Mathéus would have remonstrated with his disciple, but Coucou Peter interrupted him.
“Maître Frantz,” he said, “I’m fond of cutlets—it’s not contrary to the system to be fond of cutlets; all that is not forbidden is permitted; isn’t it so, Dame Catherina?”
“I suppose so; anyhow, you’ve always the last word! Now get out of the way, and let me boil the eggs. If the Doctor will go into the best room, I’ll soon be with him; time to say a Pater, and all will be ready. You, Coucou Peter, go and water the Doctor’s horse: Nickel has gone this morning to turn the water on to the large meadow.”
“With pleasure, mother; with pleasure.”
The fiddler went out, and the illustrious philosopher entered the best room.
Never had Frantz Mathéus felt more calm, more happy, more content with himself and nature. The open air had developed his appetite; he heard the fire crackling on the hearth, the cat purring under the table, and Dame Catherina sweeping the front of her door, while humming Karl Ritter’s old refrain—
“Love me, and I’ll love you! I’ll love you! I’ll love you!”
Now he contemplated the ancient Nuremburg clock, all yellow and worm-eaten, with its china face painted with brilliant flowers, and its wooden cuckoo that chanted the hours, and the illustrious philosopher never tired of admiring its ingenious mechanism; now he stopped before an open window, and gazed tenderly out upon the little Place of Oberbronn.
There, about the green trough into which a stream of clear water flowed from a moss-grown spout, were gathered the young girls of the village, in short petticoats, and bare armed and legged. They were beating their linen, bawling, calling to one another, and noisily chatting; and the good man smiled at their unsophisticated manners and graceful attitudes.
Bruno was drinking at the trough, and every now and then turned his head as if to salute Mathéus. Coucou Peter smacked his whip and said soft nothings to the blooming laundresses, who made fun of his fine speeches; but when—no doubt out of revenge—he wanted to kiss the prettiest of the band, there arose an incredible tumult of screams and laughter; the whole of them fell upon him and thumped him with their beetles and wet linen.