CHAPTER XIX.
When Frantz Mathéus and the pastor reached the house, everybody there was asleep. The pastor, leaving Mathéus at the door of the sitting-room, went into the kitchen, and returned after a few minutes with a light.
Calmness had succeeded the good man’s agitation; he mechanically followed his host, who conducted him to a little bedroom on the first-floor, looking into the parsonage garden.
The tops of the trees beat gently against the windows; the linen on the bed was of surprising whiteness; and the old oaken furniture seemed to welcome him with an air of naïve familiarity. But, in his sadness, the illustrious philosopher remarked none of these details, but sat down, uttering a profound sigh.
“Come, my dear monsieur,” said the pastor, “forget the little annoyances of the philosophical career; have a good sleep, and to-morrow you will be as fresh and active as if you had achieved the most magnificent victory.”
He shook Maître’s Frantz’s hand, placed the candle on the table, and then went quietly to rest after his fatigues.
When the pastor’s steps could no longer be heard, and the silence of night reigned throughout the house, Mathéus, with his elbows resting on the table and his head between his hands, sat watching the burning of the candle with an indescribably downcast air; he was thinking of nothing, and yet he was sad—sad as if the Great Demiourgos had abandoned him!
About one o’clock he heard a child crying in a neighbouring house, and the mother trying to hush it with tender words. That child-voice, so weak and soft—that mother’s voice, more gentle still—touched the good man’s heart, and a tear moistened his eyes. The child being at length appeased, the silence became more profound, and Maître Frantz, overcome by fatigue, ended by falling asleep with his forehead on the table.
When he awoke, daylight was beginning to show itself at the windows, and the candle was flaring in a red flame from the hollow of the candlestick. All the events of the night then returned to his memory. He rose and opened the window.
The birds were already warbling in the garden; some labourers, with pickaxe on shoulder, chatted as they passed the gate, their voices, at this early hour, being heard from one end of the street to the other. Milk-sellers from Dagsberg, with their large tin cans under their arms, were sitting about on neighbouring posts, and servants, short-petticoated and bare-armed, were coming one by one to buy milk for their houses. All these worthy people had a look of health pleasant to see. The servant-girls stopped to gossip about christenings, marriages, and the departure of the conscripts; and the tradespeople opened their shops and hung out their goods at their doors. Some fresh event happened every moment; then the mountain-air came down so fresh and pure, that the chest expanded with pleasure, and, as it were, breathed by itself.