable flowers upon his head.
This happy omen put him immediately into a good humour. He pulled on his breeches, and opened his window to breathe the free air. But judge of his surprise when he discovered, a few steps from the door, Jean-Claude Wachtmann, the schoolmaster, pacing to and fro, a paper in his hand, and making truly extraordinary gestures.
What increased the Doctor’s astonishment was to see that Jean-Claude had on his large Sunday coat, and that he wore his immense three-cornered hat and silver-buckled shoes.