Then the good man, praising God for all things, let his bridle fall on Bruno’s neck, and tranquilly ascended the hill of Saverne.
The sun was high when he reached the road; but though the heat struck full upon the nape of his neck, though perspiration trickled down his spine, and Bruno stopped from time to time to crop a few tufts of grass by the wayside, the illustrious philosopher perceived nothing of it. He already beheld himself in the theatre of his triumphs, going from city to city, from village to village, overthrowing sophists, and planting throughout the world the beneficent germs of anthropo-zoology.
“Frantz Mathéus,” he cried, “you are truly predestined! For you alone was reserved the glory of making the human race happy, and of diffusing the eternal light! See these broad-spread lands, these towns, these farms, these hamlets, these cottages—they await your coming! Everywhere the need is felt of a new doctrine, founded on the three kingdoms of nature; everywhere men are moving in doubt and uncertainty. Frantz, I tell you this without vanity, but also without false modesty, the Being of beings has His eye fixed on you! March! march! and your name, like that of Pythagoras, of Moses, of Confucius, and of the most sublime lawgivers, will be repeated from echo to echo to the end of time!”
The illustrious Doctor was reasoning thus in all the sincerity of his soul, and descending the side of the Falberg under the shadow of the firs, when merry shouts, peals of laughter, and the rasping sounds of a violin, drew him from his profound meditations.
He was then about two leagues from Graufthal, in front of the Dripping Pan public-house, where the inhabitants of St.-Jean des Choux came to eat bacon omelettes, and to dance with their sweethearts. A number of people were there: mowers in their shirt-sleeves, and peasant-girls of the neighbourhood in short petticoats, whirling like the wind round the arbour. They raised the leg, stamped, and made passes, double passes, triple passes, and shouted enough to crack the clouds.
Coucou Peter, the fiddler, the famous Coucou Peter, welcomed in all the beershops, breweries, and taverns of Alsace—the good, the jovial Coucou Peter—was seated on a barrel of beer in a recess of the garden, in his big drugget jacket, garnished with steel buttons the size of crown-pieces, with fresh-coloured, plump-looking cheeks, and his hat surmounted by a cock’s feather. He was scraping with full elbow-power an old country waltz, and formed in himself the whole orchestra of the Dripping Pan. Wine, beer, and kirschwasser flowed on the tables, and vigorous kisses, quite openly given, stimulated the universal enjoyment.
In spite of all his cares for the future of the world and of civilisation, Frantz Mathéus could not withhold his admiration from this pleasant sight. He pulled up behind the arbour, and laughed heartily at the little kissings and lovemakings which he discovered through the hornbeam hedge. But while the good man was giving himself up to these curious observations, the fiddler suddenly stopped in the midst of a flourish, sprang from his barrel, and cried, in a ringing voice—
“Ha! ha! ha!—the Doctor! Good Doctor Frantz! Hi, there! Make way for me, that I may bring you the inventor of the peregrination of souls and the transformation of men into potatoes!”
It must be understood that the illustrious philosopher had committed the imprudence of communicating his psychologico-anthropo-zoological meditations to Coucou Peter, who had no fear of compromising the system by disrespectful allusions.
“Ho, Dr. Mathéus!” he cried, coming out of his retreat, “you’ve come in the nick of time. Hey for jollity!”