“You are a good and excellent man! Does not your name appear on the registry of my birth?”
“Doubtless,” replied the illustrious philosopher; “Maître Georges had me for a witness.”
“Eh! what need of further explanation is there?” interrupted the brewer. “You will remain in my house to-night, that’s understood. I’ll have your horse taken to the stable, and send your disciple to you.”
This said, he quitted Mathéus to go and give his orders.
Coucou Peter had scarcely rejoined the illustrious Doctor in the chief dining-room, before Charlotte, one of the servants of the house, came to inform them that all was ready. In spite of this agreeable news, Frantz Mathéus could not help feeling deeply melancholy. It seemed to him that the Great Demiourgos, instead of leaving him to have recourse to Georges Müller, might have given to him, himself, all things necessary to philosophic existence, the more as it was solely for his glory that he had left Graufthal without taking with him a single sou.
But Coucou Peter, surprised at finding such a good resting-place, instead of having to sleep under the stars, was astonished at everything—at the size of the hotel, at the stairs, furnished with a handsome copper hand-rail, at the number of the rooms; and when Charlotte conducted them into a neat room, and he saw on a round table the supper already smoking, including half a stuffed turkey, his gratitude expressed itself warmly. “O Great Being!” he cried, “Being of Beings! now is manifested thy boundless power and infinite wisdom! What a banquet for poor devils of philosophers, who expected to have to sleep in the street!”
He uttered these words in such an expressive tone of voice that Charlotte instantly conceived an affection for him; but the illustrious Doctor made no reply, for he was truly downcast, and making sad reflections on the philosophic career.
Reflecting that the greatest philosopher of modern times, the successor of Pythagoras, of Philolaus, and all the sages of India and Egypt, the illustrious Frantz Mathéus of Graufthal, instead of being received by the population with enthusiasm, of being borne in triumph over roads strewn with palm, had run the risk of having to lie in the street and of dying of hunger, he became deeply melancholy, and while he ate, bitterly recapitulated in his mind the events of his journey; the beating he had received at Oberbronn, Jacob Fischer’s attempt to seize Bruno, the threat of the Procureur of Saverne, and the proposition of Coucou Peter to go and sing in the beerhouses. This last circumstance above all wounded him to the depths of his soul, and every now and then large tears filled his eyes; for he saw himself, like Belisarius, holding out his hand for charity at a street-corner.
Coucou Peter at first paid no attention to his distressed aspect; but towards the end of the meal he perceived it, and cried, as he set down his glass—