Left alone, Maître Frantz raised the curtain of his window, and for some minutes contemplated the deserted and silent streets of the city. The lamps were going out—the moon cast her pale light on the chimneys; an indescribable feeling of lonesomeness and sadness came upon his soul; he felt as if he were alone in the world! At length he went to bed, murmuring a prayer, and, having fallen asleep, the fair valley of Graufthal was brought back to him: he heard the rustling of the foliage, and the blackbird singing in the shady alleys of the pines. It was a beautiful dream!
CHAPTER XXII.
The cries of the vegetable-sellers woke Frantz Mathéus at an early hour. The city was still covered with the Rhine mists, and heavy vehicles were rumbling over the pavements.
What a difference from his little village of Graufthal, so calm, so peaceful in its valley of pines!—where the vague murmur of the foliage, the carolling of the birds, and the merry chatting of neighbours on the thresholds of their little cottages, hardly disturbed its matutinal repose! How the least sighs, the smallest sounds, made themselves distinctly heard there, in the midst of the silence! How sweet it was to dream of the Great Demiourgos until good old Martha brought him his slippers!
Long did the illustrious philosopher, with his elbow on the pillow, picture to himself this domestic happiness; these tranquil mountain scenes, with their paths half hidden in the heather; the soft murmur of the Zinsel in its stony bed; the fisherman returning along the river’s bank, his long rod and large net on his shoulder; the poacher, moist with dew, his short gun under his arm, returning at daybreak; the woodman in his smoky hut, his axe in his waistbelt. Jean-Claude Wachtmann himself, with his little three-cornered hat and large nose, then appeared to him a privileged being of nature, enjoying immense—incalculable—happiness! while he, poor exile, without hearth or home, repulsed on all sides, having not even a stone to rest his head upon, considered himself as the most unhappy, the most outcast, of all the beings in the world! Ah! if he had not that high mission to fulfil!—if he had not been predestined from the beginning of the ages for the destruction of sophistry and prejudice! But this mission itself—what bitterness, what misfortune, what deception, had it not brought upon him! Alas! poor Mathéus! how could he accomplish it? Whither should he go on leaving the brewery? What should he do on the evening of that very day?
In the midst of these thoughts the good man dressed himself, and slowly descending the stairs went into the chief dining-room. When he entered the windows were all open, the servants sprinkling and sweeping the floor. Madame Müller was filling with fruit and slices of bread the little baskets of her children, before sending them to school. It was a scene of animation which almost made him forget the difficulties of converting the universe. Moreover, Kasper Müller and Coucou Peter, seated at one of the little tables in the room, greeted him gaily, and his spirits slightly rose.
“Good morning, my dear monsieur! What sort of a night have you passed?”
“You are just in time for breakfast, Maître Frantz!”
“Take a seat, Doctor. Catherine, this is the gentleman I told you of.”